“I need Helander back fit sharpish”

raywilko said:
Puts a bit of pressure on Helander to come back 100% on his first game. But that being said; even a half for Helander would’ve been better than Katic today.
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I haven't been that impressed with Helander either and why is Goldson not coming under the same scrutiny,for me he's as vulnerable, he's no Beckenbauer.
 
Would be looking to sell Katic in the summer. It’s the same inconsistent shite in both seasons now. He’s still making the same errors, jumping for high balls when he shouldn’t, also very poor positionally for a centre back. Sell him
 
kingwilliam said:
Anyone thinking Helander is the answer is kidding themselves on , he was rank before his injury and I remember several members on here wanting him replaced with Niko.
IMHO Goldson is terrible and can't pass out from the back , 9 times out of ten losses the ball and the defence is instantly on the back foot , did this a few times against Braga.
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truth is, none of the 3 bought for decent cash are much cop. Goldson is ok, no more no less
 
biggee said:
As is the case with many Helander has benefited from his inactivity. He is vastly overrated by some on here and also it seems by current manager, he would for me at best be a back up and thats being generous.
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A back-up to who, exactly? Katic? Goldson?
 
Wishbone said:
I take your point to a degree re scoring more but if you don't think we have a defensive problem after that today... and lets be honest a few games now, then you are blinkered. It doesn't matter how good your attacking play is when the opposition win it back, hoof it up the park and your centre backs are like the chuckle brothers ( may one of them rest in peace) then its a problem.
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When your defence is unreliable it puts everyone on the back foot because they all end up back tracking and don’t have confidence to transition. If your confident in your defence you can take more risks.
 
We don’t suddenly become a bad team overnight but something isn’t right and when we took the lead yesterday I was happy as the team were playing well and creating until we lost a second poor goal through a bad mistake again.
I remain optimistic that we will pick up again
 
DEJA BLUE said:
I reckon

I reckon this could be very shortly, if we go out on wednesday I don't think he will hang around for the Scottish cup, his manner and body language has totally changed, he wants out I think
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Honestly mate, I’m starting to think this myself as well. He just looks a Different guy. Difficult to explain but more than anything he just looks a bit fed up. Dunno if that’s with the players, the club, himself, things not working.
He just seems different.
 
Mearns Ranger said:
Honestly mate, I’m starting to think this myself as well. He just looks a Different guy. Difficult to explain but more than anything he just looks a bit fed up. Dunno if that’s with the players, the club, himself, things not working.
He just seems different.
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A few of us were saying similar heading back from the game yesterday. Starting to look like hes either chucked it or thinks the job required is above him and doesnt know where to go.
 
Danger Zone said:
It sounds like Katic gets more respect, trust and guidance from Richard Gough than he does from his own manager. Which is a shame really.

What I don’t understand is why Gerrard has been so desperate to drop Katic previously, but when the guy is having an absolute howler and probably the worst game of his career, that’s when he chooses to keep him on the park for the full 90. Baffling...
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Desperate to drop him? It's called using his squad. Early in the season he had to ease in Helander so they were getting a game each and Edmundson was given 2 or 3 of the smaller games. He wasn't "dropped".

He was "dropped" for Edmundson this month after of a very poor performance, and even then he got his shirt back after 2 games when Edmundson should have been given more games.
 
brain said:
Desperate to drop him? It's called using his squad. Early in the season he had to ease in Helander so they were getting a game each and Edmundson was given 2 or 3 of the smaller games. He wasn't "dropped".

He was "dropped" for Edmundson this month after of a very poor performance, and even then he got his shirt back after 2 games when Edmundson should have been given more games.
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Yeah when you whip a player out of the starting line up after a couple of bad games that’s what you’d call it, and it’s happened to him several times. He wasn’t in quite as much of a rush to do similar with Worrall (he did eventually but long after the damage was done) despite being another young player and a loanee, and I don’t think he’d do the same with Goldson even if he was held at gunpoint.
 
Danger Zone said:
Yeah when you whip a player out of the starting line up after a couple of bad games that’s what you’d call it, and it’s happened to him several times. He wasn’t in quite as much of a rush to do similar with Worrall (he did eventually but long after the damage was done) despite being another young player and a loanee, and I don’t think he’d do the same with Goldson even if he was held at gunpoint.
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He’s only been dropped once for not performing well.
 
bluenosebazza said:
Hes been dropped for Helander and Edmundson this season, Edmundson was then subsequently dropped after 1 bad game.
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We are talking about "dropping" a player due to poor performance here, and that has only happened in February. As I said, Helander was gradually rotated in earlier in the season. That is not the what we are talking about here, what we're talking about here is whether Gerrard has been desperate to "drop" Katic due to poor performance but not doing the same with other for poor performers. He dropped him a few weeks ago and brought him back in too quickly.
 
Big Katic had a stinker yesterday granted, but he’s been superb in other matches for us, %^*& knows what happened yesterday. Maybe a game or two on the bench but he shouldn’t be thrown under the bus like that
 
I think Katic wont be here next season, and unlike many on this thread I'm not in any rush to defend him.

He has contributed massively to our downfall since the Winter break putting in very poor performances against Aberdeen, Killie and St Johnstone.

Yes he's not the only one, but if you want to win the league that level is just not good enough.
 
brain said:
We are talking about "dropping" a player due to poor performance here, and that has only happened in February. As I said, Helander was gradually rotated in earlier in the season. That is not the what we are talking about here, what we're talking about here is whether Gerrard has been desperate to "drop" Katic due to poor performance but not doing the same with other for poor performers. He dropped him a few weeks ago and brought him back in too quickly.
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He should never have been 'rotated out' for Helander, there was no reason to if not for poor form. Helander and Goldson then spent weeks falling over each other in the box without the risk of criticism or being benched. Katic comes in due to Helanders injury, has a couple of wobbly games and gets dropped for Edmundson. Edmundson then gets one shaky game and is dropped back out.

Katic had an absolute nightmare yesterday but getting publicly humiliated and the threat of being dropped doesnt seem to be working as well with him as Gerrard thinks it does. Some players get plenty chances to play their way out of poor form, Katic doesnt seem to be afforded that.
 
12 games, 8 clean sheets. Helander has the best record of any of our defenders and you make it sound like he was a disaster. Helander was signed to start and was rightly rotated in when available, very gradually it has to be said. Katic has been dropped for performing poorly once and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. If anything you could say you are protecting a player who is off form. Edmundson shouldn't have been dropped so quickly and yesterday wouldn't have happened.
 
Danger Zone said:
It sounds like Katic gets more respect, trust and guidance from Richard Gough than he does from his own manager. Which is a shame really.

What I don’t understand is why Gerrard has been so desperate to drop Katic previously, but when the guy is having an absolute howler and probably the worst game of his career, that’s when he chooses to keep him on the park for the full 90. Baffling...
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Gerrard’s treatment of Katic from day 1 has been shamefully aybsmal.
 
brain said:
12 games, 8 clean sheets. Helander has the best record of any of our defenders and you make it sound like he was a disaster. Helander was signed to start and was rightly rotated in when available, very gradually it has to be said. Katic has been dropped for performing poorly once and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. If anything you could say you are protecting a player who is off form. Edmundson shouldn't have been dropped so quickly and yesterday wouldn't have happened.
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What have i said about Helander that made him sound like a disaster? I said him and Goldson had a few games when they looked poor together, which is true.

Back when Helander was put into the team it was Goldson who was off form and shouldve been coming out of the team. Hes made of Teflon when it comes to Gerrard though.
 
bluenosebazza said:
What have i said about Helander that made him sound like a disaster? I said him and Goldson had a few games when they looked poor together, which is true.

Back when Helander was put into the team it was Goldson who was off form and shouldve been coming out of the team. Hes made of Teflon when it comes to Gerrard though.
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You said they "spent weeks falling over each other". And how is true they were poor? Again, 12 domestic games and 8 clean sheets. Of those 12 games we won 10, drew 1 and lost 1 to an offside goal (cup final).
In Europe he played in both Porto games and both Feyenoord games. We kept clean sheets at home against both. Helander has probably been our strongest performer at centre back.
 
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brain said:
You said they "spent week falling over each other". And how is true they were poor? Again, 12 domestic games and 8 clean sheets. Of those 12 games we won 10, drew 1 and lost 1 to an offside goal (cup final).
In Europe he played in both Porto games and both Feyenoord games. We kept clean sheets at home against both. Helander has probably been our strongest performer at centre back.
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They were poor against Hamilton, they had a terrible 2nd half against Aberdeen, they were poor away to Feyenoord.

After Helander got injured we had our toughest run of fixtures but won at Easter Road and Fir Park with clean sheets, clean sheet at home to Kilmarnock and won at Celtc. Weve even had 4 clean sheets after the break during our horrendous run with Katic in the team. Our problems go way beyond playing Katic or Helander alongside Goldson.
 
More revisionism.
Helander has had some dodgy moments against Feyenoord, away, and in a couple of league games.
In truth after looking like we had a real good strong group of central defenders, in all honesty we don’t it seems.
It’s quiet evident that Goldson and Helander are is chosen two.He doesn’t rate Katic at all, and this has been two seasons now he is has mismanaged his development.
Katic I think will end up leaving in the summer and go on to be a top European central defender.Unfortunately it won’t be with us.

It seems he doesn’t’ quite fully trust Edmundson either.At the moment.
But one thing is for sure. His constantly chopping and changing of players has not solidfied our defence.In fact the exact opposite!
The one game Edmundson looked dodgy was in a 4-1win...away from home...and on a plastic pitch! And if memory serves Goldson was equally as culpable that day, but once again escaped any flak that was flying.

Quite honestly Gerrard’s man mgmt skills for me…leave a lot to be desired.
He lambasts certain players, constantly.Whilst others get such an easy ride.
His quotes of how ‘he sees it’, make great headlines for the media, but must be soul destroying for certain players, and is getting tiresome.At times it looks these quotes come across as a deflection from his own part in some of these debacles.

You have a lot to learn about how to handle players Steve.
But I still think you will get there.
This experiment has just begun.
 
bluenosebazza said:
Our problems go way beyond playing Katic or Helander alongside Goldson.
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Of course they do. I feel sorry for Katic. He is a very likeable guy and this comment from Gerrard was very wrong. I only took issue with the idea that Gerrard drops Katic on a whim, an idea that I've seen repeated often on this forum. Gerrard is obviously of the opinion that Helander is a better player and very gradually phased him into the team earlier in the season and the results were very good in that period. Of late Helander hasn't been available but Katic deserved to be dropped. Gerrard's mistake was to bring Katic back in too soon and we saw the result of that yesterday.
 
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brain said:
Of course they do. I feel sorry for Katic. He is a very likeable guy and this comment from Gerrard was very wrong. I only took issue with the idea that Gerrard drops Katic at a whim, an idea that I've seen repeated on this forum. Gerrard is obviously of the opinion that Helander is a better player and very gradually phased him into the team earlier in the season and the results were very good in that period. Of late Helander hasn't been available but Katic deserved to be dropped. Gerrard's mistake was to bring Katic back in too soon and we saw the result of that yesterday.
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I dont think the issue is he drops him on a whim, its that hes the only player of the 3 'senior' CHs we have who is at risk of criticism or being dropped after a couple of bad performances. Same last season when Worrall and Goldson were horrendous together after Goldson and Katic had been fine for most of the season, Katic comes back in when the leagues lost and we have our best run of the season.
 
bluenosebazza said:
He should never have been 'rotated out' for Helander, there was no reason to if not for poor form. Helander and Goldson then spent weeks falling over each other in the box without the risk of criticism or being benched. Katic comes in due to Helanders injury, has a couple of wobbly games and gets dropped for Edmundson. Edmundson then gets one shaky game and is dropped back out.

Katic had an absolute nightmare yesterday but getting publicly humiliated and the threat of being dropped doesnt seem to be working as well with him as Gerrard thinks it does. Some players get plenty chances to play their way out of poor form, Katic doesnt seem to be afforded that.
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Helander is levels above Katic.
 
Danger Zone said:
Still chucking his players under the bus to protect himself. Pathetic
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He's been doing this since soon after he got here. I pointed it out several times, then gave up because it's just routine behavior from him. Yell at players? Fine. Tell them they cost us points? Fine. But do that ONLY behind closed doors; never criticize them in public.
 
bluenosebazza said:
He should never have been 'rotated out' for Helander, there was no reason to if not for poor form. Helander and Goldson then spent weeks falling over each other in the box without the risk of criticism or being benched. Katic comes in due to Helanders injury, has a couple of wobbly games and gets dropped for Edmundson. Edmundson then gets one shaky game and is dropped back out.

Katic had an absolute nightmare yesterday but getting publicly humiliated and the threat of being dropped doesnt seem to be working as well with him as Gerrard thinks it does. Some players get plenty chances to play their way out of poor form, Katic doesnt seem to be afforded that.
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Yet we barely dropped a point the 1st half of the season, total revisionism, Helander had a couple of iffy moments, but hardly as bad as you’re trying to paint here.
 
buc11 said:
Play with two strikers, create, score more goals and take the pressure off the defence.

Their margin for error is too small. St Mirren, Hearts, Aberdeen, Ross County, Kilmarnock, Livingston, Hibs and St Johnstone may have been out of the game completely if we had two strikers and Katic may not look like a nervous wreck.

We've scored 10 and conceded 7 goals in those 8 games. Defence isn't the problem.
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Tbh mate I was thinking that it was all the defences fault especially yesterday, but when I took a cold hard look at the stats then I agree with you.

www.thefishy.co.uk has a form table for the last 6 and the last 10 games which clearly shows that our defence is as good as or better than anyone's but the goals for is very damning.

Kevin rhat bastard Clancy must be loving this, I think that last ridiculous red card against the paedos and the subsequent 3 match ban, might just have been the straw that broke the camel's back with Alfie.

Ps Gerrard was incredibly stupid to say what he did about Helander, I think that the pressure is getting to him.
 
See this 'chucking players under the bus' pish, it is exactly that, pish.
We've all got eyes, we all know Katic had a stinker, Gerrard saying it publicly or privately doesn't make it any different, all he is doing is telling the truth.
What do people want him to say "Aye, big Nikola was magic today"? I'm sure that would go down well.
And if Katic responds to his public slagging by Gerrard by going into a shell or turning on his manager, then he shouldn't be at the club, he should be having a good look at himself and doing his best to perform at a higher level.
Sick and tired of our players not accepting the responsibility they need to show in order for the team to perform to the level we expect of them.
 
Tagsbear said:
Yet we barely dropped a point the 1st half of the season, total revisionism, Helander had a couple of iffy moments, but hardly as bad as you’re trying to paint here.
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I havent tried to make Helander sound bad, i pointed out him and Goldson had 4 or 5 really poor games together and neither were publicly called out or under the threat of being dropped.
 
CaptainCourageous said:
Plenty wanted to see us start with two strikers on the park. He continued with his usual set up and it was far from good enough in the first.

Within 4 minutes of Aribo left back and two strikers on the park we were level.

From five minutes in you could see Katić was struggling. He even had words with Edmundson as if he was looking to bring him on.

We go 2-1 up, continue to create - Kamberi sticks a ball across goal that no one gambles on, Morelos wild - then we take a striker off and go back to the set up that's seen us struggle through the last 9 fixtures. We fail to get a grip of the game with Davis on the park, St. Johnstone equalise.
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You know what would have been effective at St Johnstone mate,Ross McCrorie protecting the ch’s and Greg Docherty’s engine getting up and down the park beside Arfield- leaving Hagi centrally to supply Morelos and Kamberi up front.

It might not have been overly pretty but I’m absolutely convinced it would have won us the game.
 
The Gon said:
I think Katic wont be here next season, and unlike many on this thread I'm not in any rush to defend him.

He has contributed massively to our downfall since the Winter break putting in very poor performances against Aberdeen, Killie and St Johnstone.

Yes he's not the only one, but if you want to win the league that level is just not good enough.
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He was a warrior vs Legia Warsaw. Theres a reason we make no profit on players. We want them chucked the minute we hit bad form. Remember we wanted to punt Barisic for £1m?
 
Helander being left sided brings better balance to the team. Goldson being our most experienced centre half should play on the left side when Helander is out.
We need a strong defensive midfielder away from home in the SPFL. We are the softest touch in the league.
 
supersonic said:
He was a warrior vs Legia Warsaw. Theres a reason we make no profit on players. We want them chucked the minute we hit bad form. Remember we wanted to punt Barisic for £1m?
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We can't have warriors one game if they're gonna throw away points the next. We wont win the league with players like that. It's clear Gerrard has had enough of Katic & we will look to sell. We should still make a profit on him.

Also I never wanted Barisic punted I thought there was a player in there and he was being poorly managed last season.
 
PaisleyBlueBear said:
Hellander is our best centre half
I reckon Katic is finished
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I don't think Katic is finished. I don't know what is going on with him, but I get the feeling that he is playing in a way that he is not entirely comfortable with. The only passes he seems to be allowed to make are to Goldson, Jack, Davis or back to McGregor. Yesterday he was playing like someone with a groin strain who was wearing high heels.

A real off day, but one that he cannot afford to have at his level. After he makes an arse of it in games he tends to get bullied, yet against Celtic he was a lion.

Hellander reminds me of Gough a wee bit the way he defends and the way he passes.
 
People contradicting themselves all over the place here. Those making the most noise say Gerrard shouldn’t have favourites then go on to defend the indefensible. At times Katic has looked decent but when he’s bad he is utterly horrific. Yesterday, Aberdeen and last season’s performance away to accies is as bad as we’ve seen from any centre half since Gerrard arrived. If he’s then repeating that at times in training it’s no surprise that he has dropped out. There are others who have have bad games but perhaps in areas where there isn’t many alternatives or alternatively, they’ve not been as horrific as the big man has been. He’s a player who has been touted as something he’s not by a merry band who often consider those who don’t play that often to be better than they actually are.
 
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