Gio van Bronckhorst fires Rangers new boys warning as he defends decision to bench summer signings against Napoli

Giovanni van Bronckhorst has warned Rangers’ new recruits to shape up as he stood by the decision to snub his summer signings against Napoli. The Ibrox boss selected a starting XI for Wednesday’s cruel 3-0 Champions League loss to the Italians that included nine players whose were on the books during Steven Gerrard’s first season in charge way back in 2018/19.

The Dutchman has spent more than £10million tooling up for the new campaign. But of his seven new additions, Ridvan Yilmaz, Ben Davies, Malik Tillman, Rabbi Matondo and Antonio Colak were only judged good enough for the bench as John Souttar and Ben Davies missed out on the Group A showdown through injury.

And in what was hardly a ringing endorsement of the work carried out by his recruitment team over the summer, van Bronckhorst insisted he based his selection decisions for the clash with the Serie A leaders purely on current form. "I always pick the team who I think will win the game,” stressed the Ibrox gaffer. “I am not going to pick 11 players and say: ‘Okay, I’ll put three new signings in and four who have been here for 10 years’. It doesn’t work like that.

“I have my two eyes, I can see how their performances are, I can see how they train. I don’t look at new signings or players who have been here for a longer number of years, I just pick the best 11 for the game. I think the starting 11 played really well.”

Marquee signing Davies - a £4million buy from Liverpool - was back available after a month-long injury lay-off yet he was overlooked as van Bronckhorst once again chose to pair New York City loanee James Sands with Connor Goldson in defence. The former Anfield ace didn’t even make it off the bench when Sands was sent off midway through the second