STUART MCCALL admits he now has a selection dilemma on his hands as Rangers manager after a series of improved performances from his players.
The Ibrox boss has seen his side record back-to-back wins over Hibernian and Cowdenbeath to take a significant step towards securing a Championship play-off place.
Rangers host champions Hearts this weekend and McCall will have to think carefully about who he selects to take to the field at Ibrox.
He said: "It was the same as when I went into Scotland with Gordon and we would find it hard to find seven for the team let alone 13 or 14 for the squad.
"And it was the same when I came in here, people had underperformed and it was a case of who is the first pick?
"It is difficult to leave players out of the 18 because in training and the under 20s games they have been doing quite well.
"Sunday will be no different; I will probably leave players out of the 18 who probably think they deserve a shot.
"I have two or three injuries in full-back areas but other than that we are ok. If you get the shirt you have to do as much as you can to keep it."
McCall may have a welcome headache ahead of the Hearts fixture but there are positions that require little thought at present, particularly at full-back with Richard Foster, Seb Faure and Steven Smith all sidelined through injury.
Darren McGregor has impressed at right-back in his first season at the club while Lee Wallace has excelled on the other flank in recent weeks and shown glimpses of a long-awaited return to his finest form.
"I have been really impressed by Lee Wallace too and I saw signs that he was getting back to his best in the game before I came in against Queen of the South, when he had to come off with a stomach bug," McCall told RangersTV.
"At Motherwell when we played Rangers we would have to make plans for Wallace bombing down the left because he used to be the biggest attacking threat.
"I think he is back to that now; his link up with Tom Walsh originally and then will David Templeton has been terrific.
"He just gives you such a good outlay and again he had great fitness levels and really pushes right to the end of games and that is a good attribute to have."
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