Rangers B v Carlisle United: Simmo's message before friendly

The Blues head to Rangers’ training ground this afternoon to take on the Scottish Premiership’s B Team.

The friendly has been scheduled to give game time to those who have not been in the side recently.

But it also doubles as an audition for places in the first XI given the Blues’ current woeful form.

“Everybody who wasn’t involved in the Cambridge game, they need minutes – and, after [that game], you’ve got to say, there’s a lot of places up for grabs,” said Simpson.

“So I’m looking for people to actually show me they want to come in and be part of this fight, that they want to roll their sleeves up and be part of it.”

United will take a host of senior players to Rangers’ training centre in Milngavie for the game against David McCallum's Ibrox B team which kicks off at 2pm.

Paul Simpson says places in his team are up for grabs (Image: Barbara Abbott)

Simpson said he would be taking a “serious look” at all the players who are hoping to push their way into his thoughts for the Bristol Rovers trip next Saturday.

“We needed a game, we needed a game for lots of players, we've got a full first team group who are going to go there and hopefully they're able to go and perform and get some minutes under their belt to allow them to then push themselves to the forefront to play next weekend,” added Simpson.

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“Because I think there were only a couple of players [on Saturday] who you can really say they threw everything into it and who should be involved next weekend at Bristol.

“I'm not saying there's going to be eight or nine changes but there certainly needs to be a serious look at other players coming in and seeing whether they can come up and put a better fight up than what we did.”

Simpson, meanwhile, said Josh Emmanuel could come back into the reckoning for the Bristol Rovers game after injury, should he come through this week’s training unscathed.