Rangers new signings to miss season opener at Livingston but Alfredo Morelos 'looking stronger'

Giovanni van Bronckhorst will be without summer signings Ridvan Yilmaz and Rabbi Matondo for tomorrow’s lunchtime kick-off at Livingston.

The Turkish left-back will fly into Glasgow this weekend and link-up with his new team-mates ahead of their trip to Belgium in Champions League qualifiers on Tuesday. After a full pre-season at Besiktas the Rangers boss has no fitness concerns over 21-year-old who has been named amongst the initial 23-man pool for the European campaign.

Longer term injury absentees such as Ianis Hagi, Filip Helander and Kemar Roofe have been left off the list but winger Matondo could make it, having returned to training on Friday.

Giovanni van Bronckhorst explained: “Rabbi had his first individual session [on Friday] – he looks good, but for [Livingston] he’s a bit short of time so he’ll be joining the group on Sunday to prepare for Tuesday’s game.

“Kemar is still out, so will not be in tomorrow’s squad. He’s on the pitch now and hopefully will join sessions in the coming weeks but with Filip we will have to assess over the next few weeks.

“Alex Lowry is fit to train, and is with the B-team at the moment for fitness and game-time."

There is better news for Alfredo Morelos though after the Colombian participated in this week’s open training session at Ibrox.

"He is already taking big parts of the session with us and is looking stronger every day he joins us so hopefully we can have him back really quickly.

"We named him in the squad for the first ties of the UCL competition so hopefully he will be involved really soon,” van Bronckhorst added.