Vital Rangers has already covered how Filip Helander can’t have long left in a Rangers shirt, the Sweden international, even discounting his current injury plight, finds himself in the position of being a backup rather than first choice after the signing of Ben Davies in the summer.
Helander’s quality has never been in question, however, when he went off against Celtic in the 2019 league cup final, little did we know that he would barely be seen again and that we had already seen the best of him.
Rangers fans knew that he couldn’t be relied upon so why did we sign John Souttar rather than someone like Danilho Doekhi?
Helander’s current timeline for recovery is “after the World Cup” but, if reports from Tuesday night’s game against Ajax is anything to go by, it might be even longer.
Seen Helander going into the stadium last night, still on crutches. Don’t think we’ll see him play again.
— Thunderlips (@BigThunderlips) November 2, 2022
The mainstream media didn’t pick it up but fans around Ibrox saw Ianis Hagi having to hold the main door open for the big Swede, who was using crutches to minimise the weight being put through his injured foot, what this means is only guesswork seeing as the club are reluctant to keep us informed.
He’s either suffered another relapse or he has had corrective surgery to get to the root of a problem that is now three years old. There has been one comeback already but suffered a knee injury halfway through our title-winning season, Leon Balogun playing the role of able deputy. That his foot injury flared up again so quickly after resuming playing suggests that it was only a matter of time before he broke down again.
With James Sands and Leon King being trusted regularly to fill in at both domestic and continental levels, I just can’t see how a player with Helander’s recent problems will be seen near the first-team squad again. It’s a sad end to a Rangers career that promised so much more when his formidable partnership with Connor Goldson first set the cornerstone of our most famous title win and provided the backbone for an unbeaten run in Old Firm derbies.