'Most people now realise how good he is': Rangers await return of one of their giants for trip to Aberdeen

Connor Goldson is on the cusp of returning for Rangers.

One of the old certainties looks like being restored when the Englishman takes his team up to Aberdeen, though. It appears the always-fiesty encounter is set to mark the return of Connor Goldson from 11 weeks sidelined with a hamstring problem. Beale has surely been counting down the days for that comeback. Like one of those before and after picture of a plastic-surgery obsessed celebrity, there is a completely different complexion to Rangers defensively with and without the 30-year-old centre-back. Never better evidenced the night in the first week of October when Goldson was lost to his first serious injury in four-and-a-half years at the club.

It was sustained just before half-time in the Champions League encounter to Liverpool. As Goldson hirpled off, a fascinating contest appeared to be unfolding, the scores tied at 1-1. Only for the Anfield side to run amok with six second-half strikes without reply. The start of 10-and-a-half games without the player, that sequence has witnessed Rangers conceding 20 goals. A leakiness that cost Giovanni van Bronckhorst his job, essentially. During it the club have posted only one top flight clean sheet. In contrast, they did not give up any goals across Goldson’s last two league appearances. Beale, in riding side-saddle to Steven Gerrard for almost three-and-a-half years, knows just how much the then management team benefited from the near-permanent presence of the likeable defender. Incredibly he was only unavailable for seven games across that entire period, wherein he was sometimes rested for early cup rounds. The Rangers manager need only contemplate what befell the club on that horrible evening against Jurgen Klopp’s men to recognise the player’s crucial influence.

“I think, as a manager, you would never want to say that you have bad luck because you come in every day and you work and you wouldn’t want to hide behind luck,” Beale said. “But, from time to time, managers will lose key players in big moments in the season. In the year that we won the league when I was here we managed to keep, pretty much, a consistency in terms of selection through the whole season and keep people fit and healthy. There is a skill and an art to that, but also a bit where you have to be fortunate because of contact injuries. Losing Connor, not only since then but in that game, was massive. Until that moment in that game, Rangers were showing up quite well, weren’t they? Scotty Arfield scored a great goal and obviously it fell apart in the second half against one of the four or five best teams in the world. Since then, we have not looked as strong at set plays and things like that. He has a big impact.”

It is curious to reflect now that there was much mumping over the £3.5million signing from Brighton – Gerrard’s first – before he was ever-present and pivotal in the loss-free title success achieved with a 25-point winning margin. “I think most people now realise how good he is,” said the Rangers manager. “Not everyone – I can’t generalise - but I felt there was an attention on his performances [in his first two seasons] which I wasn’t sure was correct. I think he’s been a fantastic signing for the club, considering the amount of games he has played for what he originally cost. He came in as a bit of an unknown from Brighton because he wasn’t playing regularly and he arrived on the back of a heart problem. You probably couldn’t foresee him playing all those games and doing what he’s done. We have more than one captain in this team. James wears the armband but Connor is a real leader behind the scenes.”

And a performer who possesses an unfailing desire to do his bit for his team, even potentially at his own expense. As Beale was reminded when Leon King was lost to sickness hours before the new manager’s first game last Thursday. A hosting of Hibs in which he was required to field a cobbled-together back four – two midfielders at the heart of defence with all five regular centre-backs missing – that proved soft with the concession of two early goals before a second-half stablising secured a 3-2 victory.

“Connor did like a session and a half and when he heard Leon had taken ill before Hibs he called me and said: ‘I’m playing tonight.’” Beale said. “Don’t get me wrong, I would have loved him to play but we have to be realistic with the schedule we’ve got coming up. I’ve inherited the injury problems at the club. No coach wants players injured so I just have to manage us through it. There’s a sickness bug in the air too, and obviously Leon fell foul of that last week. But I have full faith in whatever XI I picked to get a result. I thought after the Bayer Leverkusen friendly [won 3-0] we could get away with it against Hibs. We did, it was just a lot closer than I would have liked. It won’t be so makeshift tomorrow, which I am pleased about.”

The ambience generated at Pittodrie will be at the opposite end of the spectrum from the welcoming environment he experienced on his reintroduction to Scottish football. Beale relishes being plunged back into a rivalry fuelled by enmity and bitterness second only to the warring for the Glasgow factions. “It’s not one you are aware of until you come into the league. Our very first game in [August] 2018 was against Aberdeen,” he said, Rangers in the Gerrard v Derek McInnes era made to suffer on a few occasions across 15 meetings. “We had Alfredo [Morelos] sent off, and played ever so well against 10 men. They equalised in the last minute [for 1-1] and both managers had interesting post match interviews. Straight away I knew it was on.”