A lot of people pick sides and then stick to it. He could slip up a few more times between now and the end of the month and you’d still find a combination of excuses and attempts to shift the blame elsewhere.
I like Goldson and to be honest for most of the last couple of months I felt he sorted himself out and took it up a notch. But that’s a few very costly mistakes in quick succession now, and my main gripe is of course, that he keeps his spot regardless. To me that’s absolute bollocks. Gerrard’s done a lot of great work here, but I genuinely fear his loyalty to one or two in particular is going to bite him on the arse and bite him hard. Because if we get close but ultimately fail to win titles, fans will start to call for change, especially when he’s seems to have favourites with whom he trusts blindly. Missing out on titles and having fans lose patience is surely not worth showing loyalty to one or two? Especially when you’ve done so much good work and are so close to finding a winning formula.
The loyalty to players / blind spot thing never sits easily with me.
Gerrard is far from flawless, but this idea that he deliberately overlooks players simply because he likes others - personally, or whatever it is - strikes me as nonsense.
It's surely worth considering the reasons why he might prefer Goldson and Helander to Katic.
For a start Helander is a natural left sided player so that would explain why he gets a game before everyones' favourite Croat (no disresepct to our man Borna), so really the question is why Katic isn't getting in ahead of Goldson.
Gerrard seems to put great emphasis on training. How many times have we heard him say, "He's trained really well this week so deserves his place"? Perhaps he simply feels Katic doesn't train as well as Goldson?
I also think Gerrard likes his central defenders to be good with the ball at their feet.
Admittedly Goldson has looked suspect on occasion, but at his best - and it's been evident in the Europa League games - he appears more composed with the ball at his feet than Katic has tended to do.
We all love the Croat's blood and snotters approach to defending, but in the modern game centre halves need to have a lot more to their game than that and I can see why Gerrard feels his compatriot is the better option.
Which isn't to say Goldson is perfect, he clearly isn't, but that's why we snapped him up for a mere £3m.
The same can also be said of Helander.
I actually agree with the criticism of both Goldson and Helander's performances of late and always have a slightly uneasy feeling about them, but by and large it's been unfounded.
I think we have four very solid looking centre backs, but they will make mistakes.
The constant criticism of them though does begin to get personal and it would only take a couple of errors from Katic - and there's been more than that from him to date - before half this board would be howling for him to be binned again.