Rangers star AXED from Europa League squad as Russell Martin adds new recruits and makes huge Raskin call…

RANGERS’ squad for their upcoming league phase campaign in the Europa League has been confirmed.

And as you’d expect, plenty of new faces are involved.

Rangers boss Russell Martin has added his two deadline day recruits Youssef Chermiti and Derek Cornelius to the fold.

They come in as straight swaps for Cyriel Dessers and Hamza Igamane, who both left the Ibrox club in the latter stages of the transfer window.

Bojan Miovski is also included in a Rangers Euro squad for the first time.

The other man to drop out from the previously named squad is Kieran Dowell.

He was in favour during the early stages of the season and started both legs of the Champions League qualifying tie against Panathinaikos.

But the former Norwich man gradually fell out of favour, in part due to Lyall Cameron’s form.

Dowell hasn’t featured since starting the Premier Sports Cup win over Alloa on August 16 amid claims he’s been carrying an injury.

Nedim Bajrami is another high profile omission.

The Albania international had, however, already been removed from the squad during the Champions League qualifiers.

Bajrami was taken out to make way for Jayden Meghoma ahead of the play-off tie with Club Brugge.

Danilo retains his place in the squad despite Rangers bolstering their attack in the late stages of the window.

Summer signings Max Aarons, Nasser Djiga, Meghoma, Emmanuel Fernandez, Joe Rothwell, Thelo Aasgaard, Cameron, Djeidi Gassama, Mikey Moore and Oliver Antman are all included.

John Gentles remains part of the squad despite joining Raith Rovers on loan last week.

Oscar Cortes isn’t included after he sealed a loan move to Sporting Gijon, although he’d already been axed from the squad during the Champions League qualifiers anyway.

Nicolas Raskin – left OUT of the Rangers squad to face Celtic at the weekend – is included.

Rangers sporting director Kevin Thelwell confirmed earlier today that the Belgian ace is set for clear the air talks with boss Martin after the international break.

Thelwell said: “He’s away on international duty now.

“So to my mind, what happens is he goes on international duty, he comes back as a Rangers player.

“And when he comes back, Russell and I sit down with Nico and talk about what we do next.

“And again, it’s very, very important that we all understand that we all want the same thing.

“We all want a better Rangers team.

“We all want a stronger Rangers team and we all want a winning Rangers team.

“And I think it’s also important to make the point that this year is a very important year for Nico.

“He’s a terrific player. He’s obviously a full Belgium international.

“He’s got a World Cup coming up. I’m sure he’s going to want to be a strong part of that.

“And so him doing his best for Rangers and playing as well for Rangers is going to be important to him.

“And of course, it’s going to be important to us. So a conversation to be had in due course.”

Findlay Curtis’ name also doesn’t appear in the squad but that’s only because he does NOT have to be named.

The 18-year old qualifies for the ‘B-list’ squad which hasn’t yet been revealed.

The same goes for the likes of Bailey Rice and Zander Hutton who have been part of first team squads regularly this season.

That list comprises of homegrown players born on or after January 1, 2004.

Rangers’ Europa League campaign gets underway against Genk on September 25 at Ibrox.

They’ll then head to Austria to face Sturm Graz before a trip to Norway to face Brann.

Rangers will face Roma and Braga at Ibrox in November before taking on Ferencvaros in Hungary in the European final match this calendar year.

The league phase campaign ends with two games in January, against Bulgarian outfit Ludogrets Razgrad and a mouth-watering clash with Porto in Portugal.