Rangers boss awaits news on Jack injury

Rangers boss Giovanni Van Bronckhorst is waiting to discover more about the nature and severity of Ryan Jack’s latest injury.

The midfielder made three substitute appearances recently after coming back from a calf problem which required surgery and which had kept him out since February.

Van Bronckhorst had hoped to give the 29-yearold more game time in the Europa League dead rubber at Lyon but the Scotland international pulled up in the final training session and will miss out on the trip to Tynecastle to play Hearts in the cinch Premiership tomorrow.

The Dutchman said: “I don’t know if it is the same injury. The last training session before Lyon, at the end of the session he went off the pitch with a problem so we are still diagnosing the problem and once we know more we can tell what injury he has.

“But he won’t be available for Sunday and hopefully he will join us soon, because he is working hard. Of course he didn’t have much game time in the last months through injury so for him personally it is not a good moment and also for us because we don’t have Ryan Jack available for the games.”

After a creditable 1-1 draw with Group A winners Lyon that denied the French club a clean sweep of six group wins, Van Bronckhorst will prepare the league leaders for the challenge of Tynecastle against the third-placed Jambos, who snatched a 1-1 draw at Ibrox in October.

Striker Kemar Roofe is a doubt and will be assessed, while Leon Balogun (knock), Filip Helander (knee) and Nnamdi Ofoborh (heart issue) are still sidelined.

Hearts duo Liam Boyce and Michael Smith have recovered from knocks but midfielder Beni Baningime remains out with a knee injury.

Boss Robbie Neilson hopes to have him back before the Edinburgh derby against Hibernian in the new year.