PEDRO Caixinha will give Bruno Alves and Declan John up until the very last minute to prove their fitness before Rangers play Celtic at Ibrox tomorrow.
Alves and John both came off during the second half of the Betfred Cup quarter-final against Partick Thistle at the Energy Check Stadium at Firhill on Tuesday evening.
Alves, the 94-times capped Portuguese internationalist, is struggling to shake off a calf strain while John, the on-loan Cardiff City left back who is standing in for injured captain Lee Wallace, has a thigh knock.
Caixinha would like both men to be involved in the Ladbrokes Premiership meeting with Brendan Rodgers’s side and will not decide on his starting line-up until shortly before kick-off.
“I’m still assessing them,” he said. “Normally the 48 hours after a game is when he players feel more tiredness, so I’m still assessing.
“If Bruno can play we win in experience, we win in leadership, we win in presence. That’s what we win.
“I am a decision maker, but decision makers need information. And if I don’t have information I am not going to make a decision where I don’t know what’s going to happen.
“But when I have the information you can be sure that I might make the decision. The more in-formation I have the better decisions I will take.”
If Alves fails to be passed fit then Caixinha will turn to Ross McCrorie – the 19-year-old centre half who he has predicted will become “one of the best centre halves in history, not just for this club but for his country”.
He stressed he would have no qualms putting any member of his squad into a side which lost five and drew one of the six games they played against Celtic last season.
“When we closed the window I told everyone, ‘we have the players we asked for’,” he said. “We have one squad that is complete, we have one squad which gives us options and solutions. We have also one squad that is giving competitiveness. These situations are for you to make decisions.
“I will not have any problems at all placing our players in a game like the Old Firm, because I believe in and trust each one of them.”
Wallace, who limped off in the first half of the Premiership match with a recurrence of the groin injury, will be out for between six and eight weeks.
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