After Rangers manager Philippe Clement had gotten his feet under the desk at Ibrox, the Belgian manager made an injury pledge to supporters.
The former Club Brugge boss was left aghast at what he had walked into in Glasgow, with a physically undercooked squad routinely decimated with recurring problems.
Rangers have changed the medical staff and the club’s pre-season approach – Clement confirmed that ‘injury prevention work’ has been central this summer – and there was fresh optimism that change was coming to the club’s stuttering medical department.
But after a tumultuous pre-season, one 90 minutes into Rangers’ new campaign and already there are signs that the Ibrox injury curse isn’t quite ready to lift.
Rangers suffer double injury blow
As Rangers officially kicked off their pre-season with a friendly against Ajax, the inclusion of Nicolas Raskin in the match was a welcome sight.
Around 18 months on from when the Belgian moved to Rangers, injury has badly hampered the former Standard Liege star’s initially promising stint in Glasgow.
Going down under a heavy challenge in the first half in Holland, Raskin would become the first of the new campaign to raise the injury alarm bells at Ibrox.
Given a prognosis of six weeks, Rangers fans have heard it all before with Raskin now set to return some time in September. We won’t be holding our breath.
As the Scottish Premiership season got underway against Hearts, the return of Colombian winger Oscar Cortes to the club’s line up was a positive sign.
The 20-year-old joined the club on loan in January and despite a bright start, saw his season ended at Rugby Park with an injury in February.
Fast forward six months and the winger went down following a physical jostle with Hearts right-back Gerald Taylor on the brink of half-time.
Initially coming out for the second period, the kid pulled up before being subbed off with Cortes leaving the pitch in tears.
We don’t know the injury prognosis just yet, but given Rangers have just agreed to pay £4m to sign the RC Lens attacker next summer, a second major injury in a year will not be received kindly by supporters.
Ibrox utility man extraordinaire Dujon Sterling, who hasn’t been seen since the 2-0 friendly defeat to Manchester United, could potentially return v Dynamo Kiev on Tuesday.
Can Rangers get expensive squad fit?
These are ominous warning signs that Rangers are still some way away from developing a robustness in the squad for the rigours of Scottish football.
Raskin and Cortes have struggled to adapt to the intensity and physicality of the league and that’s around £5.5m of transfer fees spent on players who have been unable to contribute consistently due to injury problems.
It’s a situation which is endemic in the squad.
But there is some cause for positivity, if that’s what you want to call it, in this regard.
Philippe Clement stressed that several in the team have finally gotten a full, physical pre-season under their belt after years of injury woes.
“We saw already less injuries this pre-season,” Clement told the press ahead of the clash with Hearts.
“We had several players who in the last couple of years never made a full pre-season who did it now.
“Does it mean it is a guarantee we won’t have injuries?
“No, because that is not the situation, you cannot change the human body in five, six weeks. We made them stronger already, several of them, but there is still a way to go.”
This concerns the likes of Tom Lawrence, Ben Davies, Rabbi Matondo, and Kieran Dowell, players who will admit they still have it all to prove at Rangers.
Whilst they might finally be fit, we have our doubts that they’re good enough to take Rangers where they need to be.
That’s even if – according to Salary Sport – this four equate to around £4.5m of the club’s annual wage bill.
Brazilian striker Danilo – who wasn’t risked v Hearts – has also returned after a lengthy knee injury but we’ll reserve judgement on that until he actually starts to play games.
