FIVE new Rangers signings predicted to start v Panathinaikos

With Panathinaikos coming up very, very rapidly, and Rangers’ summer transfers by no means complete, nevertheless, Ibrox Noise is going to give you a bit of a pot shot for a predicted XI that will start against the Greek giants next week.

In goal, clearly, it is going to be Jack Butland. It will not be Liam Kelly. So, Butland will be the first pick.

Defence? Well, the options aren’t too limited. We have quite a bit of depth, and the squad will be registered in the coming day or so. And we imagine that the starting four at the back, unless Russell Martin has an entirely different system to surprise us all with, will be Tavernier as right-back, Max Aarons as left-back, and the centre-parting pairing is probably going to be John Souttar and Nasser Djiga. It could be a back three with Souttar, Djiga, and Fernandez, but it’s hard to guess at this point.

In midfield, it’s hard to see past Nico Raskin and Mohamed Diomande, probably alongside Joe Rothwell, unless, of course, the untouchable man that is Kieran Dowell once again finds himself as a leader in the middle, which, of course, we are more than a touch reticent about.

Up front? Well, there is only one choice, technically, in Danilo, purely because Dessers and Igamani can hardly be fit, having played such a small role in pre-season with all the transfer speculation. Flanking him? Unfortunately, it won’t be Aasgard, because he is injured (albeit he’s an AM), but Cortes may well be there. The other wingers we have are Gassama, McCausland and Matondo.

So that generally seems to be, give or take, the starting XI, unless we have wildly forgotten anybody. It’s hard to know what the formation will be, because everything has been fairly much under wraps at this point in the season, or pre-season.

So, consequently, our wild stab in the dark predicted XI to face Panathinaikos is as follows:

Butland; Tavernier, Djiga, Fernandez, Aarons; Rothwell, Raskin, Diomande; Cortes, Danilo, Gassama.

And we think that’s the lot. There are probably one or two names that we’re missing, quite likely indeed, but that is likely to be the XI that starts. Is it good enough? We guess that time will tell.