'A player with promise' - Yfeko in first-team frame

Michael Beale says Johnly Yfeko is the “big smile of pre-season” for Rangers.

The 20-year-old English defender has yet to make his competitive debut for the Ibrox side since arriving in January last year.

But he has been involved in this summer’s friendlies and played the second 45 minutes of Saturday’s 2-1 home win over Hamburg.

“He's in my thoughts for a first-team place, but so is Bailey Rice and Zach Lovelace,” said Beale.

“But I think Johnly has been the big smile of pre-season. That’s a really big part of my belief, my staff believe in terms of developing young players. It’s a tough old club to play for sometimes so we got to get that right.

“But I think Big Johnly has done well again and it's lovely to see when you have a young players come in, you can see the energy. He's not there, he's got some work to do, but I think we might have a good player.

“He missed probably four months of last season with a hamstring problem. But he's a player with promise.”

Beale welcomed the return from injury of forwards Tom Lawrence and Kemar Roofe after lengthy spells out.

“It was wonderful to have Lawrence out there, albeit for only 15 minutes. After a year he's only trained three or four days, so that's a big thing for him,” he said.

"We know that there's a step from that to a real game but it's great to have him back, similar to Kemar, two players that we were robbed of last season."

Beale expects a resolution to Rangers’ attempts to sign Feyenoord striker Danilo in the next few days, adding: “Nothing's been rejected, nothing's been accepted, it's somewhere in between.”