GvB has "outstanding" Goldson replacement for Rangers in "wonderful" £3.1k-p/w tank - opinion

Rangers boss Gio van Bronckhorst is facing a summer of change at Ibrox as a number of players look set to depart from Glasgow.

Loan players Aaron Ramsey and Amad Diallo will return to their parent clubs, whilst Leon Balogun, Scott Arfield, Allan McGregor, Steven Davis and Connor Goldson are all out of contract.

This means that Ross Wilson and the Dutch head coach are poised to endure a busy transfer window as they go about replacing these first-team stalwarts if they are unable to keep hold of all of them on new deals.

However, one player from the list that they’ve already replaced is centre-back Goldson. Wilson moved swiftly in January to seal a deal for Hearts tank John Souttar on a pre-contract, which means that the 25-year-old will be arriving at Ibrox in July on a free transfer.

Journalist Ewan Murray dubbed the Scotland international “outstanding” earlier this year, and that term perfectly describes the level of replacement the club have found for Goldson.

In the Premiership this season, Souttar has been in phenomenal form and has eclipsed the current Gers machine in a number of categories, as shown in the graphic below.

As you can see in this comparison, with stats provided by SofaScore, Souttar has performed to a higher standard on a consistent basis, and that is why he should be a fantastic signing for Rangers. He has proven his quality at Premiership level and shown that he can be a better option than Goldson defensively, with his sublime ability to defend his own box illustrated perfectly in those statistics.

Former Hearts boss Craig Levein was previously effusive in his praise of the enforcer, saying: “I’ve known him since he was 12 years old and he’s just got better and better. When he came here from Dundee