Helander out for the foreseeable future

Can’t get katic back until January.

Katic can be recalled in January.

A Rangers statement said: "Nikola Katic has today joined Croatian side Hajduk Split on a season-long loan.

"Rangers will retain a recall option for January on the central defender, who has made 59 appearances and scored six goals in his time at the club thus far.
 
Just seen thread and haven't looked through it. Suppose different people could have different interpretations of the foreseeable future. Unfortunately I don't think anyone would have it as this side of the year in their guess.
 
Wow, so much nonsense on here.

Katic deal has an option to buy, doubt that's there if the gaffer rated him.

Our squad is fine, never ideal to lose a player of that stature but we have cover.


Would rather see McLelland* from the B Team get playing time rather than sign a free agent who can't play in Europe.

*King is the brighter long term talent but physically less well developed.
 
I’m certain it’s deliberate
Back in the 90's, Some big UK businesses adopted the American
idea of Message of the Day (MOTD) when their employees logged into
their computers each day (IIRC it started with WinNT 3.51, but may have
been in Netware 3. Some content was emphasising company culture/ethos whereas others used it as an Info Source e.g. Network Outage 6 pm.

If we could get that facility in FF so that first access of each new FF session
then we could put items in it like "No, he's not available for Europe", "No, we can't Recall Him" :p Of course, we'd need to have a session expiry so's
to force any new messages on-screen.....wouldn't suit more avid FF posters.

And then again, if we were in the military, it would just be a case of
"read the fkin thread first!"
 
I had a bad injury to Helander down as one of the biggest risks to our season. An injury to Roofe another that could very easily happen.
 
Goldson and balogun will play the European games and Simpson will step in for the league games that we can usgive balogun a rest.

Bassey can play left centre back as well.

domestically if our midfield and forwards are on their game it shouldn’t matter much who plays in defence.

in Europe I think the bigger decision is who plays to the right of Davis. The midfield covering the defence is going to be crucial. As much as I think Joe Aribo is better further forward, he puts in a shift defensively as well and I would rather him than lundstrum or arfield
 
Huge error of judgement letting Katic go out on loan! Really is, I said it at the time.
Helander, great player and love him, but his injury history is not great. Management team should have known better. I know Katic needed games but why not keep him and play him every week in the B Team to get his fitness up and monitor his progress close to home. Then, as he got more time under his belt start integrating him into the squad in cup games (for example). Had we done this - we’d have had cover for this Helander injury.

Very, very short sighted decision making in my opinion.

As it is now, we are one more injury away from a defensive crisis.. poor judgement
Agree. Letting Edmondson go, ok fair enough. But Katic too was tempting fate.
 
Don't see this quite as black as some do.
Yes he is a huge loss. No doubting that.

But, poster yesterday said he had surgery and not a huge issue. He was right on surgery. Let's hope his is right on minor.

Also the Boss mentioned " out a few months" and suggested it more of a tidy up operation. " When they went in they noticed some other little issues " or words to that affect.

Back pre Christmas you would hope. Rather than season wrote off.

Give people were speculating on ACL and that it looked like a studs / knee turn we could have had worse news.
 
He would now because we’re short on centre halfs
Not so much domestically, with Goldson, Balogun, Simpson and even Bassey or a youngster. In Europe he wouldn't have been in the squad anyway so would have made no difference. We only named 3 centre-backs in the Euro squad last season and did exactly the same this season. Had Katic stayed he'd have got, at best, less than a handful of games before Christmas. That's no good at all to a man recovering from a year out.
 
What a difference in a couple of months.

When the pre season games started, we had Goldson, Helander, Balogun, Katic, Simpson and Edmundson all at the club and a defence that had just broken all kinds of defensive records.

Now only 3 of them are left and we've conceded as many goals in the league already than we had by nearly Xmas last season.

The area of the team on which 55 was built is now a big worry in getting 56.
 
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Katic went on loan for a reason - he's not rated as highly as the backup centre-backs we already have.

We're fine for the moment. Another injury would mean we'd probably need to look at reinforcements, but with our current squad we have enough depth. Can't Bassey also play centre half?
 
Don't see this quite as black as some do.
Yes he is a huge loss. No doubting that.

But, poster yesterday said he had surgery and not a huge issue. He was right on surgery. Let's hope his is right on minor.

Also the Boss mentioned " out a few months" and suggested it more of a tidy up operation. " When they went in they noticed some other little issues " or words to that affect.

Back pre Christmas you would hope. Rather than season wrote off.

Give people were speculating on ACL and that it looked like a studs / knee turn we could have had worse news.
I hope his minor tidy up operation ends up a more minor one than Ryan Jack's.

Definitely glass half empty for me today!
 
We are potentially playing out this season with 2 guys (1 who can’t play every game every week due to injury prone) Balogun and Goldson who’s contract run out at the end of the season.

Very worrying.
 
It's very disappointing to be without the big man for any extended period of time but we will quite simply need to manage. If we keep our remaining cb's injury free then Goldson will play every week(as he always does) Balogun will partner him in Europe and Simpson will partner him domestically. On occasions where our domestic game is more difficult than usual Balogun might be asked to play both games that week.

If we need to manage an injury to any of them then Bassey and McLelland will need to be ready. Their training will be tailored towards that now I'd imagine.

Hopefully Helander is back for January. If not lets hope Katic has had regular football up to that point, so we can recall him and he's ready to go.
 
Seems like there's a lot less transparency in football around injuries now compared to in the past. Sometimes we get the full story, others we just get told how long they'll be out or in this case, "out for the foreseeable future." Not just Rangers, but recently I'm thinking about Helander, and Jack with the "underlying issue." Not that the players whole medical history is our business, just it's frustrating when you have no idea what's going on. Am I wrong about this?
 
I find it almost unbelievable but there you go . If there’s no recall clause what happens if Goldson or Balogun get injured ? We’ve gone from having Edmunsen , Katic , Helander , Goldson Balogun and Simpson ( six available centre halves ) to now just three, and just two for tomorrow night
We've got 4

2 players for every position

6 was always unsustainable

Its a significant blow, but the season isn't over, the club won't fold and the 4 horseman aren't saddling up just yet.

Last paragraph not aimed at you specifically, just this thread in general.
 
We've got 4

2 players for every position

6 was always unsustainable

Its a significant blow, but the season isn't over, the club won't fold and the 4 horseman aren't saddling up just yet.

Last paragraph not aimed at you specifically, just this thread in general.
Who are the 4 for tomorrow nights game ?
 
Helander’s reliability is a big problem, regardless of how good we know he is. I wonder how big of a problem or not is viewed within the hierarchy of the sporting department at the club.
 
Was discussing with a pal earlier that in previous Rangers teams there was midfielders, fullbacks or maybe even a striker who could fill in at CB. The current squad there is only really Bassey who can do that, so after a bit of back and forth we settled on that if needs must, Shagger can fill in at CB.
 
Helander’s reliability is a big problem, regardless of how good we know he is. I wonder how big of a problem or not is viewed within the hierarchy of the sporting department at the club.

In what way? Up until a few months ago he’d never conceded a league goal…
 
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