Steven Gerrard comments on Nikola Katic

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Rangers have been without Nikola Katic this season – but he is now nearing a return to action.

The Croatian centre back suffered a torn anterior cruciate ligament injury last summer, ruling him out for the season.

We’re now coming up to a year since Katic suffered his injury, and Rangers now hope to have him back in the near future.

Boss Steven Gerrard has told The Scottish Sun that ‘the big hope’ with Katic is that he will be back for pre-season training this summer.

Gerrard noted that Rangers have to be patient with Katic, as he suffered a career-threatening injury that can be injured again if not dealt with properly.

Gerrard knows that Katic has a lot of hurdles to clear yet, but the hope is that he will be able to return in pre-season and gear up for next term.

“We’re hoping that he can join the group for pre-season. That’s the big hope,” said Gerrard. “If things progress well from now until then, Niko will come in for pre-season and hopefully start getting as fit as he can, to be available as soon as he can. It’s an injury that you have to be patient with. It’s a career-threatening injury.”

“We all know that when it comes down to knee injuries that are six to nine months, you have to be really careful. There’s no cutting corners. You have to listen to the specialists, take it step by step. There are still a lot of hurdles for Niko to get over. He’s been on the pitch starting to jog, which is a big step forward, and we now have to see how the knee reacts to being loaded at 100 per cent. He’s been running on a machine that takes some of the load off. At the moment there are still hurdles and things to tick in the short-term, but the dream and the plan for us is to have Niko available for pre-season training,” he added.

Katic, 24, has shown his talent with Rangers sine arriving from Slaven Belupo in 2018, but now finds himself in a real battle for game time when he returns.

Connor Goldson, Filip Helander, Leon Balogun, Jack Simpson… Rangers aren’t short of centre backs, and Katic will need to show he has bounced back from his injury.