Rangers kick-off the busy festive period with an away trip to Motherwell on Christmas Eve.
The Light Blues are now just two points behind Celtic with a game in hand heading into the Scottish Premiership’s weekend fixture card, although that could change if the Hoops do what they need to do against Livingston on Saturday.
Philippe Clement is still unbeaten as Rangers manager after 15 games and will continue to close in on a long-standing record if he avoids defeat in Lanarkshire.
We don’t want to tempt fate but a Motherwell victory doesn’t look very likely at all. The Steelmen are on an atrocious run of form having not picked up a league win since September 3 when they beat Hearts.
That run has to come to an end soon but Rangers can’t allow that on Sunday. Fir Park can be a tricky place to go to but Rangers are heading into a very winnable match a day before Christmas.
And that’s despite our jam-packed treatment room full of injured personnel. John Lundstram and Kemar Roofe joined the existing casualties after Wednesday’s triumph over St Johnstone, so Clement has decisions to make – most prominently in midfield.
Dowell and Sterling midfield duo
With Ryan Jack, Jose Cifuentes, Tom Lawrence, Nico Raskin and now Lundstram all out of the running for a starting spot on Sunday, Clement really only has one viable option for us.
And that is to pair Kieran Dowell with Dujon Sterling, both of whom have impressed recently after hardly getting in a look in for the most part.
Rangers fans were enthused by Dowell’s display against St Johnstone, while Sterling stood out immensely in two of Gers’ biggest games this season – the Viaplay Cup Final and Europa League decider vs Real Betis.
Barry Ferguson floated the idea of moving John Souttar into midfield as a potential option for Clement but it would be unwise to risk something like that when you don’t need to.
Overall, we think there will be five changes made across the starting XI for the Motherwell clash. Here is our Rangers predicted XI.
Rangers predicted XI vs Motherwell
GK – Jack Butland
RB – James Tavernier
CB – Connor Goldson
CB – Leon Balogun
LB – Borna Barisic
CM – Dujon Sterling
CM – Kieran Dowell
CAM – Todd Cantwell
LF – Abdallah Sima
ST – Cyriel Dessers
RF – Ross McCausland
