Goldson and Katic

At times Katic commits himself when he shouldn’t, ends up out of position and can put us under pressure. Needs to learn when and when he shouldn’t go, this will come with experience but as it stands goldson and Helander are our best CB’s.
 
I prefer Helander and Goldson but thats 3 games now with 0 goals conceded so its hard to argue with that.
 
My only minor criticism of goldson is that I don't think he's very dominant, he doesn't always hold up well against a target man. A few times I've seen him fail to win headers that he should be.

It's never really caused too many issues but I see it as a weak point in his game
 
It’s a debate that’s skewed by two main factors; Goldson is undroppable (the rights and wrongs of that are for another thread) and Helander cost £3.5m.

From what I’ve seen, I’d personally like to see Helander and Katic together because I feel there’s less mistakes and a good balance there but it’s unlikely to happen due to what I’ve said above.

Great problem to have and I wouldn’t swap any of our CBs for anyone else in the league.
 
dh1963 said:
I thought big Katic started shakily today, but his partner helped him through it.
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100% - Katic has good attributes/ more physical and quicker than Helander, but Helander is more technical and reads the game better than Katic.
For hustle and bustle games I’d go with Katic, but in Europe for example, I think Helander is the better option.
 
Katic is by far our best defender. Helander can defend very well but when it comes to a foot race he woefully lacks any real pace, and while goldson can also defend well he can Ben prone to a mistake and his first touch at times is shocking. Katic is also prone to a mistake or 2 now and again, but he seems to be more solid in the tackle and in the air and he has a bit of pace when it’s needed. I like a pairing where there is one pure defender, lumps the ball out the park or goes for the headers and bullies forwards, and one defender who can pass out to the midfield, and who can chase down when needed. Never saw the point of having 2 ball playing defenders. IMO katic and goldson are a great pairing who can massively improve game on game together. These would be my first choice
 
Gordon1951 said:
Think we should sell Goldson in January and play Katic and Helander as first choice.
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We've conceded less goals in the league that any other team. We've come through Europa League qualifiers against 4 teams, only one of whom managed to score against us. We've qualified from a Europa League group where every team was higher ranked than us and we conceded less goals than any other team in the group.

Despite all this you want to sell the one player who has been in central defence for every game? Mental.
 
Far to many people turn a blind eye when katic makes a mistake yet if it was tav goldson they would get hounded on here.

Katic got potential but no what we are needing at the moment liable for a few nerves moments with him!

Helander and goldson gerrards main centre back pairing and we will see this when helander is back fit
 
dh1963 said:
I thought big Katic started shakily today, but his partner helped him through it.
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Yep I'd agree with that.

I'm a Katic fan, but he did struggle at times yesterday, particularly when Brophy came on.

Goldson is looking more and more assured with every game and is the best central defender in the league, for me.
 
FettercairnLoyal said:
Helander has done nothing to suggest he is our best CB. People get hung up on the fact he cost big money and played in Serie A. If we had signed him for 500k from the English championship people wouldn't have such a high opinion of him
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Not sure what kind of argument this is. I think it's quite obvious his experience in Serie A, as well as the fact he was a winner with Malmo who knows what it takes to win a title, gives him an edge over the others in terms of reading the game and experience. That's a pretty legitimate reason to rate someone. You can't just toss pedigree like that to the side. There is no way a player at Katic's current development is handling players like Soares and Mariga over the two games the way Helander did.

I don't spend every waking minute on FF like some people, so don't really understand this "Katic is judged to a different standard" than others patter. If anything, he's one of the most popular Rangers centre back I can remember in basically all my time following us. Even when we were looking steady with Goldson and Helander, there was still a clamour to get him back in the team. The former, in particular, gets more stick than nearly every other player in the squad.
 
FettercairnLoyal said:
Helander has done nothing to suggest he is our best CB. People get hung up on the fact he cost big money and played in Serie A. If we had signed him for 500k from the English championship people wouldn't have such a high opinion of him
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That’s one of the most bizarre arguments against a player I’ve ever read on FF.
 
ICA_86 said:
I don’t know how anyone can say that Katic is ‘by far’ better than Helander.

I’m not meaning it badly, but I think it shows a lack of understand of football beyond the ‘run fast hit hard’ mentality.
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There have been games where helander has been caught out, probably more so in Europe, but we haven’t been punished too much. The 3 main defenders are prone to mistakes, absolutely but I feel katic with his pace and certainly his youth gives our defence I but more solidity that with goldson and helander. Helander is a good defender no doubt about it, but he’s as slow as a week in the jail. He reads the game well but mentally he needs to be 5 yards quicker than everybody on the park, I’m not sure he has that in his locker. Goldson reads well also, and he passes out quite well, it’s his lack of pace that worries me but he makes up for it in pure desire in most matches. Still for me katic and goldson.
 
Only my opinion but I think Edouarde will have Katic on toast on the ground ,if it’s an Ariel battle Katic will win all day long ,I prefer goldson but eventually Katic will be better as helander will fade extremely quickly when the little pace he has goes ,helanders timing was n the tackle is exceptional
 
I don’t have any problem with any of the top 4. They’re the 4 best central defenders we’ve had since Bocanegra left and they’ve all got different strengths.

Anywhere else in the pitch I’d say horses for courses and rotate the hell out of them but cb and keeper are still the exceptions for most folk in terms of squad rotation.

Niko catches the eye because of his more swashbuckling style. He’s more obviously a style of defender we haven’t had for years - an old fashioned stopper who attacks everything. Because it’s so long since we’ve had that type of player we might be overvaluing him. There are certainly occasions when he gets lured out like a kitten chasing wool.

Helander has a contrasting style - he looks awkward, slow, clumsy. But he reads the game better and his positioning is good enough I haven’t seen anyone outrun him and cause a problem. Also being left footed moves the ball faster in possession.

Overall the eyes say Katic is a better defender..... but the last numbers I saw showed the team conceded fewer chances/ goals/ expected goals with Helander and far fewer through the left cb area.

Our coaches haven’t been watching 8 years of soft Rangers defenders who can’t attack the ball so maybe they don’t have the same need we (the fans) do for a Katic style defender. I like to think their analysis is just a little more objective and focuses on the substance a little more than the style.
 
Gers said:
A like katic but he’s so inexperienced, 4 times today he got dragged out of position following balls he shouldn’t have been. A like the big man but can see why Gerrard prefers helander.
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His passing is poor under pressure he just boots the ball. When we need to retain possession that is no use.

His positioning g is also very average. Hellander is a better player no doubt.

Katic is improving but has some way to go.
 
Katic made a couple of mistakes today that better teams may have punished. He has good potential but is a little rash at times. He also let the ball drop a couple of times in the second half for some reason instead of attacking it.

Goldson is clearly the no. 1 CB at the club.
 
prenzlauerbear said:
Not sure what kind of argument this is. I think it's quite obvious his experience in Serie A, as well as the fact he was a winner with Malmo who knows what it takes to win a title, gives him an edge over the others in terms of reading the game and experience. That's a pretty legitimate reason to rate someone. You can't just toss pedigree like that to the side. There is no way a player at Katic's current development is handling players like Soares and Mariga over the two games the way Helander did.

I don't spend every waking minute on FF like some people, so don't really understand this "Katic is judged to a different standard" than others patter. If anything, he's one of the most popular Rangers centre back I can remember in basically all my time following us. Even when we were looking steady with Goldson and Helander, there was still a clamour to get him back in the team. The former, in particular, gets more stick than nearly every other player in the squad.
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Spot on. The guy is a cult hero with the support, the notion he gets a lot of stick is utterly mental.
 
dh1963 said:
I thought big Katic started shakily today, but his partner helped him through it.
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I agree I feel that on the whole he is decent but he has a couple of mistakes in him every game which could be costly. There isn’t much in it but Helander is the better of the two
 
I do like Helander, but I feel a more safe with Katic in there, especially in sprint against an attacker.
Also, Katic is our biggest goal threat from set pieces.
It's an excellent problem to have, but if we beat the Mhanks and he plays well, there's no need to drop Katic for Helander.
 
SDF is correct and people are ignoring the absolutely crucial aspect of partnerships. Helander's own attributes don't actually matter....what does he bring to Goldson? In actual fact Goldson's game has steadily improved again since Katic came back.

Against that I feel Barisic has had a few weaker performances....

So manager needs to consider blend of the defence.
 
Necro said:
Helander is the best CB at the club by a distance.

I love Katic and he has the most potential but our support is somewhat deluded when it comes to him
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I totally agree. Niko is certainly one for the future
 
Rangerstillidie said:
It find it hard to believe anyone watching our defence could argue that Goldson and Helander is our best pairing. The goals were losing with that pairing were horrendously soft.

The same occurred last season when Katic got bombed out for Worrall.

Goldson best performances have all come along side Katic.

We’ve conceded less goals when we’ve got Goldson and Katic together.

Helander might be the best defender at the club but that doesn’t meant he’s part of the best partnership. It would be Goldson and Katic for me every day of the week (until we get the chance to see Katic and Helander).
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Doubt we will ever see much of a katic, helander partnership consider how we like to play out from the back and neither of them have the best of passing abilities
 
Goldson is the one I have question marks on.

He is lethargic on the ball and always wants another touch and he's not as good in the air as Katic and constantly pushes the attacker in the back to compensate
 
So the thread is predominantly made up of folk voicing concerns over Katic and his rashness and inexperience (fair enough I say, he can indeed be rash and he is still young), and their concerns over him being soundly dominated by the guy who had the beating of Goldson when half fit in a cup final and who pounced on Goldson’s howler at Ibrox, yet we’ve got fantasists wanting us to believe Niko’s somehow bulletproof and Goldson is some sort of target for unfair criticism? (In spite of having those cup final gaffs more or less erased from existence I might add).

Christ lads, maybe actually read the threads before dropping paragraphs of fiction. Irony being that this fiction, if anything, more or less suggests an agenda of your own. I’m quite content with our centre half’s, they’re all very good players, but if you actually read the threads there’s a lot more focus put on one player’s shortcomings than on the others. Kids eh...

Lucky for us you can pick any combination and you’ll probably still have a fairy rigid defence.
 
Danger Zone said:
So the thread is predominantly made up of folk voicing concerns over Katic and his rashness and inexperience (fair enough I say, he can indeed be rash and he is still young), and their concerns over him being soundly dominated by the guy who had the beating of Goldson when half fit in a cup final and who pounced on Goldson’s howler at Ibrox, yet we’ve got fantasists wanting us to believe Niko’s somehow bulletproof and Goldson is some sort of target for unfair criticism? (In spite of having those cup final gaffs more or less erased from existence I might add).

Christ lads, maybe actually read the threads before dropping paragraphs of fiction. Irony being that this fiction, if anything, more or less suggests an agenda of your own. I’m quite content with our centre half’s, they’re all very good players, but if you actually read the threads there’s a lot more focus put on one player’s shortcomings than on the others. Kids eh...

Lucky for us you can pick any combination and you’ll probably still have a fairy rigid defence.
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Katic's positioning after Goldson's error just proves the point again.

And also by even his own standards Katic had a ropey game yesterday so quite a few poster's are surprised at the OP .

Katic is a very solid prospect and indeed our CH's in general provide good cover but it is beyond doubt that Katic is a fan favourite/cult hero and it is just reality as such he doesn't get the same level of scrutiny as the other two get.

This is not unique to Katic and there are players whom the fans turn on for fun...it's all just football.

Come Sunday every sensible Bear will want the very best from each player and as stated Katic has been through a few of these as has Goldson and the rest of the team-it's time for them just to find that next level during these games-do that and the tide can turn.
 
Necro said:
Nobody comes close to his positional awareness, he will occasionally get caught out by pace at times but none of the other 3 read the game anywhere near as well
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Great thing is he can help the other 3 (and the youngsters) in training making them ALL better. You don't get to play Serie A at the back if you don't know what you're doing.
 
Danger Zone said:
So the thread is predominantly made up of folk voicing concerns over Katic and his rashness and inexperience (fair enough I say, he can indeed be rash and he is still young), and their concerns over him being soundly dominated by the guy who had the beating of Goldson when half fit in a cup final and who pounced on Goldson’s howler at Ibrox, yet we’ve got fantasists wanting us to believe Niko’s somehow bulletproof and Goldson is some sort of target for unfair criticism? (In spite of having those cup final gaffs more or less erased from existence I might add).

Christ lads, maybe actually read the threads before dropping paragraphs of fiction. Irony being that this fiction, if anything, more or less suggests an agenda of your own. I’m quite content with our centre half’s, they’re all very good players, but if you actually read the threads there’s a lot more focus put on one player’s shortcomings than on the others. Kids eh...

Lucky for us you can pick any combination and you’ll probably still have a fairy rigid defence.
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Yeah we get it, you love Katic. Your argument works the opposite way with some who ignore Katic's flaws completely & shout that he's our best defender (& there are tons on here who do that). Goldson gets plenty stick on here (& deservedly for the instances you point out)

I don't see why it can't be looked at objectively. There isn't much between the centre halves & unfortunately there isn't one is who is a lot better than the other 3. They all have their flaws.
 
final_straws said:
Yeah we get it, you love Katic. Your argument works the opposite way with some who ignore Katic's flaws completely & shout that he's our best defender (& there are tons on here who do that). Goldson gets plenty stick on here (& deservedly for the instances you point out)

I don't see why it can't be looked at objectively. There isn't much between the centre halves & unfortunately there isn't one is who is a lot better than the other 3. They all have their flaws.
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You’re not reading my posts properly if that’s you’re take away, particularly since I’ve said what you said in your second paragraph long before you said it. So no, you don’t “get it”, the issue isn’t I love Katic, it’s the determination to obsess over his flaws and conveniently ignore those of his cohorts.

Goldson does get sick, but it’s not from a majority and the Katic fans aren’t a majority as the storytellers and fibbers would have you believe.
 
Helander will, correctly, come in for Katic once fit. But that's going to be a while yet and Katic is a fine deputy until then. Gerrard has done a great job of sorting out our centre backs from the shambles he inherited.
 
Hopefully we get some good fortune from Katic and set-pieces this Sunday, something we really missed in the LCF.
 
Helander has more pace than given credit for-what he does have is an awkward running style that reminds you of big Bert that gives people the fear.

The bottom line on this is that over the piece on here Katic gets a lot less stick than the other two and there's always a clamour to get him back in the team. I don't think there's even a debate on that aspect.
 
The height of Katic especially against Julian will be important, Goldson then picks up Ajer, my concern is who picks up Edourd as we don’t really have any other commanding headers of the ball.
 
Helander is better than Katic. Katic has the raw materials but he can learn a lot from Helander.
 
thenorthseabear said:
The height of Katic especially against Julian will be important, Goldson then picks up Ajer, my concern is who picks up Edourd as we don’t really have any other commanding headers of the ball.
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Borna? He won all (I think) his headers v the hammer throwers of Killie
 
Earl of Leven said:
SDF is correct and people are ignoring the absolutely crucial aspect of partnerships. Helander's own attributes don't actually matter....what does he bring to Goldson? In actual fact Goldson's game has steadily improved again since Katic came back.

Against that I feel Barisic has had a few weaker performances....

So manager needs to consider blend of the defence.
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People don’t seem to get this.

So many are judging who is best by their transfer fee. I see one defender in our team getting hauled over the coals for small micro errors which haven’t even led to goals.
Our other two CHs have made unforced errors that have led to us losing bad goals.
Unfortunately the management team have seem to have agreed with this thought also.
However once again Goldson has looked far better with Katic alongside him. It was the same last season and the same this season.
Katic has far more to his game than his array of critics seem to think. He works far better in partnerships with other defenders and even made Worrall look half decent on the odd occasion he played alongside him.
The main criticism of Katic is of him being headstrong and jumping into challenges to quickly, or being caught with a quick striker because of it.
However we have barely lost a goal through this because our CHs work better as a partnership with him in it.
Our defensive errors that have led to goals have been mostly due to hesitancy on the ball, slack passes or individual errors.
 
Jaws II said:
People don’t seem to get this.

So many are judging who is best by their transfer fee. I see one defender in our team getting hauled over the coals for small micro errors which haven’t even led to goals.
Our other two CHs have made unforced errors that have led to us losing bad goals.
Unfortunately the management team have seem to have agreed with this thought also.
However once again Goldson has looked far better with Katic alongside him. It was the same last season and the same this season.
Katic has far more to his game than his array of critics seem to think. He works far better in partnerships with other defenders and even made Worrall look half decent on the odd occasion he played alongside him.
The main criticism of Katic is of him being headstrong and jumping into challenges to quickly, or being caught with a quick striker because of it.
However we have barely lost a goal through this because our CHs work better as a partnership with him in it.
Our defensive errors that have led to goals have been mostly due to hesitancy on the ball, slack passes or individual errors.
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Helander has had the better career so far. I think Katic's biggest area that needs to improve is his reading of the game-is that care area in anticipating things that he often gets caught short-when it's blood and snotters he'll knock that out the park. Against Killie he was all over the shop-his timing was out and he was constantly fouling to recover positions in his jumps. Goldson absolutely cruised the game so I'm sorry I don't buy this he makes his partner look good stuff.

Also notable teams are targeting him as the weak link....
 
For me, Helander is the best defender right now from all three.

Katic doesn't think about when to go for the ball or when to sit off. He just attacks it every time. Once he learns that, he'll be an outstanding defender who'll have a very good career.

Some defenders never seem to learn it, but I'm confident he will.

We could potentially be set in the centre half position for the next 5 years or more as it stands.
 
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