Rangers’ bid to stop Celtic from winning 10-in-a-row suffered a bit of a blow this week.
Nikola Katic is set to be ruled out until the New Year after suffering cruciate ligament damage.
The Croatian centre-back has been a fairly big player for Rangers since arriving two years ago and although he wasn’t in the best form during the second half of last season, he did score the goal that gave the Gers their first win at Celtic since 2011 back in December.
Steven Gerrard already has three other centre-backs, but there’s no margin for error this season and Katic is going to need to be replaced.
Gerrard has raided former club Liverpool on quite a few occasions in recent years and now he should look at Sepp van den Berg.
The Dutch centre-back joined the Reds last summer but he’s still pretty far away from staking a claim to start regularly under Jurgen Klopp in competitive games, with Virgil van Dijk, Joel Matip and Joe Gomez his competition next term.
A loan could do wonders for his development and with Rangers needing somebody of his profile, maybe Gerrard – who has signed Ryan Kent, Ovie Ejaria and Sheyi Ojo from the Anfield club over the past two years – should ask the German manager about Van den Berg, who has started three cup games this season.
He’s still only 18, but there’s a reason why he’s already made his senior debut for Liverpool and it’s because he’s a top prospect and a ‘really promising‘ one, according to Klopp.
And a year with Gerrard at Ibrox could prepare him for challenging for first-team football on Merseyside this time next year.
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