Rangers are not in great shape on the injury front ahead of Sunday's Premier Sports Cup clash with Celtic. The Gers now look to be shaking off a disappointing start to the season, making it three wins over the bounce by narrowly defeating Motherwell over the weekend.
The poor start to life under Derek McInnes has cost Rangers European football, but they are getting on track as far as a push for the Premiership title goes, although they remain five points behind rivals Celtic, who have won all five of their league games so far.
The two will face off in the league a week on Sunday, but they will first face off in the Premier Sports Cup quarter-finals on Sunday, at Ibrox, where there will be no away fans, as will be the case for all of the Old Firm fixtures this season.
Ahead of that game, Rangers look to have lost another key player in Lawrence Shankland, who will join fellow striker Youssef Chermiti in the treatment room, with Chermiti out for likely the whole season.
"It looks quite significant," McInnes told BBC Scotland after the Motherwell game, which saw Shankland taken off with an injury. "It's a similar injury we think that he had at Hearts last January.
"We'll get the scan done on Monday and see how it looks then rather than speculating. It's disappointing because he was leading the line and scoring a few goals in the last couple of games.
There were more positives than negatives from today, but that was a negative."
Former Gers star Andy Halliday said on Sportssound after the game: "If Lawrence Shankland was on the pitch throughout, he'd be walking away with a couple of goals.
"Rangers were a bit toothless at the top end of the pitch given the chances they created, but well worth their victory."
Shankland being out long-term would be a huge blow for Rangers, who are already down a striker. Ryan Naderi is the likely alternative, and he did score over the weekend, while the Ibrox club also have summer signing Kevin Kelsy and Bojan Miovski to call upon.
But taking bias out of the equation, Rangers don't have the quality that Celtic can call upon with Kasper Hogh and Camilo Duran, with Chermiti likely the only player who comes close to that duo, and perhaps Shankland when he is on top form, but the Scotland international has not been so far this season.
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