Time for big Helander?

prenzlauerbear said:
I think it's more a case of Gerrard having his fingers burnt after chopping and changing last year. The centre backs haven't been that bad and Helander hadn't even started pre-season upon signing.
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He was only 2 or 3 weeks behind everyone when he arrived we were told how long has he been here now? Must be the best part of 8-9 weeks?

It's not a fitness issue that's preventing him getting into the team.
 
Monts1310 said:
Yes.

I'd play Goldson and Helander.

But I think he'll wait until St. Johnstone, away.
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Yeah it worked well for him changing teams for St Johnston away last year.

Goldson should have been dropped long before now. We can only assume Hellander is a complete haddy.
 
Drumchapel-Bear said:
He was only 2 or 3 weeks behind everyone when he arrived we were told how long has he been here now? Must be the best part of 8-9 weeks?

It's not a fitness issue that's preventing him getting into the team.
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Not sure exactly, but think he was a bit further behind than that? Quite clearly Gerrard wanted to go with the same partnership for the first block of games.

One thing's for sure, this isn't another Grezda situation. Helander is a player.
 
prenzlauerbear said:
Not sure exactly, but think he was a bit further behind than that? Quite clearly Gerrard wanted to go with the same partnership for the first block of games.

One thing's for sure, this isn't another Grezda situation. Helander is a player.
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He signed on 13th of July.

"He's being pushed very strongly so I'm sure he's got heavy, tired legs at the moment," Gerrard said. But I think Filip is on day three or four of preseason, so he's three/three and a half weeks behind the group.

I'll take my time integrating him into the serious games but you will see Filip in the coming friendlies.

We'll try and get some games and minutes into his legs but I don't expect to see him in serious games for a good few weeks yet."
 
Valley Bluenose said:
He cost us £3.5m so he should be a starter? I give you Eros Grezda. He cost us £2m so he should be a starter. I don’t think so.

Goldson made an unnecessary error against the Dhims. Katic had a horrible day yesterday. Both were immense against Legia. In fact both have been steady all season bar the stuff I’ve mentioned, with Katic probably just edging it in terms of good, consistent form.

Helander will come in when he’s shown he’s good enough to displace one of the others, not because of his price tag. If he comes in for Katic - and that remains the most likely outcome - he’s on a hiding to nothing from the good people of FF I can tell you that now. God help him.
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I have no doubt that both Grezda and Helander were signed to start, Grezda turned out a disaster. It is a colossal waste of money if Helander ends up unused. Especially whilst we don’t have any competent left backs.

I don’t think we are there yet and expect to see him on Thursday.
 
Defensively we’ve been poor since the start of the season. I posted after St Joesephs & Progress games about the amount of free headers in our box. Yesterday there were two or three. All of those chances came down our left hand side. Iirc the goal we conceded at rugby park was the same. Forget the mentally challenged game they are a good side and can carve out a chance. in each of our competitive games we’ve gifted teams chances. Some have punished us and some haven’t. It is a big concern
 
HenningBerg said:
Left back is a concern but to say the whole defence has been garbage is nonsense .

Katic has been outstanding apart from the yahoo game where the whole team were terrible , and yesterday where he had his worst game of the season .

Left back aside which is Flanagan’s when fit , the only player in the back 4 who could/should be dropped is Goldson who has had quite a few hair raising moments and poor performances .

However I cannot see Gerrard dropping Goldson .
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Agree with pretty much all of that. Gaffer appears to have a blind spot regarding some players, which is a worry. He's going to have to make some big decisions, personnel wise, this season if we are too see success.
 
I would give them both a rest but not for thursday... the gaffer should be trying both the other lads at the weekend !
 
Drumchapel-Bear said:
Heard a few weeks ago that he was struggling to make an impression and posted it on here. Was denied by ITKs though.

It's worrying that he's not found himself in the team yet. People saying he needs time to get up to speed / wait his chance etc when Ryan Kent walks right into the starting 11 as soon as he's here.

There's some amount of denial on here at times.
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I would agree it's a bit strange and Katic is nowhere near as good as many think-he's a fan favourite but I would have thought Helander would have started yesterday.

Goldson whilst not playing his best is a better defender than Katic. The longer Helander goes without starting the more pressure on him.

I'm not fussed about who gets dropped that's the managers call but the defending yesterday was a calamity at times and we didn't pay 3.5M for back up-it's worrying if he doesn't get a chance soon.
 
We should give him time in the Europa games.
We are up against it anyway to get.put the group and this is the competitive place where we can afford to give them a run out. Slip ups here won't kill us.
 
DylanGer said:
I would agree it's a bit strange and Katic is nowhere near as good as many think-he's a fan favourite but I would have thought Helander would have started yesterday.

Goldson whilst not playing his best is a better defender than Katic. The longer Helander goes without starting the more pressure on him.

I'm not fussed about who gets dropped that's the managers call but the defending yesterday was a calamity at times and we didn't pay 3.5M for back up-it's worrying if he doesn't get a chance soon.
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Chopping and changing each week doesn't help the defence either. I've been told to get use to it as it's what Gerrard will do.

Too much tinkering all over the park.
 
CaptainCourageous said:
Chopping and changing each week doesn't help the defence either. I've been told to get use to it as it's what Gerrard will do.

Too much tinkering all over the park.
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I'm not a fan of the rotation policy but to be fair to SG it's worked a bit better than I feared. However we saw against St. Mirren it doesn't always work-a top drawer free kick saved us.

Helander should be in team if his pedigree and training form merits it-I saw the sense in signing him on the basis of his career up to date I would have thought he was brought in to make the defence stronger. I would have thought that meant he would come in at some stage and yesterday probably showed this is as good a time as any.
 
We need to give Helander and Barisic some game time and see if they can strike up a relationship on the left side.

The current CB pairing is looking vulnerable to root one ball to a target man.

Halliday and Flanagan are a million miles off good enough to start st LB.

Rotating Barisic in and out all the time does him no favours.
 
Miyagi said:
We need to give Helander and Barisic some game time and see if they can strike up a relationship on the left side.

The current CB pairing is looking vulnerable to root one ball to a target man.

Halliday and Flanagan are a million miles off good enough to start st LB.

Rotating Barisic in and out all the time does him no favours.
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Flanagan is the best option we've got at left back. Unfortunately he's out after surgery.
 
We have spent around £20m in two years and haven’t seen a good centre half pairing yet from Goldson, Katic, Worrall, McAuley so hopefully between Edmundson and Helander we will see an improvement. Although I do think playing worrall all of last season was a mistake and means we have missed being able to kick Katic on for almost a year sat watching Worral
 
ive seen helander twice,on these showings i expected more due to his fee.
not to say he will not kick on, if he gets games time,just his uncofortable style.puts me off a wee bit.
plus i thought his first touch was really poor.

ive actually been more impresssed with edmonsons over all style an ability.

katic was always my favourite ,but as expected form will dip from time to time
 
I grew up with a centre half pairing of Forsyth and Jackson. They weren’t great every game but worked well together. You cannot chop and change centre half’s.
 
Barker96 said:
He has only started 2 games and hasn't conceded a goal while bagging an assist & forcing an own goal.

He can't really do much more than that.

It's impossible to stake a claim in the team if you aren't given a crack at it when others have been poor.
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Katic and Goldson today.
Centre mid makes a crazy challenge.
Only concede to a penalty.
What more could Katic have done bar ask McGregor for his gersey and saved the penalty?
 
MightyGersLand! said:
Katic and Goldson today.
Centre mid makes a crazy challenge.
Only concede to a penalty.
What more could Katic have done bar ask McGregor for his gersey and saved the penalty?
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Where did I blame Katic & Goldson for conceding the penalty? They were both very poor yesterday if you can't see that you're either blind or in denial.
 
Barker96 said:
Where did I blame Katic & Goldson for conceding the penalty? They were both very poor yesterday if you can't see that you're either blind or in denial.
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What more could they have done bar save the penalty? Without that it would have been a clean sheet.
That was the logic further up the board re Helander.
 
MightyGersLand! said:
What more could they have done bar save the penalty? Without that it would have been a clean sheet.
That was the logic further up the board re Helander.
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It wasn't the logic at all. Why do you need me to break it down? The fact that we haven't conceded more goals has been masking the deficiencies in our central defence actually.

Helander has played 2 games and hasn't let us down once. Katic & Goldson have looked ropey on more than one occasion. Yesterday was so below par that Helander simply has to be given a chance to see if he can improve us.
 
Barker96 said:
It wasn't the logic at all. Why do you need me to break it down? The fact that we haven't conceded more goals has been masking the deficiencies in our central defence actually.

Helander has played 2 games and hasn't let us down once. Katic & Goldson have looked ropey on more than one occasion. Yesterday was so below par that Helander simply has to be given a chance to see if he can improve us.
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You must be right mate.
I mean, I've watched Rangers my whole life, and you've took a fancy since Barker signed.

Should have changed the thread title to "Time to listen to me, only me, and only what I deem to be important, while ignoring everything that doesn't suit my agenda."
 
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Katic didn't have his best game yesterday but I think he is a better defender than Goldson. I'd like to see Helander given a go in place of Goldson.

Get the feeling it isn't going to happen though.
 
MightyGersLand! said:
You must be right mate.
I mean, I've watched Rangers my whole life, and you've took a fancy since Barker signed.

Should have changed the thread title to "Time to listen to me, only me, and only what I deem to be important, while ignoring everything that doesn't suit my agenda."
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Don't know what agenda you think I have other than wanting to see the team do well on the pitch? Look back on the highlights mate - they only scored from the penalty yesterday, but the amount of chances they created outside of that was just unacceptable.

We need to be doing better than 1 clean sheet out of 5 in the league. Is Helander the man to improve that? Impossible to know yet, but he deserves to be given a chance to find out.

 
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