Rangers injury woes may see faster return for wideman Murphy

STEVEN Gerrard has suggested the return of long-term absentee Jamie Murphy may come sooner rather than later following i njuries to Rangers wingers Ryan Kent and Jordan Jones.

Murphy has been sidelined since sustaining a knee injury against Kilmarnock last August.

But a hamstring injury to new signing Kent and Jones’ knee problem have left Rangers shor t of options out wide ahead of a busy fixture schedule which begins with tomorrow’s Europa League clash against Feyenoord.

Gerrard has highlighted the i mportance of managing Brandon Barker carefully after he scored his first goal for the club against Livingston at the weekend, having replaced Kent just before half-time, and he i s considering bringing Murphy back into the fold in the near future.

He said: “What we have tried to do here is build a squad – not just a team. So it is that realisation that if you are not in the XI you have to be ready to come on from the side, and if you are outside the squad, be pushing in training to get into the 18.

“That is what we want and we think will bring out the best in everyone really. We suffered an injury to Jordan Jones and suffered an injury to Ryan Kent, so Brandon came on and made a contribution, which should do his confidence the world of good.

“We just have to be careful with Brandon now that we don’t almost think he can play every game now – we have to manage him in the right way as well.

“It also might make us push Jamie Murphy forward a bit quicker to give us another option as we will be without Jordan Jones for probably another three to four weeks and it looks like Ryan is going to be a couple of weeks as well.”

Jamie Murphy has been out since last August.