Declan John will be available for Rangers after recovering from a thigh injury as they travel to Hamilton in the Scottish Premiership on Friday.

The Cardif loanee suffered the injury against Partick Thistle in the Scottish League Cup and was forced to sit out the 2-0 defeat to Celtic on Saturday.

It came at a bad time for the 22-year-old, who had made a positive start to life in Glasgow and emerged as a more than competent replacement for the injured Lee Wallace.

"I was doing quite well so to pick up the injury didn't really help and to miss that massive game against Celtic wasn't good for me, but we'll play against them again later in the season," he said ahead of Friday's game.

Rangers are currently eight points adrift of the league leaders despite the season being just seven games old, but John is confident in the quality of the side and thinks a change in fortunes is not far away.

"At the end of the day you can look at points, but looking at the football we have played at times has been pretty good," he added "It's just the difference in the two boxes. We're trying to keep a clean sheet and trying to score more goals.

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"I think with anything, it takes time, it doesn't come easy and straightforward. It will take time but we have a good group of boys here.

"It is such a massive club and especially with the fans - you're expected to win every game and we expect to win every game as well. Like I said, some of the results haven't gone our way."

Team news

Along with John, Bruno Alves will be assessed for Rangers having made good progress from a calf problem, but Lee Wallace (groin) and Danny Wilson (calf) are definitely out along with Niko Kranjcar and Jordan Rossiter (both knee).

Hamilton are facing a massive injury crisis ahead of the game. Goalkeeper Gary Woods is the latest concern after suffering a lacerated kidney in last week's defeat to St Johnstone.

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Michael Devlin, Grant Gillespie and George Sarris (all knee), David Templeton (broken foot), Darian McKinnon (suspended) and Antonio Rojano (work permit) will also miss out.

Match stats

Since the turn of the millennium, Hamilton have faced Rangers on 12 occasions in the Scottish Premiership and have taken only a single point from the 36 available (D1 L11).

During this period Rangers have conceded just six league goals (0.5 goals per game) against Hamilton and scored a total of 31 (2.6 goals per game).

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Hamilton are currently on a run of four games in the league without a win (D1 L3).

Rangers are currently on a eight game unbeaten run away in the Scottish Premiership (W5 D3) - the last time Rangers went nine away top-flight games undefeated came back in October 2011, this was part of a run that lasted 14 matches (W14).

Rangers have failed to score in only one of their last 14 away matches.