Stevie G has carried out big u-turn on previous announcement

Steven Gerrard has dramatically u-turned on an announcement he made prior to Livi. Rangers’ manager obviously selected Niko Katic on Saturday to face Aberdeen, but it was confirmation pre-Livi that was the most interesting and Saturday’s selection did not match up.

Gerrard said pre-kick off that the Allan McGregor, James Tavernier, Connor Goldson, Filip Helander and Borna Barisic back five was what he was planning to stick with, to ‘keep together’, but following the Swede’s horrific display that night the ex-Bologna man found himself back on the bench for Aberdeen.

Stevie had clearly aimed to retain that preferred back five, but the 26-year old’s disappointing display that evening may have led to a dramatic change of heart from Rangers’ manager opening the door for the Croat to get another chance.

Sadly he was maybe one of Rangers’ weaker performers yesterday with a number of mistakes reminiscent of last season and which looked like he’d reverted a little back the way, but if he is selected for Young Boys this week we’d expect him to put in a much better performance.

As for Helander, his display v Livi showed a real struggle to get to grips with the league – it’s one thing doing it against a horrendous St Johnstone, quite another struggling against a slightly above average defender in Dykes, and getting away with a stonewall red card.

This is not to entirely smite the Swede – he was excellent against Feyenoord, but the Dutch side barely played any better than St Johnstone and Aberdeen did – whether that was failings on their part or just superior coaching from Steven Gerrard we can’t quite be sure.

But Gerrard has seen fit to bring Katic back in, in a sensible response to such a poor display on Wednesday, giving us absolutely no clue who will start on Thursday…