Is Rangers star’s honeymoon at Ibrox over?

As regular readers of Ibrox Noise will know, we have a lot of time for Sean Goss. Indeed, the on-loan QPR midfielder very quickly became a fan favourite for his range of passing, composure on the ball, increasingly ability to dictate play from the middle, and not being afraid to get stuck in defensively, even if he was hardly Terry Hurlock.

However, as fickle as fans are, the Celtic loss changed everything – and it is true the 22-year old did not have his best afternoon, but few others did either, and that pattern repeated against Scotland’s best side (right now) in Kilmarnock.

And suddenly, of all the players underperforming, Sean Goss was the one to lose his place next to Greg Docherty, with an inexplicable choice of Graham Dorrans being shoehorned into the defensive slot.

And it does seem that in the course of a few weeks, Sean Goss has gone from being an absolute fan favourite (don’t forget he was up for February’s club POTM award) to ‘dispensable’, ‘lightweight’, and ‘disposable’.

In the space of two matches, opinion has apparently completely shifted from him being a signing we should make permanent in the summer, to ‘can’t drive him back to Loftus Road fast enough’.

We do find this pretty astonishing, that fans who tell us off on the site for ‘not supporting the players’ themselves destroy the best ones we have and ditch them as soon as they think they’ve had one bad match.

We know we’ve been harsh ourselves on players as well, but it’s seems fairly obvious which ones are our better assets. We include Alfredo Morelos in this, despite being tough on him – he works hard from deep, and despite his finishing currently being horrendous, he’s the top scorer in the country for a reason.

So if we can see the positives in players, surely the wider fanbase can too – and for the majority to have decided that Goss is now cannon fodder and isn’t rated following his stellar displays only up to a month ago seems pretty nonsensical to us.

Is Goss the complete and perfect midfielder? No, but then he’s only had fourteen starts in senior football, fifteen appearances in total, and the guy is still learning the ropes. He impressed hugely for a couple of months – has he gone from a Barry Ferguson successor to dross in matter of a couple of matches?

Some fans seem to think so, and so does Graeme Murty.

The biggest benefit of Goss’ presence was getting the best out of Greg Docherty alongside him – against Motherwell the ex-Hamilton man looked lost, and regardless about claims of illness (if true, he should never have started), he still nevertheless looked poor against Dundee.

But right now that midfield is a mess – it’s gone from a pretty slick and working combination of Murphy, Windass, Candeias, Goss and Docherty to an absolute clownshoe of a shambles of Murphy, Miller, Candeias, Dorrans and Goss – and the combination has upset Rangers’ rhythm totally.

Goss had struggled in a couple of matches, true, but since when did that mean a player gets dropped ruthlessly? Other players like Morelos, Windass, Martin etc have had plenty poor matches under Murty yet stay in the team.

Goss deserves his place back. If his dip in form remains, then options can be considered. But under Murty it really does seem like one rule for one, another for another.