Niko Katic is the modern-day Rangers fans’ Marvin Andrews, a non-nonsense centre-half, a defender first and a footballer second – both quite happy to head the moon out of the box if it meant the prevention of a goal.
There is though, a limit to this type of defender, domestically it’s fine when it comes to set-pieces at either end of the park but, given how we play, they need to be as comfortable on the ball as a midfielder and be able to match forwards for pace – Katic, as much as I love him, can’t do either of these.
At his best, Legia Warsaw at home to qualify for the group stages of the Europa League, he can be immense, a man possessed, however, at his worst, basics like clearing crosses become fraught with danger, fans still have nightmares about his performance away from home against St Johnstone.
Speaking to The Athletic, Katic has expressed his disappointment at having to move on to FC Zurich especially when we have struggled of late with injuries in his position and in keeping the ball out of the net:
“I played three 45 minutes in pre-season and I was happy with how I did. I made one bad pass against Sunderland but it wasn’t anything big. I expected to play against West Ham and Tottenham at Ibrox and was hoping everyone would be looking at me again, but I was the only defender who didn’t play.
“I was really disappointed, so I went to his office and asked him to just tell me what was going on as I didn’t think I deserved that after getting injured and trying to get back to help Rangers. If I played bad then fair enough, but at least give me a chance.
“He said he liked a different type of defender. I’m not Messi but I see the defenders doing typical defender things, not anything special or making the last pass. If someone is Virgil van Dijk then fair enough, but it is hard to watch the numbers of goals they are conceding right now as I believe I could have helped — especially with the goals from set pieces.
“It’s Scotland, so a lot of the away games are physical no matter what you do and you need to have defenders to defend.”
In James Sands, Ben Davies and John Souttar, it’s pretty clear what type of defender Giovanni van Bronckhorst wants to play alongside Connor Goldson, one that can handle themselves but also one that can contribute to building play, that Katic was also in the last year of his deal meant that now was the time to sell if an offer came in and we did well to get a non-contributor off the wage bill.
To make things worse for Katic, Leon King has emerged from the academy and already looks more assured on the ball and in defending 1v1 situations, he’s been thrown in at the deep end a couple of times and has not once looked out of place.
For the big Croatian, he has left with our best wishes because, regardless of talent, he always gave everything he had and clearly did everything he could to improve as a player, if only some with more ability had his appreciation of opportunity and work ethic.