Philippe Clement has made it pretty clear who his preferred partnership is for Rangers in the centre of defence with John Souttar lining up with Connor Goldson for most of 2024.
For the first time in a few years there is a consistency that has been missing and it is no surprise to see results improve at the same time. It’s easy to forget that Giovanni van Bronckhorst’s reign ended with James Sands and Leon King as his pairing due to injuries to key players.
One of these players has now left and Philippe Clement would have loved to have a fully fit version of one of Rangers title winning heroes that contributed to the record breaking defence that season.
Did Rangers make the right decision to release Filip Helander?
After missing almost two seasons, Filip Helander was never going to have his time at Ibrox extended.
Despite being on the verge of returning to full training, it simply wasn’t worth the risk, regardless of how good a player he was at his peak.
The big Swede isn’t the quickest but there have been few Rangers defenders with better positional sense, especially when defending crosses or cut-backs – he has an uncanny knack of being in the right place at the right time.
If Helander had another year on his contract then he would probably have been a regular under Gers boss Clement, however, it is Odense who are getting the benefits of a player who has captained them in recent weeks.
Speaking to The Rangers Review, the Sweden international revealed his regret over what happened as his time in Glasgow came to an end but that he is in a good place now:
“Yeah, it has been great to get back to playing every week and feeling good.
“It has been great. The last two seasons at Rangers it was more about injury, injury, injury. You don’t really feel like you are a football player.
“You are there working every day or training every day but you don’t get to play any games because you are not fit. That was frustrating.
“Now I am playing every week and that is all I wanted to do. It has been great and I am really enjoying it all this season.”
It’s easy to look at Helander playing well, captaining Odense and being recalled for Sweden and suggesting that the medical team must have been doing something wrong or that the player himself wasn’t fully committed.
The latter can be dismissed immediately.
Few players on the park were as honest as Helander.
If you are willing to take a ball in the face blocking a cross or a shot, you aren’t the type of player to down tools when things get tough.
Personally, I loved Helander, and John Souttar has some similar qualities but Rangers were absolutely right to release him last summer.
Rangers have played over 45 games this season already whereas Helander has played just 16, the quality is there but we need quantity too.
It is a position that Clement will assess in the summer, Ben Davies isn’t even getting in matchday squads now whilst Leon Balogun isn’t getting any younger.
If we can find a player of Filip Helander’s quality but without the medical file, we could be on to a winner.
