Sporting v Rangers: David Weir to start after shaking off illness

The 40-year-old Scotland international travelled with the squad to Portugal yesterday morning but later complained of feeling unwell.

Weir was understood to be suffering from food poisoning and was absent from the Ibrox squad's training session at the Jose Alvalade Stadium last night.

But after an assessment by the Rangers medical staff this morning he has been named in the starting line-up.

The other surprise addition to the side is John Fleck, who has made just nine appearances for the Glasgow club this season.

El-Hadji Diouf leads the line in attack, with Northern Ireland forward Kyle Lafferty missing out.

Rangers manager Walter Smith already has difficulties in midfield, where the recently injured duo of Steven Naismith and Jamie Ness have joined longer-term absentee Lee McCulloch on the sidelines.

In attack, Smith is without the ineligible Nikica Jelavic who is cup-tied after playing in Europe this season for Rapid Vienna.

Rangers team to face Sporting:

Allan McGregor, Richard Foster, Madjid Bougherra, David Weir, Kyle Bartley, Sasa Papac, Steven Davis, Steven Whittaker, Maurice Edu, John Fleck, El-Hadji Diouf.

Speaking ahead of the fixture, which comes one week after the sides fought a 1-1 draw at Ibrox, Smith said: "When you look at both clubs, they have had difficult situations over the last few seasons.

"Sporting lost a couple of players in the summer that they wanted to keep and they lost their top goalscorer (Liedson] in the transfer window in January, which we did as well with Kenny Miller.

"The clubs have similar circumstances and, as coaches, we have to try to handle the circumstances as best we possibly can. I'm sure that's happening at Sporting at the moment.

"The one difference between myself and my colleague at Sporting is that I am leaving at the end of the season and he doesn't know unfortunately."

Sporting released a statement backing their manager ahead of the game, which read: "Sporting denies and refutes the news that has been made public about changes to the structure of the football technical team.

"Such reports are mere conjecture without any basis of the truth.

"To dispel any doubts, the trainer Paulo Sergio and the technical team have the full confidence of the management board to deal with the difficult sporting challenges ahead."