Steven spoke to me all summer about joining Rangers and I can’t wait to work with him but I’ve no time to be starstruck

RANGERS

CONNOR GOLDSON was Liverpooldaft as a kid and idolised the No.8 who wore the Anfield armband.

But Rangers’ latest recruit – the sixth to be confirmed since the end of the season – insisted he won’t turn up for pre-season training with stars in his eyes just because Steven Gerrard has signed him.

Goldson believes there’s too much work to be done in a short space of time to be sidetracked by his admiration for the man who was instrumental in bringing him from Brighton for £3million on a four-year deal.

The 25-year-old is delighted to be working with Gerrard and revealed the former Liverpool legend has spent much of the summer working on this deal behind the scenes – even before officially taking on the managerial role on June 1.

He said: “Steven had a massive BY DAVID McCARTHY influence on my decision to sign. When he first spoke to me I didn’t really know what I was doing, there were a few clubs interested in me in the Championship and I didn’t really know what to do.

“We carried on speaking and he has been brilliant with me, he said I could speak to him whenever I wanted to or whatever I was thinking.

“We spoke quite a lot over the summer and it got to the point where I sat down with my family and I thought it was the right decision to make for myself and for them. For us all to be happy and for me to be playing football every week at a huge club.

“Now he is my manager and I want to be able to learn off him as a coach and as a manager. I don’t really think there is going to be time for me to be starstruck and be in awe of him.

“We have a lot of work to do this season, we want to improve the team and we want to see how far we can go. There is a lot of work to do and that starts this weekend in Spain.”

Rangers fly to their training camp in Andalucia on Sunday and it is there Gerrard will start putting his imprint on this new-look Rangers team.

Scott Arfield, Ovie Ejaria, Croatian Nikola Katic and Allan McGregor are the other recruits, while Jamie Murphy is now a permanent Rangers player and will be a familiar face to Goldson.

The defender hasn’t had his health problems to seek and had heart surgery in early 2017.

But that trauma reinforced his desire to squeeze every moment out of his career and Goldson admits the prospect of regular football with a massive club was simply too good to knock back after being shunted down the pecking order under Chris Hughton at Brighton.

He said: “I’m delighted to join Rangers, even though it hasn’t taken that long to sign it seems like it has taken forever.

“I’m just pleased to finally get it done and to get the chance to showcase my abilities at a massive club with a huge fanbase.

“I could have stayed at Brighton. They weren’t really desperate for me to go but at this stage, at 25 years old and with the operation that I have had, it just made me hungrier to want to play football.

“That put things in perspective and one of those things was to just play as much as I could.

“Every time I have been given a chance to play I have always done well. I am a player who has always played, apart from in the last two years.

“Those two years have been tough for me personally but now I have the opportunity to get back playing every week and show what I can do. I’m tall,