RANGERS manager Dick Advocaat, who has been in this country for only three months, made it clear yesterday that he believes something has to be done to protect players in Scotland becoming victims of overwork and, as a consequence, sitting injured on the sidelines.
He made his point on the eve of tonight's return UEFA Cup first-round tie with Beitar of Jerusalem as he explained his reasons for the omission of Argentinian striker Gabriel Amato from his squad.
''I left Amato out on Saturday with thoughts on this game but he has problems with his knee, and maybe it is one reason why he has not been playing the way we expected.''
The manager added that Amato would be going for a hospital scan to determine the extent of his injury, but he does not believe it is too serious. However, he went on: ''I think when he came in the summer we asked him to do too much in a short period, because he was told suddenly he had to stay for the Shelbourne game three weeks later.
''It is the same with other players. We have had to force them to play after they had come just for some training. I have said before that we will maybe start our season with everybody fit in January.''
He continued in the vein that it would be no different next season. ''I understand about the national team situation - I was manager of the Holland team - and there are two different interests. Scotland played their last international game in France on June 18 and we, like Celtic and Hearts, had to start preparing for European games to be played on July 22.
''There is a big problem for players to get a normal close season. I think there has to be a new co-operation between clubs and then national sides because it will happen next season, and the season after that. It is not just in a World Cup year.''
The manager's argument would be given credence not only by the well-documented problems that Rangers have had this season and for some time, but also by similar difficulties experienced by their rivals across the city, Celtic.
In the Ibrox case, since Advocaat took over, four of his signings have been victims of injury that has put them on the sidelines. One, Romanian defender Daniel Prodan, has to be put in a different category as he seems to have been carrying a knee injury before he arrived.
The others, Arthur Numan, Colin Hendry, Amato, and Andrei Kanchelskis, all have collected injuries since they turned out for Rangers and that might suggest that the demands they faced prior to coming to Scotland - two of them played in the World Cup, Numan for Holland and Hendry for Scotland - had a major bearing on the effects which rapid training for immediate contests has had on their limbs.
Rangers, of course, had a
worrying track record in this department before Advocaat arrived, with a catalogue of star turns put out of commission early on in their careers at Ibrox. As far back as 1990, when Oleg Kuznetsov was virtually finished after an injury at McDiarmid Park before he had got properly started with Rangers, there has been a trail of big names who suffered bad injuries, not all of them foreigners, either.
Alan McLaren, Stephen Wright, and Derek McInnes, all signed from Scottish clubs, Sebastian Rozental, from Chile, Lorenzo Amoruso, from Fiorentina, and Jonas Thern, from AS Roma, have all been sidelined for long spells after being hurt. The reason for such a catalogue has never been easy to identify but, at least in some of them, the case made by Advocaat has to be given space.
If you look at Celtic this season, for instance, his argument is supported. Few Parkhead fans, for instance, would argue with the proposition that Marc Rieper, Craig Burley, and Paul Lambert, have not been as consistently excellent as they were last season, nor has Darren Jackson found his form yet. All of them have been asked to get ready for an early start to the season after a demanding time in the summer.
The danger with these theories, of course, is that they can be used as excuses. However, the evidence that pushing players, who may well be already suffering from overplay, to be ready for a ridiculously early start to the season is very persuasive and, when it comes from a man who has no particular Scottish axe to grind, it warrants serious examination.
Meantime, Advocaat has to get his team ready to beat Beitar tonight after the 1-1 draw in Jerusalem and get themselves into tomorrow's draw for the third round.
Ian Ferguson is suspended but Hendry joins the squad, although it is probable that Craig Moore, who will join Crystal Palace on Monday, will be kept in central defence. In contrast, Charlie Miller has agreed a new two-year contract but he knows that Advocaat, while admiring his talents, believes he has much to do to get himself physically right for the top level.
The same applies, in the coach's view, to Rozental, who has a lot of time to make up in training after his lengthy absence through injury.
One man who lacks nothing in that department is Italian Rino Gattuso, who is as energetic and aggressive as any player in the country. He watched what he thought was a decent show by Beitar in Jerusalem but will now almost certainly be in action against them. Either way, he has no doubts about the outcome. ''For me, this will be easy for Rangers.''
We have to allow for the pre-cociousness of youth, do we not?
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