Jon Daly, the Rangers striker, will miss the start of the season after undergoing knee surgery.
The Irishman, 31, is expected to be out for six weeks after having a cartilage problem addressed. Daly was the club's top scorer last season but faces new competition from Kris Boyd and Kenny Miller and will have to watch from the start of the new campaign from the sidelines.
Ally McCoist, Rangers manager, told the club website: "It's a real shame. Big Jon was fantastic for us last year as he scored 25 goals. Towards the end of the season, we would have given him a little rest if we could have but personnel indicated we couldn't.
"With Andy Little injured, he was our only striker at points and, to be fair to him, he kept turning up and playing for us. He was playing through a little bit of pain then had a good rest in the close season but there is still a little niggle there.
"We sent Jon for a scan and that showed he has a problem with his cartilage so he has gone back to the same surgeon who did his other knee. It looks as though he will be out for six weeks and it's a blow for the team. It's obviously blow for him too but the bottom line is he has to get it sorted as quickly as possible."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article