Philippe Clement must be scratching his head at the lack of luck Rangers have had on the injury front this year.
The manager has not had his troubles to seek since he arrived.
The number of issues Clement has had to contend with has been significant and now another key player has been ruled out of action following a reported problem on Hogmanay.
Rangers will already be without James Tavernier against Celtic tomorrow afternoon as the captain was ruled out for “weeks” with “clear damage” keeping him sidelined.
And now goalkeeper Jack Butland has discovered he will miss the derby after reportedly being hospitalised on New Year’s Eve due to “internal bleeding”.
The Rangers Review are reporting that the Englishman spent the night under medical care before he was eventually released.
However, he will not be cleared to face Gers‘ rivals at Ibrox.
It means summer signing Liam Kelly will follow his “dream” Gers debut against Dundee with a major step up against Celtic on January 2.
Jack Butland to miss Rangers vs Celtic with ‘internal bleeding’
Butland has been criticised in recent weeks and was accused of chucking goals in against Motherwell before VAR intervened, particularly for a foul by Tony Watt at Fir Park.
Kelly will deputise after stepping in when Butland missed a recent fixture for personal reasons as he welcomed the birth of a new baby in December.
The goalie is believed to be heartbroken at missing the derby clash with so much on the line for Rangers.
Butland recently made a bold prediction ahead of the New Year fixture when he explained how he felt his side did not deserve to lose the most recent Celtic match in the Premier Sports Cup Final.
What Jack Butland vowed about Rangers vs Celtic
He said after the Hampden defeat: “We didn’t deserve to lose that game and penalties is a cruel way to lose as well.
”So yeah, gutted. I think you saw (our mentality) today.
“I think what’s hurt us today is giving away two goals after half time we could do better with, which makes the game then hard. We got ourselves back in it and didn’t deserve to get beat so I think there’s a lot that we can take from that.
”That’s why it hurts so much. We really felt like we had an opportunity to win that and like I said, penalties is a cruel way to lose.
”The boys didn’t deserve that. The efforts that they’ve put in this week deserved more from the two games, none more so than today.
”There’s no excuses. It’s a case of (being) gutted that we didn’t manage to get it done.
“The effort that the boys have put in in a really short space of time against Premier League opposition and today in a Final has been incredible.
”We deserved more from the two games.”
