Rangers star in fresh injury concern as Michael Beale makes 'genuinely fit' claim over doubts

Michael Beale has a fresh injury concern over another Rangers player ahead of the Viaplay Cup final against Celtic, but will look to ensure the doubtful players are “genuinely fit”.

The Ibrox club go into Sunday’s Hampden Park clash with doubts over a number of key first-team players, including Ryan Jack, John Lundstram, Malik Tillman and Scott Arfield who all missed the weekend’s win over Livingston. It was has also been revealed that Kemar Roofe has a "slight issue" following his goal-scoring performance off the bench in that 3-0 victory. Beale will give some of those players time to get themselves fit with “five subs and adrenaline” helping “a lot in this kind of game”.

“This season our squad has been pulled apart by injuries," Beale said. “If I go through it, at the moment there’s still no Robby McCrorie, no [Filip] Helander, no [John] Souttar, no Ridvan [Yilmaz], no Arfield, no Lundstram, no Jack. Kemar Roofe has only just come back. Tom Lawrence is out. Like most things, a couple of days before the game I’ll get a take.

"Kemar Roofe had a slight issue as well after the weekend unfortunately so we won’t be too far away from the team that played last weekend. It wasn’t a dress rehearsal but there could be one or two more that declare themselves fit. I need to make sure they are because it’s important there’s not a bravado around it, that they genuinely are fit.”

He added: “You can’t be missing the players not there, you have to work with the ones in front of you. I’m really pleased with how they’re doing at the moment.”

Beale is relishing the challenge of people “still wanting more from us” after back-to-back 3-0 wins on the road but won't be “doing anything special” in the build-up for an opponent the team are more than familiar with. “Our preparations will be exactly the same in terms of the meetings we do,” he said. “It’s an opponent we know well. So there are a lot of advantages to that compared to maybe a European final where you are playing someone in a complete one-off. We have been very good sparring partners – these two teams – for each other for a long, long while now.”

Michael Beale was promoting Viaplay’s exclusively live coverage of the Viaplay Cup Final between Rangers and Celtic on Sunday from 2pm. Viaplay is available to stream from viaplay.com or via your TV provider on Sky, Virgin TV and Amazon Prime as an add-on subscription.