Michael Beale drops Ridvan Yilmaz Rangers future verdict after Europa League squad omission
Michael Beale believes Ridvan Yilmaz still has a future at Rangers despite being one of the stand-out omissions from the Europa League squad this season.
Turkish left-back Yilmaz was one of four senior players left out of the squad to play in Europe in the first-half of this season, leading to speculation that he could return to Turkey before their transfer window closes on Friday night.
But Beale, speaking in his press conference on Friday (15 September), explained his reasons for leaving those players out and singled Yilmaz out as someone who “has a bright future at the club”.
“The squad was actually submitted on September 4, I don’t know why it took UEFA 10 days to come out,” he said. “We had to submit it on the Monday after our last game.
“Jon McLaughlin was a natural one with two homegrown goalkeepers. Leon Balogun was a choice I have Ben Davies available now. Ben’s not been fully fit to play up until this moment, John Souttar, Connor Goldson and I trust Leon King.
“It came down to Dujon, Tav, Adam Devine and Borna and Ridvan who’d played 20 minutes all season up until I made that call. Ridvan is a player I like, I think he has a bright future at the club, he ended last season ever so well but he’s not been able to knock out the games.
“When it comes to picking that squad with the limitations you have he unfortunately missed out and at the time I was picking the squad I thought Kieran [Dowell] would be out for three to four weeks, that was the feedback I was getting and Todd [Cantwell] was going for a scan, I didn’t know the severity of Todd’s situation at the time we had to submit the squads.
“I couldn’t put them both in which is why Kieran missed out. All the players have had it explained, I can’t say they’re all over the moon but they understood.”
Not ideal
It’s not an ideal situation that Rangers had to leave so many first-team players out of their squad for Europe and it stinks of a lack of squad planning during the summer.
It turns out that fitness issues at the time have largely swayed his decisions when making the final decision on the squad, but what if everyone was fit and firing?
People still would have had to have been left out of the squad and it would no doubt have been a much more difficult conversation to have, with some no doubt taking it worse than others.
Ridvan is a player who is deserving of a chance to shine with a run of games and fitness permitting that should come in this next spell in the league, with seven games in the next 22 days at the time of writing.
It’s a great opportunity for Beale to back his talk with actions and use his full squad of players to get results and boost morale after a horror start to the campaign.
In other Rangers news, key player ruled out of clash v St Johnstone as Beale drops injury update.