Following on from James Tavernier, the next player in our sights for a Rangers Half-Term Report is central defender and vice-captain, Connor Goldson.
The Gers shipped out a fee in the region of £3 million to land Goldson from Brighton in the summer of 2018 [Sky Sports] and ever since then, Steven Gerrard has placed full faith in him to be his number one centre-back.
So far this season, there’s no doubt that he’s repaid that faith.
Incredibly, Goldson has played the full 90 minutes in all but one of Rangers’ 2019/20 fixtures. That’s a remarkable 36 appearances before the turn of the year, with the only game he missed coming against East Fife in the League Cup.
He’s had the odd shaky performance in there, and by giving the ball away in his own half, he was at fault for Celtic’s opening goal in the Old Firm defeat at Ibrox in September.
However, every player is bound to make a mistake at some stage, especially when they’ve played a whopping 3240 minutes of football [Transfermarkt].
By and large, his distribution has been much improved this season, and it’s his raking balls out from the back which can often take the Gers from one end of the pitch to another in a flash.
Defensively, he’s been colossal. Commanding in the air, he played a key part in clean sheets against big European sides like Feyenoord and Porto, and although he struggled at times to handle Odsonne Edouard in the second half of the League Cup final, he dominated the French forward at Parkhead in the final fixture before the winter break.
The opposition have failed to score in 20 of Goldson’s 36 outings.
At the top end of the pitch, he’s come up trumps fairly regularly, too. His thumping injury-time header at Kilmarnock on the opening day of the league campaign saved the Gers from early dropped points. Who knows what things would be like now, had the season started on a negative note?
He’s contributed three more goals across all competitions, netting at St Joseph’s and St Johnstone, as well as in the Ibrox thumping of Hearts.
Overall, then, a stellar first half of the campaign for a player who is really rising to the challenge of being Rangers’ premier central defender.
