Philippe Clement insists plans are in place to ensure Rangers make sicknote signings a thing of the past.
The Light Blues boss rued the long-term loss of a host of arrivals during his 12 months in the Ibrox hotseat but is adamant potential new recruits have their full medical history scrutinised before any deal is struck. Oscar Cortes remains sidelined after making just three appearances since his £2million move from RC Lens and could be out until the turn of the year but Clement defended the Columbian’s blemish free injury record before coming to Glasgow from France.
Brazilian striker Danilo is expected to be available for today’s visit to Kilmarnock having missed most of 2024 and Ridvan Yilmaz and Rabbi Matondo have also been absentees this season but are closing in on returns. With the likes of John Souttar, Tom Lawrence and Kemar Roofe all previous perennially stricken stars and Nnamdi Ofoborh being diagnosed with a heart defect, Clement is adamant the Rangers medical staff put every player under the microscope to ensure no repeat mistakes are made.
He said: “in all the transfers that we made, there’s a clear voice from the medical staff to dig into the past of players and to have their opinion about players who are in the building, if they are sustainable to play a lot of games in a season, if they’re strong enough of that.
“First I want to say, before Oscar came to Rangers he didn’t have one injury, in all his career, not in Lens, not in Colombia, nothing. So it’s not a player that we wanted to bring in with a big injury record, because those are things we are looking much more into than it was in the past, because in the past there have been several transfers with players having a lot of injuries before and it kept on going here.”
Clement admits the Cortes frustration can just be put down to a case of bad luck and believes the adversity of injuries won’t be held up as an excuse for the challenges ahead. He said: “Oscar was unlucky last season with the injury, this is a different one than what he had last season.
“And it’s true, he’s been unlucky in his spirit, he’s here nine months, also not longer than that, he’s been unlucky in that way, but he’s not a player where the medical staff thinks that he’s somebody who gets fast injuries or easy injuries or whatever, that he’s not robust enough or whatever. It can also happen in the career of football, and I hope for him, this is the last one, maybe this is the last one of his career, I hope for him and it’s a possibility.”
“I don’t think about disappointments about this or that, or all these excuses. I focus on the guys who are available and to try to get the rest back as fast as possible in the best possible way. So I’m like that for every difficulty that is along the way.”
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