Lawrence Shankland facing lengthy spell out after suffering hamstring injury

Manager Derek McInnes revealed his captain fears the injury is similarly significant to the one that kept him out for two months early in 2026.

McInnes said: “He has a similar feeling to the hamstring injury he had at Hearts last January. We don’t want to speculate too much but he says it feels similar, in the same area, so we’ll get him scanned on Monday.

“His output was really high on Wednesday at Falkirk on the 4G. Sometimes going from pitch to pitch, different surface, can maybe make you a wee bit more vulnerable.

“But he says he felt fine going into the game and there was nothing really that he did in the game that he was aware of, he just felt it pull up.

“It’s a shame for the boy because he was obviously in good form, getting himself moving and enjoying some of that attacking threat we’ve had over the last few games, and we’ve waited long and hard for that.”

Shankland had scored Rangers’ previous three goals to secure their first two William Hill Premiership wins under McInnes and his replacement, Ryan Naderi, quickly got the goal that earned a third victory.

New big-money signing Kevin Kelsy later joined Naderi up front for his debut and missed a good chance.

“Obviously if somebody had said to me walking in the door that (Youssef) Chermiti and Shankland were going to suffer significant injuries, you’d have felt the weight of that,” McInnes said.

“Getting Kevin was such a good bit of business, the club deserve a lot of credit for that.

“He’s such a good mover, strong boy. There was obviously a temptation to bring him on after five minutes, but he said he felt a bit stiff and tight from the previous couple of days training and the fact that he travelled.

“And I was delighted for Ryan. The good thing with Ryan, even when he’s not his best, he puts himself about, he lets centre-halves know he’s there. He presses brilliantly, which is great when you’re playing against a team like Motherwell.

“We’re going to need that squad. Bojan (Miovski) wasn’t in the squad but we’ve still got a guy who knows his way about the Scottish Premiership and can score goals as well.

“So having Ryan, Kevin, Bojan, Kim Min-su, who can play central, we’ve still got some decent options there.”

Motherwell manager Alfred Johansson refused to make anything of Alex Paulsen’s mistake, which led to the goal. Paulsen was dispossessed by Naderi as he tried to dribble past the German forward.

Johansson said: “You don’t want to concede goals, it doesn’t matter if it’s this or that. You never want to concede goals.

“But it’s not even a point in my head. The reason why it stays 1-0 is also because of Alex Paulsen, and how consistent he’s been, how many clean sheets we’ve been having this last season, it’s not even a point.”