Derek McInnes has revealed he waited until James Penrice became available to start for Rangers this afternoon before naming his team vs St Mirren.
Loan star Penrice arrived from AEK Athens but his international clearance was only granted last night.
That meant McInnes did not choose his selection for the Premier Sports Cup tie until this morning which allowed the left-back to come in and start with Tuur Rommens injured.
Four changes were made by the boss from his side's 2-1 defeat to Hibs last weekend and McInnes explained his decisions from back to front.
"For all the reasons I've said about signing James, I'm grateful his clearance came through last night," McInnes told the club's website. "We never named the team yesterday as a consequence of that, we were just waiting, and if James was available he was going to play.
"And really just to bring a bit of freshness into the midfield. Nico's experience in a difficult situation is important, but freshness from Vanja and Chukwuani, hopefully they can provide a lot of energy in there against St Mirren trying to build the game in there too.
"We want to make sure that while we've not been at our best attacking wise in recent games, we need to show our intent to get after teams and that physicality in there will help us.
"Then we play Gass, Dai and Ryan Naderi at the top end of the pitch, I think Ryan's suited to playing in a one at times, but we need support and service into him. The back four look strong, Ivor back in the goals as well so we hope that's a team that can go and win a cup tie."
