There are many factors that caused Rangers to lose grip of the Scottish Premiership title with the crippling injury list probably the one that restricted Philippe Clement the most.
The manager has had to make do without a full team’s worth of players in recent weeks with only a handful of players making more than 30 appearances throughout the campaign.
Most painful, was the loss of Rangers first-choice front three and Philippe Clement will have a decision to make in the next few weeks with one of them seen back at the training ground.
Oscar Cortes makes Rangers return in training ground footage
Abdallah Sima, who is being considered for a permanent move, is back in full training and managed a 15-minute cameo against Hearts which makes him a contender for the Scottish Cup final, but he isn’t the only forward back.
Normally, Clement works off a 15-30-45-60 schedule in terms of returning players to full fitness and the minutes they are given, however, he has also said that necessity sometimes dictates that he has to break his own rules as with the case of Ridvan Yilmaz this week:
“Medical staff told me maximum 60, they preferred 45.
“But I thought in half-time it was important to have him with his qualities also to restart like that.
“And that’s another example. It’s a player coming out of an injury doing good things with the ball but on the first goal he forgets our principles and he forgets the contact in the 16 and we get the goal against.
“But he comes out of injury, so he needs to gain rhythm, he needs to take this lesson again, it will be for sure in his head the next two games, like he did before when he played really good games.
“It’s about learning out of those situations and it was the plan to take him out after 45 or 60.”
Cortes transfer return question asked
Unfortunately, the cup final will come too soon for Oscar Cortes, but the fact that he is back in boots and training on grass is a good sign.
Clement revealed that talks are underway with Lens over another deal for the Colombian winger.
Caution must be made given the youngster’s hamstring injury which makes keeping him around Auchenhowie seem like a masterstroke so that a full assessment of any residual damage can be made.
It might not be much but moving around freely and doing keepie-uppies is at least a step in the right direction.
Losing Danilo at the end of 2023 was a blow, losing Sima before the New Year’s celebrations had ended was a bigger one, but when Cortes had to be taken off against Kilmarnock, Clement must have been wondering what he had signed up for.
Having the same forward line fit and available for 50 games next season could see an altogether different outcome and Cortes could be key.
