Stuart McCall has confirmed Rangers are paying money for all five Newcastle United loanees - despite two of them being highly unlikely to ever appear for the Ibrox club.

McCall has inherited a bizarre situation created by the extraordinary mass deal chief executive Derek Llambias brokered on transfer deadline day early last month.

Llambias – a former managing director at St James’ Park – has since been ousted as a PLC director and suspended from the football board at Ibrox following the takeover by Dave King and his allies.

Sturat McCall has revealed that Rangers are paying some of the wages for the five players signed on loan from Newcastle in the January window even though only one of them is available at the moment

Of the five players loaned from Newcastle, only Haris Vuckic will again be available for Sunday's crunch Championship encounter with Hibernian after recovering from a calf knock.

The only further first-team involvement has come from centre-back Remie Streete, who managed 44 minutes against Raith Rovers last month before succumbing to a hamstring injury.

Youngster Kevin Mbabu, who has never played a senior game, is involved with Rangers’ Under-20 squad, but McCall revealed midfielder Gael Bigirimana has been ruled out for the season by an unspecified ‘medical condition’.

The new Ibrox boss is also highly sceptical about ever having Northern Ireland international Shane Ferguson available, as he recovers from a knee injury on Tyneside.

Asked if the quintet were on Rangers wage bill, McCall replied: ‘Yes. The club is paying for them.’

It’s understood the Ibrox outfit only make a contribution to their Newcastle wages, rather than paying the entire salary they earn at Mike Ashley’s club.

McCall prepares the Rangers players for Sunday's clash with Hibernian

Even so, the fact so little value has been earned will outrage Rangers fans.

‘Young Biggi (Bigirimana) has a medical condition that our consultant is dealing with,’ said McCall. ‘But he won’t play for us this season.

‘Kevin Mbabu is training and he has played two under-20 games, but his match fitness is not up to what we would like at the moment. But he’s working hard, the kid.

‘Shane Ferguson has had a long-standing serious knee injury, I think he’s been out for four or five months. He had a minor setback a couple of weeks ago, so he won’t be up with us for another couple of weeks.

‘By then he will have been out for five or six months so he’ll likely need another six weeks to get him anywhere near being available.

‘So even though he might come up and train with us, depending on what level we can get him to, he looks a serious doubt to be involved.

McCall faces the media on Friday ahead of the crucial clash with second place Hibs

‘Remie Streete came and played the first game and pulled his hamstring, was out for a couple of weeks then came back and pulled his thigh. And he’s had an ear infection on top of that.

‘He’s two or three weeks again, working with the medical side of it. But again I don’t think Remie has played lots of football over the past two years. So we didn’t have guys coming in who were hitting the ground running, being ready to play.’

McCall said enquiries about Bigirimana’s condition would have to be directed to the medical staff. However, when pressed if it was something the 21-year-old had contracted since moving to Glasgow, he replied: ‘No. It’s a long-standing thing.’

The current state of play begs the question as to whether Rangers can simply send those not available back to Newcastle.

‘I think that’s not for me, that’s for the hierarchy to sort out,’ said McCall. ‘Certainly two of them - Biggi and Shane Ferguson - would be very doubtful, unless Shane recovers very quickly from his long-term knee operation.