There has been a lot of focus on the availability of Borna Barisic in the lead up to tomorrow’s League Cup final between Rangers and Celtic.
After playing 16 games on the trot, the left-back didn’t travel to Pittodrie for the midweek league clash against Aberdeen, with Steven Gerrard citing a foot injury as the area of concern.
Even on Friday afternoon, the manager wasn’t prepared to say that Croatian international would definitely be fit for the Hampden showdown.
However, an image from the training gallery uploaded to Rangers.co.uk on Friday afternoon suggests that the continued concerns surrounding his fitness may be more the stuff of mind games than reality.
That’s because not only is Barisic seen taking part in training, he’s snapped giving Greg Docherty a piggyback in a light-hearted exercise.
If there were genuine concerns about the defender’s fitness, he would hardly be carrying a teammate on his back two days out from the final. There’s no way the coaching staff would have allowed him to take part in that kind of game if there was a chance it would aggravate his knock.
It’ll be a relief for Bears to see such a vital player apparently ready to return for what is a massive test for this squad.
As he has shown with assists against both Feyenoord and Hearts in his last two outings, Barisic is capable of having a big impact at both ends of the pitch in a way that his potential replacements, Jon Flanagan and Andy Halliday, are not.
