A month ago Filip Helander was given the sort of Ibrox welcome not witnessed since Bruno Alves and Joey Barton announced that they had signed up to take the title from Celtic.
Both players were paid off long before they completed their lucrative contracts as the hoops kicked on to unprecedented success with nine successive domestic trophies collected.
After signing a job lot of free transfers plus League One starlet Joe Aribo and Oldham warrior George Edmundson Gerrard opted to splash out his biggest ever transfer fee. Even more than he spend on Albanian ace Eros Grezda.
The profile was impressive, apparently a regular Swedish international on the back of three seasons with Bologna (reserves) and in the prime of his career at 26. All for just £3m and a phone call from the Liverpool legend.
Reporting on Gerrard’s interview with Rangers TV the Daily Record told their army of readers:
You can see straight away he’s a huge profile – I think you need that in Scotland. He’s 6ft 4 and can defend the box. He’s left footed and that gives us something we haven’t got.
He can handle the ball – he’s an international player – and he’s another leader. I don’t feel we’ve got enough voices on the pitch so getting another leader in will certainly help us. He’ll help us organise and keep clean sheets, defend the goal with his life and for the amount of money we’ve paid, £3m, we believe we’ve got an excellent player.
Seven competitive matches into the season Helander has still to be risked despite being added to the Europa League squad by Gerrard. A brief substitute appearance in a friendly against Blackburn Rovers presented the English side with their equaliser.
Boli Bolingoli and Christoper Jullien are having every Celtic performance micro analysed by critics, after a month in hiding at Murray Park the signs suggest that Helander is on course to match the impact made at Ibrox by Alves, Barton and Grezda.
