If one excellent piece of news was confirmed this weekend, it was the much-deserved contract extension for Leon Balogun, who is definitively the best defender in the Scottish Premiership alongside Carter-Vickers, who lacks the pace of Rangers’ Nigerian stalwart.
Who cares what age he is, he only missed 4 games through injury over the course of May, otherwise he was pretty much fit the whole season.
He was simply badly-treated by Philippe Clement, who naturally went with Connor Goldson and John Souttar mostly, and in the early days, a touch of Ben Davies.
Balogun was overlooked, and Rangers’ defence suffered for it, especially in the final three months of the season.
That Clement now comes out with a bunch of cr*p about how great Balogun is, is either him waking up to how good the ex-Werder man is, or him giving lip service to a deal he’s not actually interested in.
Don’t let the manager’s kind (fake) words fool you, he wasn’t interested in selecting Balogun till he had no choice through initially Souttar’s injury then Goldson’s, and it was at that point where we all sighed a heave of relief that we were seeing Balogun play at long, long, LONG last.
He got 19 appearances all season, and let’s not forget this is the manager who omitted him from the European squad AFTER Michael Beale had done the same thing at the start. Yes you can babble about UEFA rules and restrictions, but the addition of Balogun would have helped Rangers so much in that tournament.
Anyway, we digress.
Ultimately, the club made the call to keep Balogun – who crucially has proven his fitness this season, and any idea he’s a ‘crock’ (which a few fans suggested) is absolutely false.
He just wasn’t being used till the manager had no choice. By then the league was gone.
Can you tell we don’t trust this manager?
All Clement can do is prove us wrong next season, but after the diabolical collapse between March and May, our hopes are not high.
But we’re delighted anyway that Big Leon is staying. That was the best news of the weekend.
He deserves it.