Glasgow Rangers defender Ross McCrorie has not played for the Ibrox side since the end of 2017.
With Graeme Murty seemingly starting to lose the support of the Rangers fans, he must realise that every decision that he makes will be scrutinised and potentially criticised with a crucial summer ahead at Ibrox and the current boss’ contract set to expire.
Two defeats and one draw in the last three games has quashed any talk of a potential title race in the Scottish Premiership, and the battle that the Gers now face is against Aberdeen and Hibernian for second place.
With the Scottish Cup semi-final just around the corner, winning against Dundee on Saturday is surely a must if they want to have any momentum going into the Hampden Park showdown with Celtic. And several Rangers fans would be forgiven for feeling that the chances of winning on Saturday will simply decrease significantly if Murty keeps faith with the defensive pairing of Bruno Alves and Russell Martin.
Alves and Martin have endured a miserable time together. And while they initially may have been the best of a bad group of available options – Fabio Cardoso has hardly been particularly impressive since arriving in the summer – Murty surely cannot justify sticking with the two veterans this weekend.
That is because the matchday squad for Saturday’s draw with Motherwell saw Ross McCrorie make his return from injury. The youngster, who has arguably been the Gers’ find of the season having gone into the campaign still awaiting his first-team debut, has not played since 2017 and was included on the bench but did not get on at Fir Park.
This weekend however, Murty surely cannot overlook the 20-year-old for a starting spot as he undoubtedly needs the game-time before the semi-final. Sticking with Alves and Martin would be a major gamble, unless the plan is to use McCrorie in the holding midfield role that he excelled in in the weeks before he sustained the injury.
Certainly, it appears that most Rangers fans are desperate to see McCrorie brought back into the starting lineup on Saturday…
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