Rangers manager Philippe Clement has revealed the reasons behind his decision to make four changes for today's Scottish Premiership match against St Mirren. 

Tom Lawrence and John Souttar are among the quartet of alterations from last time out - with the pair not even included among the substitutes bench. 

Lawrence got on the scoresheet versus FCSB in the UEFA Europa League on Thursday but had to be withdrawn at half-time. While Souttar's exclusion raises more eyebrows after he played the full 90 minutes and there was little signs of any injury. 

But Clement says that the Scotland internationalist is just feeling the effect of a busy schedule.

Whereas, he admitted Lawrence could be sidelined short-term. 

"Tom got a tackle on Thursday and twisted his knee a bit," the Belgian explained. "The medical team don't think it's going to be a long-term injury but we will see this week how it evolves. 

"It is still a short time after the injury to make prognosis about that but it will not be long-term.

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"And John Souttar has already played a lot of games, also with the national team, very intensive games. So he had a few minor things and his body was really tired, so the medical staff and performance staff said that it was a really big risk for him to play today in case he got injured. We could not take that risk." 

Captain James Tavernier has been dropped, which gives Nerayshao Kasanwirjo his first league start in Rangers colours. 

Discussing the decision, Clement said: "It's always a big opportunity to start with the team but he deserves it. 

"He's not long in the building but he's working really hard in training. In the minutes he's played, he's showed good quality and we need to get a team where everybody is ready. We play games every three days, that will be more games than ever in the history of football this season. We need need to have two or three players in each position who are able to play at a level that we want to play and to win all the games.

"Today is his next step in his short adaptation to the club here."