Thomson has suffered two serious knee injuries in his career

Rangers midfielder Kevin Thomson admits that he has yet to regain full fitness and is therefore unlikely to start the game against Falkirk on Saturday.

Having recovered from a second serious knee injury, Thomson is desperate to impress Ibrox manager Walter Smith.

"I tell him every day I'm ready, but he sees that I'm not," said Thomson.

"He knows what kind of player I am, the standard that I can play at, so he'll know that I am a wee bit off the pace. I've been out for nine months."

Thomson injured his knee in an accidental collision with Kilmarnock striker David Fernandez in November.

After months of rehabilitation work to rebuild the strength in his leg after cruciate ligament surgery, the former Hibs player made a successful comeback in Rangers' match against Nuremberg during their pre-season tour in Germany.

Ideally, I'd love to play centre-mid, but to get a one-to-11 jersey would be huge for me Rangers midfielder Kevin Thomson

But, despite subsequent run-outs in the Light Blues' warm-up matches, Thomson is still short of match sharpness.

"I'm probably still a couple of games away from being fully fit," said the 24-year-old.

"I'm still going to be a bit ring-rusty. I'll hopefully be involved at the weekend, part of the squad, but I think Saturday will be too soon for me.

"The boys have just completed a hard pre-season that I've participated in almost 90% without playing the game time that they have played, so naturally I'll be behind them.

"But I'm working hard and, in the next few weeks, I'll not be far away."

Thomson suffered his first cruciate injury when with Hibernian in a match against Partick Thistle in May 2004.

And the experience of that recovery was evident when he told reporters at Murray Park on Tuesday: "I'm not going to put any demands on myself.

"The last time before I played a first-team game was 11 months. Things change, the surgery changes.

"When I was out the first time, the rehab was nine months; this time it was six months. Hopefully, I'll be back to my best."

With Barry Ferguson's departure to Birmingham, Charlie Adam now at Blackpool and Brahim Hemdani having left under a cloud, there has been speculation that Smith would feel compelled to boost his midfield options.

A restricted budget has limited Smith's ability to enter the transfer market, but in any case Thomson sees no reason for the Ibrox boss to invest in his particular area of the team.

"I think we've got some good players already in midfield," he said. "Mo Edu will come back and so will I.

"We've got plenty boys in there who can play and, when all the boys are fit, the manager will have some head scratching to do.

"Ideally, I'd love to play centre-mid, but to get a one-to-11 jersey would be huge for me, so I'm not going to shout my mouth off about 'I want to play here, I want to play there'."

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