Despite the season, there wasn’t much for Rangers to be jolly about during the festive period as St Mirren delivered a Boxing Day knockout blow for Philippe Clement’s paper thin hopes of title challenge.
The manager rotated his starting XI only to have to make changes at half-time again, a recurring theme this season, especially away from home where the form is already a sackable offence.
Rangers have to find a way of replicating results at Ibrox on their travels and a trip to Motherwell gives them an immediate chance – here is your predicted XI for the Fir Park clash.
Rangers predicted XI vs Motherwell
It doesn’t seem to matter who lines up in defence, the same old problems keep rearing their ugly heads.
Over the last couple of months, Rangers have consistently kept teams at bay only for individual errors to creep back in against St Mirren to devastating effect.
With a shortage of options, there is little Clement can do other than make those who are fit enough to make the squad aware that what was seen at the SMiSA Stadium wasn’t good enough.
The logic behind resting Nicolas Raskin was sound enough in that he was walking a suspension tight rope.
According to Clement, the on-form Belgian might have missed the New Year’s day Old Firm derby, even if the SFA’s website and governance information suggests otherwise.
Has Clement learned from his rotation mistakes?
Mohamed Diomande wasn’t helped by either Connor Barron or Nedim Bajrami in Paisley, but he couldn’t be blamed for lack of effort or desire to make something happen.
As with the defence, there was a similar return to profligacy in attack with Hamza Igamane and Vaclav Cerny both culpable of missing chances that they have been scoring of late.
Clement learned the hard way that splitting up his Danilo and Igamane partnership isn’t going to help his cause.
Here is your predicted Rangers XI to face Motherwell.
