The frustrating thing about Philippe Clement’s tenure as Rangers manager is that he has managed to be successful but, not once, has he been able to name his best XI.
Not once has he had a fully fit squad and, ahead of the visit of Motherwell to Ibrox, there was more bad news on the injury front with the Gers boss running out of forward options.
Philippe Clement continues to perform miracles with one hand tied behind his back but the latest Rangers setback might see him have to shuffle his pack.
Philippe Clement attacking options reduced for Rangers again
The gaffer is now having to cope without Rabbi Matondo, Abdallah Sima, Todd Cantwell, Danilo an Oscar Cortes in terms of his attacking players.
There is an argument to be made that he would have his strongest front four out of those players.
With Sam Lammers out on loan, no Ianis Hagi and Alex Lowry still recovering from injury, the number 10 role is severely depleted.
Tom Lawrence has been first class recently but we can’t keep running him into the ground, unfortunately, we might not have a choice with the news that Cortes is going to be missing for a while.
Lawrence, out of the players who are left, has played most game time on the left-hand side of the attack.
He has played centrally for Rangers this season but he has the technical ability and intelligence to revert to his old position.
If he does, that leaves Philippe Clement with two options for number 10, Fabio Silva is the more attacking one with Mohamed Diomande the more pragmatic and natural midfielder.
The other choice that Clement has is to play Scott Wright or Ross McCausland on the left but, at this time of the season, we need goals and they just haven’t done enough to warrant starting key games at this stage.
Dujon Sterling might not be a natural winger, however, he offers a physical presence and directness that the other two lack – we’ve seen how he can adapt to any position.
Cantwell and Matondo, hopefully, won’t be out much longer and Lowry would be a welcome name in the squad to provide depth and cover in both positions.
If Clement can continue to maintain a winning momentum with the quantity and quality of player that is missing then it will be a truly remarkable achievement.
Not that he would make excuses if he didn’t.
