What's wrong with Cantwell and Tavernier? Rangers status surrounding absent duo met head on

Philippe Clement was hit with a fresh fitness sweat after Nico Raskin left Rangers clash with Ajax on crutches, writes Andy Newport in Venlo.

The Belgian ace lasted just 43 minutes of the pre-season warm-up clash before being laid low with a twisted ankle. The injury scare is the last thing Clement needs after his never-ending casualty concerns last term. And he’s been left worrying again just three games into his team’s summer schedule. Asked for an update on the midfielder, Clement said: “We don’t know yet. It’s too early to say but he twisted his ankle.

“I hope it’s not too bad because for him it’s important to have this preparation. Like it is for everybody, we want to keep all the squad fit so they can do this six week together and then they have a good base for the rest of the season.” Skipper James Tavernier and Todd Cantwell both missed yesterday’s 2-1 defeat to the Dutch giants having also sat out Wednesday’s goalless draw against Standard Liege. That set off online rumours that both me are edging towards the Ibrox exit. But Clement insisted both are nursing knocks.

“James has a small injury,” he said. “It’s nothing big. But it’s too much for him to train with the squad at the moment. We expect him back at the beginning of next week, the end of next week. It all depends on how it evolves. Everyday it’s better but he is very disappointed that he could not train with the team. He’s been a little bit down because he loves to play football. He loves to work with the ball, more than he does doing all these exercises or running laps round the pitch alone that he’s been doing. It’s not a nice time so he wants to be back as soon as possible.

“It’s three weeks still to go so let’s first bring him back into training fit