Rangers won't risk rushing Dean Shiels back into action following his latest injury setback.

The Northern Ireland internationalist has spent five months on the sidelines after suffering a medial knee ligament injury last season.

He had been in the frame to be named in the squad to face Brechin last weekend, but the problem flared up in training at the tail end of last week.

Luckily, it's not a serious issue and the 28-year-old is already back running.

But manager Ally McCoist has vowed to treat the player with kid gloves to help his recovery.He told Rangers TV: "Dean walked off at training last week. His knee didn't feel right and with something as important as that you can't take any chances.

"We'll monitor him closely and he'll be the best judge of his situation. He has been in the game long enough and knows his knee better than anyone."

Elsewhere on the injury front, Lee Wallace also joined in on running drills yesterday.

The left-back withdrew from last week's Scotland squad for the game with Croatia because of a knee injury, but is moving forward again now. He could be in contention to return at East Fife this coming weekend.

Chris Hegarty is also due to start running, while Arnold Peralta returned to full training today after missing the trip north due to illness. McCoist added: "Arnold wasn't well at the weekend and looked terrible but he appears to be over that now.

"Hegarty is starting to run this week as well which is good. Ian Black took a sore one at Brechin and he's seeing the doctor about that but I'd be very hopeful we'll have a fairly clean bill of health by the end of the week."