Disappointed Gio van Bronckhorst says he wouldn't gamble with his players' fitness in order to get their second half against Sunderland played. Rangers are in Portugal for a pre-season training camp and kicked off against the English Championship side yesterday. Aside from a brief signal failure for fans streaming at home, the first half in the Algarve went without a hitch, with Luke O'Nien's strike separating the two teams at the break.
It all began to go haywire when they sides returned from the half-time interval, though, with a floodlight failure within the Estadio Municipal de Albufeira delaying kick-off. 15 minutes passed, then half an hour, and it was almost 10pm local time when the two clubs decided to call it quits.
Van Bronckhorst admits he is disappointed they couldn't get the game back underway. But he admits it would have been far too risky to force his players to get going again after a break of more than an hour. He told Rangers Review : "You want to play a game. You want to give minutes to all your players to be stronger. Once the lights broke, you wait and you keep waiting, you get the news that they don't have much hope that the lights will be working properly.
