Rangers fan favourite Nikola Katic scored his first goal for loan club Hajduk Split on Saturday.
Katic joined Hajduk on a season-long loan deal on deadline day after missing the entirety of the 2020/21 campaign with a serious knee injury.
So far, things haven’t quite been going to plan.
He’s only made three competitive appearances, with his two league outings just brief substitute cameos.
However, he took advantage of the international break on Saturday, getting a runout for his adopted club against HNK Zadar at their Stadion Stanovi.
The standard of the opposition wasn’t that high, with Zadar playing their football in the Croatian third tier.
But the game provided welcome playing time and the 6ft 4″ centre-back also managed to get on the scoresheet.
Soon after Dimitris Diamantakos had put Hajduk 1-0 up, Katic doubled the advantage with a close-range header in the 30th minute and his celebration showed how much it meant to him to be back amongst the goals.
The visitors continued to assert their dominance for the remainder of the first half and into the second period, eventually running out 6-0 winners.
Bears will be delighted to see Katic off the mark in Croatia and perhaps he’ll have done enough to secure a starting berth for Hajduk’s first league match after the international break, a trip to Šibenik next Sunday.
In other news, a Rangers star has been surprisingly praised by a high-profile figure despite making a costly error in a high-profile defeat.
