Bates set for scan on ankle injury

GRAEME MURTY has confirmed that defender David Bates did not break his ankle during Sunday’s Old Firm defeat to Celtic.

The 21-year-old was forced off early at Ibrox after Tom Rogic inadvertently stamped on him as he pulled Brendan Rodgers’ side level.

He was replaced by Fabio Cardoso as he partnered Bruno Alves for the remainder of the 3-2 loss.

Bates has made the most of his chance to impress for the Gers since Murty became boss.

But the Ibrox gaffer is now sweating on the fitness of one of his most consistent performers ahead of the Premiership clash with Kilmarnock this weekend.

Murty told RangersTV: “David is going to have a scan on his ankle, he has not broken it.

“It is a freak injury, he steps to the ball and goes to try and make a block and the ball flicks off his shin which takes it out of Wes’ grasp and as Rogic has a shot he comes down on David’s ankle.

“It looked a nasty one at the time and David is obviously upset but we won’t know the extent of it until we have it scanned.

“He is off at the moment with his foot up, he has got a very fat ankle and we are very disappointed for him.

“We are taking our time to make sure we get the assessment done properly and get a proper prognosis and a timescale in due course.

“We don’t know how long we have lost him for, it was difficult on Saturday, we had lost him and we had lost Russell Martin prior to the game too.

“It is difficult when you take someone who has been performing well out of the team but then that is an opportunity for someone else to come in and step forward.

“Unfortunately we didn’t manage to sustain our challenge but taking someone like him out of the team takes all of his attributes out of the team also.”