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The National (Scotland)
The National (Scotland)
Sport
Aidan Smith

Danilo and host of Rangers first-team stars start for B team as trialist also named

A host of Rangers first-team stars are starting for the club's B team today as new manager Philippe Clement aims to build the fitness of his squad.

Robby McCrorie, Adam Devine, Ben Davies, Leon Balogun and Danilo are all in from the start against UEFA Europa Conference League side Breidablik.

McCrorie starts between the posts for the Light Blues, behind a backline of Devine, Balogun, Davies and Robbie Fraser.

Bailey Rice will anchor the midfield alongside Leon King, with Cole McKinnon also selected in the engine room as the Gers search for creativity.

Danilo leads the line after his substitute appearance in yesterday’s first-team victory over Hibernian, with Ross McCausland and Arron Lyall providing support.

Among the substitutes for Rangers are Kieran Wright, Zander Hutton, Connor Allan, Johnly Yfeko, Darren McInally, Paul Nsio, Archie Stevens, James Graham and a trialist.

In the build-up to his first game in charge yesterday, new Ibrox boss Clement spoke about the importance of building fitness and physicality in his squad.

The Belgian clearly is looking to get minutes in the legs of his entire first team squad with important fixtures to come both in the Europa League and domestically.

Clement is in attendance at the Rangers training ground today to take in the fixture.

In a squad update yesterday, he explained: “Tomorrow morning we will look at how everybody comes in and how they have come out of this game. 

“I was not happy after ten minutes that I need to change the team already. 

“With Borna Barisic coming off, it is what it is. We will see in the next couple of days how it goes. 

“Also Scott Wright could not play the 90 minutes, so we will see how he is as well. 

“I am happy that Todd Cantwell could come in and get minutes to raise his level and the same with Danilo. 

“It was also good for young Ross McCausland to give him experience in these kinds of games at Ibrox. 

“We will see how everyone recovers from this game because we need to build physically. 

“Sparta Prague is a really good team, I have seen their two European games and we will need to be on our toes to get a result against them.” 

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