It was certainly a busy summer for Rangers manager Philippe Clement and director of recruitment as they put the hard yards in over the transfer window to totally revamp the first team playing squad so our 50 year old gaffer could further improve on his start to life at Ibrox last season.
Fans will naturally have their own thoughts on some of our new captures as a number of players were relatively unknown names, and many in the faithful will feel that we actually needed to go further than we did in terms of strengthening. Our start to the 2024/25 domestic Scottish Premiership campaign would imply that latter point could be true given we have only picked up two wins from our opening four games.
Whilst we have progressed in the League Cup, we have again dropped from the more lucrative Champions League into the Europa League and with our Group stage clash against Malmo nearing at the end of the month, this week the club announced our squad list for the competition – and there were some notable omissions. This news will keep fans occupied during the international break and some may even look into new casino reviews for Kiwis to while away some time until football returns, but it is inevitably a blow at this moment in time.
Brazilian striker Danilo was a pretty obvious name that was missing from the announcement. The 25 year old striker missed the second half of the 2023/24 campaign having sustained a serious knee injury, but he had made his return this campaign and had featured twice for Clement, scoring in our 6-0 victory over Ross County having come on as a substitute.
In a video posted by the club ahead of our Champions League defeat to Dynamo Kyiv, many believed that Danilo was limping in it, and even though the video was later withdrawn, our gaffer denied that speculation at the time, but it is now being widely reported that the player has now undergone a second operation having now suffered a fresh injury set back.
More recent reports also suggest that the Gers have given him permission to travel and return to the Netherlands for his rehabilitation work, but the expectation is that he will again now miss a number of months as he recovers and returns to full fitness.
The other notable omission was 23 year old 12 capped Welsh international winger Robbie Matondo. It was initially believed that he had suffered a hamsring injury in the first half of our last match, but following further tests and investigations, it has been revealed that he has suffered a far more damaging hamstring tear.
This unfortunately means that the player will now be on the sidelines for at least a minimum of the next three months as he completes his own rehabilitation period and then works his way back to full fitness.
As well as missing out on our 21 man Europa League squad as a result of this, he has now obviously also withdrawn from the Welsh squad for this international break following his initial call up for the games against Turkey and Montenegro. Naturally, not featuring in the squad at all has led to some speculation that his injury could potentially be even more severe – even though he is already classed as having a grade three tear which is the highest on the grading scale.
The loss of Matondo is a more significant blow to Clement’s plans as he has started the season well, scoring twice and already chipping in with two assists. Regardless of who is missing, fans will be demanding progress and a win though.
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