Steven Gerrard has dropped a massive reveal about Nikola Katic

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Steven Gerrard has dropped a massive reveal about Nikola Katic


Rangers manager Steven Gerrard has dropped yet another hint as to why colossal Croat Nikola Katic is not only in and out of the first XI, but effectively lost his place some weeks ago and wasn’t even in the match day squad for the weekend.

Fans have been quick to criticise the ditching of the ex-Slaven Balupo man, ourselves included, but after the stats comparing him with Joe Worrall showed him in a slightly negative light, we laid off that criticism and rather left Gerrard to it.

However, the manager himself has actually dropped an even bigger suggestion that this was all part of the plan with the 6’4 incher and fans essentially needn’t worry.

He said:

“Nikola has been bought for the future but really started well and has taken to life pretty quickly. He is probably further ahead than we thought but he will be managed slightly differently.”

This is very revealing. Gerrard is more than implying here that Katic actually got selected more than he should have early on because we didn’t have any depth in that position, and despite how well he actually did, he wasn’t supposed to be playing every match.

As we know, Joe Worrall came in and essentially ‘nicked’ his position and the Croat has found himself benched more often than not ever since – and with experienced campaigner Gareth McAuley now firmly entrenched in the first team, we imagine both Worrall and Katic will now be used sparingly.

Honestly we now wonder if Gerrard’s selection of Worrall was down to another tactic entirely; if you have your own young defender or another team’s on loan, is it not better to risk ‘ruining’ the other team’s defender by selecting him for pressure matches rather than your own long-term prospect?

If Katic is for the future, then he has to be managed carefully, and with Worrall admitting he’ll go back to Forest next summer, and Katic being ours, a season of experience, on and off, in Europe and the SPL for the Croat is maybe a better way of developing him than selecting him every match and expecting the world from him.

As of now, it seems McAuley and Goldson will be the first-pick duo at the back, and hopefully they get up to speed with each other soon.

But now we may know yet more about why Katic faded so dramatically a month or two ago.

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5 COMMENTS

  1. Wished Worrall would go back to Nottingham when the window opens, he's another fucking imposter, worth £10M my absolute arse

  2. Agree BlueBear
    Wish Worrall would Bugger off Back to Nottingham.
    Id bring back Halkett and Sign one of either Lindsay (Ex Partick) or Tafazoli(Peterborough)

    • So please share with us what Tafazolli's strengths are and what will he bring to Rangers that we don't currently have.

  3. McCauley and Goldson were always going to be the preferred pairing until McCauley got injured.Im worried about how Katic bounces back from the being subbed against Motherwell,his mistake apart at their goal I thought he was ok and hard done by.

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