Brighton Will Make It Clear To Ibrox That Sima Must Not Be Rushed Back From His Injury.

Yesterday, the Ibrox boss spoke in the aftermath of their game against Dumbarton and one of the subjects which came up was the club’s growing injury crisis. As most readers will know, there was a major problem during their winter break when their midfielder Kieran Dowell picked up one which will keep him out for weeks to come.

Some of their players will be back shortly. But as per usual, you get the distinct impression that they are returning to the team before they should. Raskin played; he can’t be near fit.

They have rushed a couple of these guys back only for them to very quickly go out of the team again. The Mooch talked about how a lot of players were playing through the pain barrier and I get the distinct impression that the current boss has similar ideas in his head.

But the injury he wanted to talk about yesterday was to Sima, who was on international duty with Senegal and now faces “a long time” on the treatment table. They sent him back to Glasgow and what’s the first thing the Ibrox boss says? He wants him back in the team at the earliest opportunity, he’s openly suggested that they will rush his recovery.

Which means that it won’t actually be a recovery at all.

Ibrox has no problem risking the health of its players. When it owns those players that is between the club and them and if the footballers in question are willing to take chances with their well-being and their fitness nobody has a right to interfere with that. They are not children. They know the risks and they know – because everyone in football knows – the potential consequences in the short, medium and long term. Anyone in the sport knows the stories.

The issue for them is that Sima isn’t their player, and as such they have no right to take chances with his fitness. Brighton should be appalled at the way he’s talking, and they should be demanding that they have a say in what happens here, and the final word on when he returns to the team. He is their asset and they would be mad not to be all over this and insist that they are kept up to date with every single thing that happens to him.

They only have to look at the trail of destruction since the new manager came in to know that they cannot trust that club to handle this responsibly. As such, instead of his going back to Ibrox for treatment, when they don’t know what that will entail, they should be looking to bring him back to England so their own doctors can make the determination.

Sima will be back soon enough when he’s physically up to it. If Ibrox has the final word on this there’s a pretty good chance that he’ll be out again before long, and perhaps with something more serious.

A strain of the type he’s got can keep a player out up to four months, depending on the severity.

That would put him out for the remainder of the season, and you know and I know that Ibrox cannot afford that to happen and would be willing to take major risks to prevent it. Even if it’s not as bad an injury as that, he is rated highly there and has been one of the very few effective players in this campaign and they are snookered if he’s out for more than a few weeks.

But that’s football, them are the breaks, and we’ve been through our own tough time of it. Ibrox can play Russian Roulette with its own footballers, but he belongs to Brighton and you would have to think there would be major repercussions if they pushed this guy back in early and made a bad injury into something much worse.