Hammer blow for Rangers as Oscar Cortes immediately returns to treatment table | OneFootball

Rangers may have lost Oscar Cortes long term again after the Colombian winger appeared to suffer a knee injury after a bad tussle in the second half following half time medical treatment.

The situation here really is a mess.

We know Philippe Clement made a terrible error last season with Cortes by selecting him on a notorious pitch (Kilmarnock) that he specifically kept Kemar Roofe off, due to injury risk to the Jamaican.

Cortes got caught by the turf and was out for the season.

This caused some consternation about his contract – his loan deal expired in the summer and Rangers were interested in keeping him but of course the risk attached to being unable to assess an injured player was clear.

Parent club Lens subsequently accepted a season-long loan but only with an obligation to buy, and that was confirmed some months ago.

Unfortunately, another bad Clement call has seen Cortes out injured yet again, with the winger sustaining a pull in the first half, and medical treatment at half time.

Clement sent him out again (he has blamed Cortes for this), and once more, the boy ended up injured.

Now, before any Rangers fans try to defend the manager and blame medical or the player, the buck ALWAYS falls with the boss here. They will be given the medical assessment by the docs and the boss then makes the final decision based on that information. Clement has already admitted that some months ago and yet blamed Cortes after the full time whistle.

And this call was yet another bad one – Ibrox Noise was rather staggered to see Cortes return for the second half and he lasted just 3 further minutes before ending up in pain (and a lot of tears).

It is clear, though, that Cortes ‘is made of glass’ – he evidently has injury problems now, whether he did prior to Rangers we can’t possibly know, because there’s no record of anything significant.

But now with the obligation to buy, we are most certainly praying Rangers have installed an injury escape clause because spending £4.5M on a player that is mostly injured all the time is not the best use of Rangers’ resources.

But it’s also clear the manager is making a pig’s ear of Cortes’ Rangers career.