Rangers have been dealt another major injury blow after losing Lawrence Shankland for four months through a hamstring injury. The Gers lost Shankland last weekend, with the striker suffering what was described as a 'similar' hamstring injury to one he suffered previously at Hearts.
The Ibrox club were unsure whether Shankland would undergo surgery, with surgery meaning a reduced chance of recurrance, but it would mean an additional month on the sidelines. But the decision has now been made for the operation to go ahead, and it will be four months out for the Scotland international.
That was a bitter blow for Rangers, who had already lost Youssef Chermiti for the season through a serious knee injury. To make matters worse, summer signing Daisuke Yokota is now set for a lengthy spell on the sidelines despite hopes his groin injury was not serious.
Yokota is going to undergo surgery to correct the issue, and while no timeline has been confirmed, it's likely he will be out for at least six weeks, if not more, with groin injuries tricky to recover from. It will also, of course, mean that Yokota misses the first two Old Firm clashes with Celtic, which take place over the next two weekends.
Rangers boss Derek McInnes confirmed: "He (Shankland) is due to get the operation tomorrow in London. We just feel, because it's been a recurrence really, by getting the surgery it minimises the risk of that happening again.
"I know it can still happen again, but we need to be able to have that confidence for that, and it might take that extra three or four weeks.
"Unfortunately, he's not alone in London, Daisuke Yokota is getting a groin operation tomorrow as well, which has been quite unusual in the sense that, once we got him scanned on Monday, it showed that he had actually torn the muscle off the tendon in his groin.
"It's such an unpredictable injury, that the surgeon has decided that it needs surgery as well, so he'll be out at a significant time as well, probably reaching to two or three months as well with that.
"So they're actually getting done one after the other, the surgeon's rubbing his hands, he's getting two for the price of one. It is Shankland first and then Yokota."
One would imagine the surgeon would not be happy doing two surgeries for the price of one, but excuse our nit-picking.
Rangers did win in the absence of both Shankland and Yokota on Wednesday night, but they left it late against a very organised St Mirren side. Bojan Miovski, who has been struggling for game time, was given an opportunity, and he repaid McInnes by scoring a last-minute winner with a clever chipped finish.
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