Rangers Vs Fraserburgh preview: new face and a chance for the youth

Morning everyone, Rangers face Fraserburgh at Ibrox in the Scottish Cup today. It's a fixture we should view as a chance to blood a few youngsters.

Bailey Rice should really be starting today's game. If he's part of the first team as Clement has been saying, then there's no reason for him not to start against this level of opposition.

Another face we may see is our first new arrival of the window, Rafael Fernandes. The 22 year old Portuguese centre back represents a step in the right direction in the transfer market. He's certainly lacking on senior minutes, he hasn't played much for Lille at all this season. However they signed him off the back of a very promising run at FC Arouca in Portugal.

I've read about him from those more well versed in Portuguese football, and he's viewed as a promising talent who needs a chance to shine. We don't exactly have much in the way of numbers at the back, so him being a warm body basically qualifies him as a starter at the moment.

Fernandes is another loan, but we can't afford to be picky at the moment.

A player that could be out of the door if things don't go well is Ianis Hagi. His contract is up at the end of the season, and we need to look at tying him down sooner rather than later. It's clear that his agent loves to flog him to other clubs, so I expect we may need to pay him well to secure his services. It's possible that his demands may put him out of the current wage structure. If that were the case a tough decision would need to be made.

There aren't many players available who could come into the team and produce the impact he's had this season. But at the same time, we're in the position we are with a bloated squad of high earners because we hand big money deals to any player that winks in our direction.

Our number 1 goal should be to keep him at the club for next season. But I don't think there's any player in the squad we should be breaking the bank to keep (even Igamane!). Short term pain for long term gain needs to be our plan if we want to turn the club around.

There's also talk of Dessers, Dowell, Matondo and Lowry being shown the exit door. That's another step in the right direction, we probably can't replace them all right now. But the main thing is getting them off the books with a view to building a healthier squad in the summer. We aren't going to win the league this season, I feel fairly sure we aren't going to win it with Clement either. So making moves like this for the future is the best thing we can do at this moment in time.

Doing all this may make the second half of the season a bit of a non-event. But I think if we're being honest, we've seen enough to confidently say it might have been going that way anyway.

In significantly more disappointing news, Clement revealed Danilo will be missing for a few weeks. His partnership with Igamane really gave the Moroccan a platform to shine. Worryingly, Bajrami's performances as a 10 have been a mixed bag all season so let's hope he can nail down some consistency in the coming weeks

Aside from that, I hope to see a few goals today and some players getting a confidence boost.

Have a good Sunday everyone.