What on earth has happened to Connor Goldson?

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What on earth has happened to Connor Goldson?


Over the past few months most of the defensive arguments have centred around Joe Worrall, and his merits in particular over Nikola Katic.

The big Croat took the Forest man’s place yesterday and did himself fair justice, but a stopper who has largely escape a chunk of criticism has been the increasingly troubled Connor Goldson.

The 26-year old ex-Brighton man was a much-lauded capture, the summer’s big signing at £3M and waved off with affection by fans of his ex club who believed Rangers were getting a bargain.

And it started out rather well at Ibrox, his languid style and physicality reminding us very much of a Carlos Cuellar type.

But once he struggled at Rugby Park before having an absolute ‘mare at Fir Park in the still-infamous 3-3, Goldson became mortal and fallible.

And since then while his form hasn’t been horrific, it’s definitely been far from convincing – and this calendar year has seen a stark deterioration in his displays – thankfully for him there was that spell of a few games where he and then-partner Worrall were hardly tested.

But yesterday it all came home to roost as Killie exposed him dreadfully three times including some decision making which was beyond naïve and astonishingly poor.

In short, Goldson isn’t delivering right now – his distribution from deep is absolutely scandalous, he lacks physical power, he struggles to read the game, he doesn’t win much in the air and his leadership is distinctly average.

Now, we must add a caveat – when Gareth McAuley was his foil, we saw a big improvement in his displays at the end of last year. Back in the autumn, Goldson had struggled following that fiasco at Fir Park, but when the Northern Irish captain partnered him, the leadership beside him got way more out of him and he looked much more secure.

But since McAuley got the axe, the Goldson Worrall duo has been Stevie’s partnership of choice and quite frankly against a half decent team it isn’t good enough. Goldson evidently isn’t a leader, and add to that a partner he has barely teamed up with since the autumn and it may have affected him.

Either way, whatever the root cause is, Goldson’s form right now is far from convincing.

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7 COMMENTS

  1. 0-1 Celtic today 96 minute!

    Will Rangers players please note – no such thing as a “bad day in office” – play until the end …..

  2. A Gerrard favourite who seems undropable. Katic was dropped for less yet the only time Goldson has been out of the team is when he had an injury. Even before that Gerrard was telling us he was carrying an injury and receiving injections to play. There were players yesterday that were either not tryung hard enough or not up to it so he should have made a statement in the first half by making a change and ine of those changes should have been Goldson.

  3. Agree his form has dropped. I suspect it's injury related – he's admitted to playing through bad ones before. Hope the international break can help him.

    Who do we sign at Centre Half in the summer then peeps? We need at least one ….Liam Lindsay gets my vote.

    P.S – Skrtel is signing for Parma so at least that saga is over!!!

    • Halkett from Livingston. Ex-Ger, out of contract, will be on a small wage at a club with a good defence. What's not to like

  4. I think the jersey is getting far too heavy for a lot of the players. They don't have the bottle to fight and deliver for the fans, they fear failing than being confident and ambitious to succeed!

  5. If all the players that IN don't rate were dropped the team would be full of kids. Is that the way forward?

  6. I think Goldsons problem is he has lost confidence, playing in a team with no confidence,with no regular partner,no regular shape, where the fullbacks beside him are allowed to do what they want and leave him exposed.

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