Connor Goldson has two winners medals to his name from four seasons at Ibrox to date, he can soon make it three to complete the domestic set.
For some that would be all, but for the towering central defender, he wants more and more from the next stage of his Rangers career.
It looked like the Englishman would be returning south in the Summer but a contract extension was penned with family happiness providing the bedrock for his football. After four years of playing to win and the significant demands that come as standard as a Rangers player, Goldson has admitted that he couldn’t give it up, even if competing at a higher level.
The former Brighton player stated:
“I don’t think I could now play for a game that wins once every three, four or five games. I just don’t think I could mentally take it. Because I lose or draw a game here and it’s like the end of the world.”
“I’m fortunate that I now have kids and they separate football from real life but I just don’t think I could have been happy losing and drawing games of football. That was a big part of my decision to stay.”
That is exactly the mindset required from proper Rangers players and Goldson is certainly one of those. He was able to taste the challenge of the elite in the Champions League, earlier this season before injury struck. After so long as an ever-present, that was a learning experience for him as well as everyone else on the inside and out, on his value to the team.
Goldson’s words have a resonance with the ongoing situations of Alfredo Morelos and Ryan Kent but they might choose differently, that is yet to be revealed. His words did strike a chord with what Steven Gerrard said of life at Ibrox and that intense pressure to win replicating the feeling he had as a player at the cutting edge of his game:
“I certainly knew what I was signing up to.”
“I knew the history of the club, I knew the tradition up here, I looked in from afar and followed this club. I knew it was a fantastic club and institution, with great support, but it’s not until you actually get in and you’re actually in this seat that you do feel the intensity and the size and the magnitude of the challenge and the role.”
Managers and players will continue to come and go, but the intoxicating intensity of life at Rangers will endure.