Rangers to reintroduce Niko Katic into first-team squad, rep confirms
Croatian defender Niko Katic is expected to return to Rangers for pre-season to help Giovanni van Bronckhorst’s troublesome defensive woes.
According to the Scottish Daily Express, the Bears manager is struggling at the heart of the team with Connor Goldson set to leave and Calvin Bassey attracting interest from a number of clubs.
Leon Balogun is yet to be offered a new deal at Ibrox and Filip Helander is still injured leaving just the incoming John Souttar and young Leon King in that area.
The 25-year-old wants to return to Glasgow anyway and one of his representatives, Ivo Scepanovic, reaffirmed his plans having spent the 2021-22 season on loan at Hadjuk Split.
“Right now we expect Katic will go back to Rangers and take part in the pre-season preparations,” Scepanovic said.
“He suffered an injury near the end of the season but it was not a serious injury. He was able to make the bench for the cup final.”
Useful
If everyone was fit and staying, you could say that van Bronckhorst has too many central defenders to choose from but things are never that simple in football these days.
We could feasibly see three of our current four leave before a ball is kicked next season and the other is still struggling to recover so every body we can get is desperately needed right now.
Katic’s return from his homeland, as a cup winner, will be music to the ears of the boss even with Souttar’s arrival and King’s emergence last season.
But you can’t go through the entire pre-season with just the two of them as they all need to be built up slowly to match fitness.
Jack Simpson might be another who sticks around longer than originally thought for pre-season until van Bronckhorst can get his defensive unit sorted just to provide cover should the unthinkable happen.
In other Rangers news, the Gers could have had a very different name as the club’s historian unearths documents from the 19th century.