Rangers’ defence has definitely gone through some chopping and changing, but what did Nikola Katic and Connor Goldson do wrong?
That was the pair everyone loved at the start of the season. The pair who effectively shot Rangers through to the Europa League. The pair who grabbed clean sheets in Shkupi, Osijek, and Maribor.
Joe Worrall has since come into the side after being given a huge debut in Villarreal. He dealt with that contest extremely well, but he’s been a constant concern since coming into the team.
His European displays have been efficient enough, but domestically he’s struggled. There have been some bright moments, but not enough to mean Worrall deserves a full-time partnership with Goldson.
Interestingly, despite playing three games over the course of eight days, Katic wasn’t used once. Instead, he had to settle for benched roles in all three Rangers matches. Despite the fact Worrall put in a dreadfully poor display against Kilmarnock, Katic was still benched regardless.
Steven Gerrard was quick to mention how inexperienced Katic was at the start of the season. This is one possible reason as to why he’s been dropped for the last couple of months.
It’s nowhere near valid enough to keep him on the sidelines permanently, however. After all, Worrall doesn’t particularly have the most experienced CV either.
A disappointment
The disappointing thing for Gers supporters is the fact that they were on to something with Goldson and Katic. They repelled much of Celtic’s attacks at Parkhead. They got Rangers through the entire Europa League qualification campaign. Finally, they just looked solid together.
It was a partnership that had so much potential to grow. Now, out of nowhere, it was broken up. It’s also not going to be easy to get it back together again either.
We saw how poor Katic was when he was given a shot against Hamilton two weeks ago. He put in a good shift, but was constantly bullied and looked nervous on the ball.
This came out of nowhere, and no doubt because he hadn’t been featuring enough.
The partnership had shown no significant signs of being a bad one. Worrall, however, has managed to cement his place despite consistently producing worrying moments.
Our question to the Rangers supporters is why did that partnership get broken up? Let us know your opinion on the centre-back situation in the comments.
