Tom Glover started Boro’s opening pre-season friendly at Mansfield last weekend, with Brynn coming on at half-time, and Glover was back in the starting line-up at Bradford City on Tuesday night, playing for 70 minutes before Brynn came on to replace him.
With Seny Dieng set to be sidelined for at least another month, Glover and Brynn are competing for the starting spot for Boro’s opening game of the Championship season against Swansea City.
However, Edwards insists nothing should be read into his selections so far, with Brynn set to get the nod ahead of Glover for at least the opening two-thirds of today’s game at Ibrox.
“Sol will do the same minutes at the weekend that Tom did the other night [at Bradford],” said the Boro boss, who has welcomed Alfie Jones into the first-team fold on Teesside after the centre-half completed a £3m move from Hull City yesterday. “Don’t look into the way they’ve lined up so far – we’re just trying to plan the minutes for the two of them.”
READ MORE:
Boro are yet to claim a pre-season victory, having followed up their 3-3 draw at Mansfield with a 2-0 defeat at Valley Parade.
Edwards insists he is not worried about the results of his side’s pre-season games, but he wants to see signs of positive progress at Rangers this afternoon, especially in the final third.
While the Boro boss was reasonably happy with much of his side’s build-up play against Bradford, he felt too many players let themselves down once they got into the final third.
“I think you learn from nights like Tuesday,” he said. “People will inevitably look at the result, and of course the result, in the end, is the most important thing. But in this position we’re in at the moment, where we’re still only three weeks in and learning a lot of things about the lads, it’s not the be all and end all right now.
“If we’d have scored five goals at Bradford the other night, people would have been feeling very different. But I would still have been saying, ‘Calm down a bit’ because there’s things we know we want to work on within these games.
“It’s hard, but people probably need to forget the scoreline side of things at the moment because I’ve got to look at performances and see who’s at the right level and doing what I want at the moment, and who needs to do a bit more. Who can be a bit better? That’s the main focus of where we’re looking at the moment.”