Philippe Clement has effectively confirmed Connor Goldson is a 100% first choice for him moving forward and will only ever be out of the team for rest/rotation.
Speaking after yesterday’s lively win over a plucky Dundee, the Belgian boss admitted the vice-captain was rotated out due to the sheer volume of games coming up (curiously enough while keeping James Tavernier playing) with a massive number of fixtures now looming over the festive period and would be 100% starting, if fit, on Thursday in Spain.
It’s interesting, the Goldson situation. A defender who isn’t even Rangers’ best, whose CV is mediocre, and who’s never significantly thrived at Ibrox, is always 100% first choice with every manager who’s ever coached him in Govan, no matter how badly he plays at any given moment.
He’s literally untouchable and now Clement joins Steven Gerrard, Giovanni van Bronckhorst and Michael Beale in exalting the ex-Brighton stopper to a bizarrely high level and the likes of John Souttar and Leon Balogun just have to accept that aside when the manager rotates, they aren’t going to be playing as a pairing much.
Is this an article laced with criticism?
It’s more bewilderment, that Clement could rate Goldson as highly as the rest, a manager who can surely tell a top class defender from an average one, which makes us deeper suspect that there’s more to this than ability.
Is Goldson a terrible defender? No, but we have better than he, with it being our contention here on Ibrox Noise that even Ben Davies is better at the tidy ballwork than Goldson is, plus the ex-Preston man actually does more defensively too. Not that he’s good enough in general, but that’s just our opinion.
The problem with criticising Goldson is his supporters come in angrily and slate said critics, citing him as the ghost of Maldini and backing him as the best stopper we have. Which he isn’t.
And then say ‘well if four Rangers managers think so, I’ll take their word thank you’. Mind you the ‘we have just 2 trophies in 5 years since he arrived which probably speaks louder than anything and three of them lost their jobs or left’ retort doesn’t seem to wash…
But that’s confirmed again – another Rangers boss has Goldson as number one.
And that’s about that.