GRAEME Murty has revealed the injuries suffered by Declan John and Jamie Murphy are not as bad as first feared and indicated the Rangers duo could be available for the Celtic game on Sunday week.

Left back John missed the Ladbrokes Premiership match against St. Johnstone at McDiarmid Park on Tuesday evening after suffering a groin strain in training at Auchenhowie the day before.

Winger Murphy, meanwhile, limped off with a foot injury towards the end of the 4-1 tri-umph through in Perth after a robust challenge by Matty Willock that was criticised by Murty.

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The former Scotland internationalist yesterday admitted the William Hill Scottish Cup quarter-final against Falkirk at Ibrox tomorrow may come too soon for both players.

But he revealed the feedback Rangers medical staff had received back had been encouraging and stressed that missing the match against the Ladbrokes Championship club would not rule John and Murphy out of the Premiership game with their city rivals a week later.

Rangers can move to within three points of Celtic, who will have played a game less, if they win the Ibrox game and their manager is keen to have his best players available.

“Neither of them have trained as they are being assessed currently,” he said. “But both of them are positive and I want them involved as soon as possible.

“We’ll take medical advice on them both because we obviously have some big games coming up that we want to project them towards.

“Both have been checked out, we are just waiting for word back from the consultant, but we are hopeful we will get a positive prognosis on both. Potentially, Sunday might be too soon for them, but I wouldn’t rule it out just yet.”

Murty continued: “I know Jamie hasn’t played a lot of football before he came here, but he is naturally very fit and Declan is a pretty robust character too.

“Even if they didn’t make Sunday I wouldn’t think they would lose too much before the Celtic game. But we need to take care of Falkirk first before we can look towards Celtic the week after.”

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Lee Wallace, who has been out of action since suffering a groin injury in a game against Partick Thistle at Firhill in September and undergoing surgery, has returned to full training and could make his comeback against Falkirk.

But Murty praised Andy Halliday for how he had performed in the role against St Johnstone and admitted that if Wallace wasn’t involved against Paul Hartley’s side he wouldn't feature in the Old Firm game.

“Lee had a bit of a magical mystery tour to get here, but he did manage to get in and he trained with the squad,” he said. “We will look at what we need for Sunday and take that into account as to whether we need him or not.

“If you’re looking ahead to the Celtic game then you would think he would have to feature at some stage against Falkirk with that in mind. He needs game time against Falkirk for sure.

“But it would be remiss not to mention Andy Halliday. He came in on Tuesday night at Perth and sacrificed himself for the team. Left back is not his position, he doesn’t play it very often yet he did a very good job for us against St Johnstone.

“He’s left-footed and he’s mobile and that’s why he played against St Johnstone. I thought he took one for the good of the team, he did not a bad job too.”