Borna Barisic’s injury continues to rule him out of key matches, and tomorrow night against Villarreal is no different.
Rangers are going to have to do without their number one left-back once again. The game tomorrow night comes to soon for Barisic, with Steven Gerrard confirming his injury on Twitter.
Barisic has now missed over a month of action for the club. He hasn’t been seen since the 1-0 defeat to Livingston, and has suffered at both domestic and international level with his knock.
This means that Andy Halliday is likely going to be deputising at left-back once again. The Scottish utility man is becoming used to this stand-in business, and has built up his reputation tremendously well this year after a horrible end to 2017-18.
Rangers will have prepared for it
Yet, whilst having their first-choice let-back fit for Thursday would’ve been ideal, this is anything but a big disaster for Rangers. Halliday is a more than able deputy, and has appeared in Rangers’ last five-matches.
The club have gotten used to having Barisic unavailable, and have been grinding out results without him in the side. Rangers have won seven out of the nine games since Barisic picked up his injury. It’s Halliday who’s been filling in during that time, and he’s doing a terrific job of it too.
It sounds as though the Croatian international is closing in on a return regardless of the injury. Gerrard confirmed the game was just a little “too soon”, which suggests a return is inevitable in the coming weeks at the latest.
It’s difficult to say that this is a big injury blow. Whilst it’s not ideal, it’s not particularly a blow. Rushing Barisic back for the Villarreal match wouldn’t have been the best thing to do anyway. He’s lacking match-sharpness, and would likely have struggled to get up to the pace of the game.
It’s great to see both Barisic and Ryan Kent just about in full-training, however. Kent has currently started training again, whilst Barisic is surely close if he hasn’t started already.
He’ll have his chance to get back into the Rangers side in the future. Barisic wouldn’t have played on Thursday night anyway, however, and therefore this isn’t as big a blow that it might sound.
