John Souttar, with yet another excellent performance for Rangers, has seriously played himself into contention for being part of the new era at Ibrox going forward.
The former Hearts defender had a horror opening season in Govan, with bereavement and injury derailing the start, laying him out for 7+ months.
But his return to action has been, one rusty backpass aside, completely outstanding and he’s already demonstrated why Rangers signed him in the first place, with his ignorant doubters getting quieter by the second.
And it looks, very feasibly, like Michael Beale already has his first-choice defence in place for next season in he and Connor Goldson. Let’s face it, aside an astonishing bid, Goldson isn’t going anywhere, so he remains and will remain for some time, the first choice CB.
But Souttar is a better defender – it’s not complicated, he’s the better stopper. His stats since returning from injury have been absolutely excellent, and he’s shown repeatedly that he’s absolutely worthy of being Rangers’ first-choice alongside Goldson.
He was signed to replace Goldson, but that, as we know, didn’t transpire, and Rangers inexplicably signed the utterly average Ben Davies as balance for a left-sided defender, which is what former manager Giovanni van Bronckhorst wanted.
Now? Ibrox Noise’s Ross explained earlier that despite Souttar being a righty, he nailed his performance and his ‘preferred foot’ didn’t matter a jot.
Which could well mean the start of the rebuild begins with the defence already a lot stronger than it was. Sure, we’re not thrilled about Goldson, he just isn’t that great, but Souttar does get more out of him and hopefully we now see a settled pairing that is actually good enough for our club.
Souttar, in many ways, is kind of Beale’s Weir, a fine Scottish international, who came from Hearts, and is as good as any defender in this country. If he has half the impact Weir did, we’re onto a winner for sure.
It’s definitely John Souttar’s time to shine, and he’s taken every chance he’s been given. We firmly expect him to be in the team going forward.
Yes please Big Souttar looks every inch the class act we thought we had acquired from Hearts. I’m one of his big fans . I still don’t like Goldson but as you say he is on a 3 year deal still and it would have to be a money offer to take him away. We do need a Right FB urgently as Tav is dipping quite noticeably and will be a weak point in our defence. Yilmaz showed us in the OF game he likes a tackle he just needs games to add the crossing and overlapping .
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