Philippe Clement’s Rangers injury woes have suffered another brutal blow after it was confirmed Nana Kasanwirjo faces up to six months out.
The Dutch defender was forced under the knife this week having damaged knee ligaments while on duty with the Netherlands’ Under-21 squad last month. Clement had been keeping fingers crossed that the on-loan Feyenoord ace might return this term. But that now looks hugely unlikely after he was recalled to Rotterdam to begin a gruelling rehab process.
Speaking after Rangers‘ narrow 1-0 win over St Johnstone in Perth, the Ibrox boss – who is already operating without key men Tom Lawrence, Rabbi Matondo and Oscar Cortes – said: “The operation for Nana was good, but he will be at least out for four to six months. So we cannot count on him. So we will see at the end of the season how things go.
“We have an agreement with Feyenoord that he will do his rehab also there. But I stay in touch with Nana, who was really disappointed not to continue the work he’s been doing because he loves the club, he loves the dressing room, he even loves the staff – that doesn’t happen much!
“So we will see at the end of the season how it will be with him, but we cannot count on him the next couple of months.”
Skipper James Tavernier was back in the Gers line-up having been benched for Thursday’s 4-1 Rivera rampage over Nice. Dujon Sterling had been the man given the jersey for that resounding Europa League victory but the injury-prone right-back was absent again in Perth due to a nerve issue.
The change didn’t disrupt the visitors, however, with Tavernier’s pressure forcing former Ger Jason Holt into bundling home an OG that proved to be enough to give Clement’s side the points. And Clement hopes to have Sterling back soon.
He said: “Dujon, yeah, that’s unlucky because it’s not a real injury. It’s a blocked nerve. So he has to go to the specialist to unblock it, to get treatment around that.
“Because of that, he was not available today. We will see if he’s available to face Kilmarnock on Wednesday or not. It’s not a long-term thing, but those things happen. It’s nothing to do with training.”
Rangers were rampant on the Rivera but pedestrian in Perth. That’s not unusual for a team who remain 11 points behind in the Premiership title race yet are safely through to the knock-out stages in the Europa League. But Clement saw signs his side are clicking domestically.
He said: “It was a good performance. The only thing we missed is to score a second, third or fourth goal, to finish off the game earlier and to kill the belief of the opponent, what we did well against Nice.
“We have to say also it was a really good goalkeeper [Josh Rae] on the other side. It’s a little bit annoying from my side because it’s a few weeks that I have had to repeat that, but that’s part of football, that apparently goalkeepers against us, they play the game of their season.
“And that was the case because a few really good finishes and actions, but he kept his team in the game. At the end, it’s also crucial to not concede chances, so we have for the second time in a row only one shot on target from the opponent.
“Last week it was a goal, today it was not. And we need to continue in that way, keeping clean sheets and being defensively strong. And I don’t speak only about defence, it’s all the team working hard for that. So I see a lot of improvements with all the squad in what they are doing.
“It’s now continuing all these things, what we talked about in the last weeks and months and the mistakes we made, to take it out of the game.
“And then in the final third, sometimes to have better positioning, sometimes to have better decision-making also. [It’s] still a work in progress.”
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