Ex-Rangers defender Filip Helander, who is absolutely fine now btw and returned to playing for Sweden last night, has admitted, indirectly, that most of his injury travails at Rangers were effectively his own fault and he made a very bad and unprofessional decision which certainly cost him not only his final season at the club but a new contract too.
Speaking after his country’s friendly v Moldova, the ex-Malmo stopper previously fessed up that instead of going for surgery on a troublesome foot injury, he decided to let it heal naturally, and in doing so, basically got it horribly wrong.
And this time wasn’t a lot better:
“I have had good support from my girlfriend. We have had children in the meantime and there have been many other things that you have had to try to find glimmers of light in. It has helped me in a way, I have not only had football but I have been able to go to training and focus fully on it but then it has been hard to let it go.”
Fair play, the boy had a decent time off the pitch away from football, but ultimately he failed miserably in the past to get surgery when he should have and this time it was ‘complicated’.
The biggest cost to Rangers was losing him for the Champions League last season. Having the likes of him or indeed John Souttar (who similarly and unprofessionally screwed up regarding an injury) available during the UCL might have made things a lot better for Rangers and then-manager Giovanni van Bronckhorst.
But spilled milk and all that.
Helander is a decent guy, a great defender and we do truly wish him the best, but his own unprofessional calls meant sadly we didn’t remotely get value for money for him.
Just imagine if he’d been fit, the world would have been a difference place and we’d definitely have given him a new deal long ago.
Certainly would take him over Ben Davies every day of the week.