According to Livingston manager, Gary Holt, Rangers centre-half Filip Helander was lucky to stay on the park in the Ibrox club’s 1-0 victoryin the Betfred League Cup quarter-final.
Holt claimed referee, Don Robertson, went as far as to apologise after the game for getting the decision wrong when the Swede collided with Lyndon Dykes late in the first-half as reported by The Daily Record.
Helander has played 5 games for Rangers so far and has yet to concede a goal, breaking up a successful partnership of Connor Godson and Nikola Katic. The rumours were of an argument between Goldson and Katic but Gerrard claimed it was purely for tactical reasons that Helander was brought into the side.
The £3.5m signing from Bologna has looked the part so far, his performance against Feyenoord mid-week earning him a 7/10 rating from The Daily Record, looking “calm and assured”. He is the most experienced centre-half at the club playing 63 games in Serie A and has 8 international caps – more than the others put together.
Helander did not have a good game against Livingston, yes the side from West Lothian failed to register a shot on target but that doesn’t paint the full picture.
When Rangers tried to play a high line, Helander seemed to get caught out for pace – none more so than Livi’s best chance when Dykes was clean through only to lob the ball way over the bar.
He played an attempted pass back to Allan McGregor straight out for a corner, realising he couldn’t play it across McGregor onto his right foot, he attempted to play it onto his left – it wasn’t even close to the Gers stopper.
In the first-half he performed reasonably well but had obviously been affected by two incidents. The first, a Livi penalty claim – which was a dive – and the second, which was the incident with Dykes.
Helander got turned and Dykes was racing in on goal. Helander and Dykes were tussling for possession and collided. The Swede hadn’t really made an attempt for the ball but both hit the deck and he came out on top, he reacted the quickest, stood up and passed to a team-mate.
It was clumsy and ungainly but it didn’t look like a foul, both players connected with each other at the same time and neither of them had control of the ball. But, the incident unsettled Helander.
Helander has shown so far that he is a solid and reliable centre half, whether it was the plastic pitch, Dykes or that he had made a couple of errors that unsettled him, we’ll never know. In reality, despite the chaos, Livingston only really had two decent chances to score compared to Rangers four or five and Helander did defend well at set-pieces. He looked uncomfortable when he was turned and had to cover but did the basics well, winning his headers and blocking shots/crosses.
Rangers should persist with the Goldson-Helander partnership as it is still in it’s infancy regardless of the reported “grumblings” of Rangers fans (via The Daily Record)- the Feyenoord display demonstrated it’s potential – Helander has enough credit from his initial appearances to suggest that he will be money well spent in the long term. He is, however, now under immense pressure, particularly with Katic waiting in the wings to reclaim his place in the starting XI.