Helander - Excellent.

I was really curious to see how Borna played with Helander, really pleased to see they were excellent together tonight.

Really impressed with Helander. Particularly like how he stands up to everything. He puts attacking players off and breaks up their play just by getting in good positions and just getting in the way. He's also very calm, just gets on with it. I really like him so far.
 
Great performance - very composed and cool on the ball as well. Good in the air. I'd rather he had a more solid partner though and hopefully Katic will get a chance. Somehow I just can't see Goldson being dropped.
 
Positional sense and decision making is excellent ,not a foot wrong .

The other two can slug it out to partner him but you do feel so sorry for Katic ,big man hasn’t done much wrong .

He looked really promising. Sound positionally, strong in the tackle and in the air and quick.
 
Some of the stuff written about him has been mental.

Pish about him not impressing in training, yet he's been a fixture in the Sweden squad for years now. It just didn't add up.

He waited patiently for his chance and now he's taken it.
 
He was superb tonight and now deserves to start.

Not sure if he or Goldson allowed the completely free header early in the second half but given his performance I will give him the benefit of the doubt.
 
Says it all when a player can come in from the relative “cold” and stroll a fixture like tonight. A lot of Feyenoords second half play was inside Tav and Goldson but big Fil was there to mop up. Outstanding tonight.
 
Fantastic performance, the problem with pairing him with Katic, is that they both like to play on the left hand side.
 
He’s not a guts and blood centre half, although still looks very strong. It’s more his positional sense that has caught my eye. It seemed a bit of a nothing moment but their free kick in the first half that comes in-between our GK and defence. He shielded the player and got his body in the way. Took the danger right out of it.
 
You could see withing 15 minutes his positional sense was a level above what we have there already. Looks fast as well and mopped everything up brilliantly.

Goldson is more of a ball-playing defender and Helander simply looks like a no-nonsense type so I think that partnership will see both of them flourish.

Not sure Helander and Katic would work as well as they are similar types.
 
He was excellent. Wouldn’t mind seeing him and Katic as a pairing for a while. Goldson makes me nervous at times. Scary to think we also have Edmundson sitting there too and from the few times we have seen him he looks a monster too.
 
I'm not going to go FF style mental about the performance, but he had a really solid game and looks like a very good player. Think he'll be a first pick before long.
 
He was head and shoulders above Goldson, but i wont get carried away with one game.
For me Katic comes back in and we keep some sort of continuity going, last season should be an example of changing the 2 center backs when they were going well.
 
Considering where we were not so long ago we are so lucky to have all the CB’s we do - because over a long season we’ll need them.

Tonight, Helander showed why he was signed. Solid, calm and not too bad on the old pace either. All good
 
It is one area of the park that we surely have no doubts about?

We must have 4 of the best 5 CHs in the league.

Now i know it isn't a position that anyone wants rotated but we must be, as SG would say, brave, and rotate here when necessary. Keep all these boys fresh but with enough competitive minutes to be useful when called upon and we have this area of the pitch sorted.
 
He was excellent. Assured, calm and confident. Won everything in the air, distribution good, positional sense was spot on and he’s pretty quick too. Also gave us good balance on the left side. All in all, damn fine!
 
i have to hold my hands up ,even though id only seen him twice
under 21s v chelsea an cup game
i was worried about his overall game

but loved the way he covered the full backs an showeed a great turn of pace
 
Its clear he is positionally better than anything we have. He follows a run better than Goodson or katic.

For me, Katic dominates vs teams who wont try and play from the back.
 
Fantastic performance, the problem with pairing him with Katic, is that they both like to play on the left hand side.
Hasn't Katic just been forced to play there to accommodate Goldson. I thought Katic was a right footed, right sided CB. Katic could definitely play both, and must be a better bet than Goldson just now.
 
I'm not going to go FF style mental about the performance, but he had a really solid game and looks like a very good player. Think he'll be a first pick before long.

Nothing wrong with going mental over a good performance when it's like tonight against a team like Feyenoord in a European competition.

Different when it's against some no mark team of course.
 
We need more than 2 quality central defenders and looks like we have 4

It's a better problem to have than be stuck with Russell Martin
 
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