OPINION
Rangers toiled to a 1-1 draw against basement club Dundee on Sunday, and one glaring issue became even more apparent for Steven Gerrard and his coaching staff.
Gerrard has fiddled around with his centre-back pairing on several occasions this season, and has seemingly settled on Connor Goldson and Joe Worrall as his preferred partnership.
That was the duo which started on Sunday, but they did not exactly inspire confidence against a poor Dundee side who look likely to be facing relegation at the end of the season.
Goldson and Worrall’s defending for the Dee’s opener was nothing short of embarrassing, with Worrall allowing Miller to run off him too easily before Goldson inexplicably failed to clear as the former Rangers ace stole in to poke home.
Basic errors like this have dogged the Rangers defence all season, and that is something which Gerrard and his team need to address as soon as possible if they want to maintain their title challenge.
One thing that has been quite disappointing for Rangers fans is the fact that their back line looked so solid at the start of the season, with clean sheets coming at extremely regular intervals.
The obvious change that has been made since then is the axing of Croatian colossus Nikola Katic in favour of Nottingham Forest loanee Worrall, who has become Gerrard’s preferred partner for Goldson.
That switch has gleaned some positives for Rangers, with Worrall and Goldson putting in some really good performances together, but it has also seen these mistakes start to creep into their play.
This really begs the question: why has Katic been dropped so harshly?
There was seemingly nothing wrong with his partnership with Goldson, and while he has not played too well when called upon recently, that can be put down to the fact he has hardly played at all over the last few weeks.
Would it not be advisable for Gerrard to reinstate the forgotten 6’4″ giant alongside Goldson, and see if that duo can reignite that partnership which worked so well earlier this term?
That is the clear move for Gerrard now to make, and he must recall Katic in the coming matches to try and solve this glaring issue.