Football: Rangers ready to reprieve Amato

SCOTTISH FOOTBALL

WITH THEIR players back in Glasgow after, for many of them, international exertions during the week, Rangers return to Premier League action with a home game against hapless Aberdeen today.

Rod Wallace is still ruled out with a hamstring injury, so the leaders may give Gabriel Amato a chance to impress. Arthur Numan returns to the champions' squad after his hamstring problem but is unlikely to displace Tony Vidmar.

Amato almost left Ibrox this week, but Rangers called off the Argentinian striker's proposed pounds 3.5m move to the Spanish side, Espanyol, because they feared they might not be paid.

Rangers' chairman, David Murray, said: "We asked them for a bank guarantee and they [Espanyol] refused. It is a real problem that clubs are not paying up on deals after they have gone through."

Amato, 28, joined Rangers from Real Mallorca in June 1998 but has started only one game under coach Dick Advocaat. Rangers are still owed pounds 3m for another player, Rino Gattuso. The Italian midfielder returned home to Salernitana more than a year ago but the Ibrox side, who have appealed to world football's ruling body, Fifa, say they have only received pounds 500,000. Gattuso has since been sold by Salernitana to Milan for pounds 7m.

Aberdeen, who have yet to score a League goal this season, could call upon the former Hearts striker Jim Hamilton at Ibrox.

Celtic, who travel to Kilmarnock for tomorrow's televised evening game, have Paul Lambert fit again after the knee problem which ruled him out of Scotland duty. Tom Boyd (back) and Eyal Berkovic (hamstring) both miss out, however.

The goalkeeper Gordon Marshall is absent for Kilmarnock, whose manager Bobby Williamson must choose two from four in attack, with Ally McCoist's place under threat from Jerome Vareille.