Rangers are set to play Swansea City in a friendly before the return of Scottish Premiership action after a break for World Cup according to former Ibrox defender Russell Martin.
The English Championship side have arrived in Edinburgh for a training camp ahead of their return to league action against Norwich City on December 10. They'll take on Hearts at their Oriam training facility before taking on a Light Blues side who are likely to be under new management by that point.
Michael Beale is set to be appointed as successor to Giovanni van Bronckhorst imminently and Rangers ' only publicly scheduled friendly prior to the competitive return versus Hibs on December 15 is against Bayer Leverkusen five days earlier. But Martin - who had a loan spell at Rangers in 2018 - has confirmed to Swansea Independent that his Welsh side will also meet Scotland's second-placed side and anticipates a cold affair.
He said: "It came about because we needed games during that period. We can't not have any games going into Norwich.
"We'll focus more on the physical side more than anything else. Then we need a couple of weeks on the training pitch and working on things before we go into the next block of games.
"Within that, we needed some games. We don't want to play another Championship team because it's counter productive, playing against someone you're going to play against.
"Why would you give them a chance to play against you and work out some stuff? Premier League teams don't go back until two-and-a-half weeks after us so none of them want games until the week after when we're playing our first league game.
"So the only other option was to try and go abroad or we can use the contacts we've got up the road, me personally and Andy Goldie can sort out some games that way, so we have. We're really pleased with the quality of games we've got."
"Hearts are great, they're playing us before they go away and then Rangers are coming back and playing us, so it'll be two really good tests for us. We'll get everyone some minutes.
"It's going to be freezing, we can't afford warm weather training! It'll really serve a purpose and get everyone together again."
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