A lot was expected of Filip Helander when Rangers signed him from Bologna for £3.5m in the summer, but the Swedish international’s first season at Ibrox has been a mixed bag.
Despite the costly outlay, manager Steven Gerrard opted to use the 27-year-old sparingly in the opening months of the season, but by late October, he had begun to establish himself.
However, Helander suffered a serious foot injury in the defeat to Celtic in the Betfred Cup final back in December and he missed the next three months of action. Assessing the defender’s first season, fans on Twitter had a wide variety of responses:
Bottom line we need him fit asap
— big jeff (@greegsy77) April 22, 2020
In one word, Solid!
— RangersUltra (@ultra_rangers) April 22, 2020
He was decent and we played better with him in the team. Reads the game very well.
— LuxInterior4209 (@bboysshadrach) April 22, 2020
I think if we had him and the fridge in, we would look much more solid defensively as he rarely gets caught out, albeit he is as slow as a week in the jail
— Matthew (@mattyA1672) April 22, 2020
A lot of money for someone I’m not convinced is any better than what we have. Take that as you like.
— Stuart Ferguson (@TK169) April 22, 2020
So slow but his defensive awareness and ability to read the game is 100% the best out of all the defenders we have. If he had the pace he would easily be a £10 million player. That game away to Porto highlighted how good he was to me.
— FPN? (@fpnrfc) April 22, 2020
Blighted by injury but showed genuine quality.
— Chris McLaughlin (@Chr1sMcLaughlin) April 22, 2020
Slow and overpriced
— The Collector (@thecollectorpro) April 22, 2020
Painfully slow, but his reading of the game means he rarely gets caught out.
For the money we spent, I’m not his biggest fan tbh.— Faceless ? (@FacelessRanger) April 22, 2020
If we look at things purely from a statistical point of view, the centre-back has done pretty well. The Light Blues only conceded ten goals in his 17 games, with just two defeats, the aforementioned cup final loss and the 2-1 defeat to Young Boys back in early October.