Cup final defeat was my WORST day in football, admits Goldson

LEFT utterly bereft on the Hampden pitch, an occasion Connor Goldson had envisaged as his best day in football turned out to be his worst. The Rangers centre-back admits it would have been easier to cope with being hammered by Celtic in this month’s Betfred Cup final rather than losing a game they had dominated. Discovering later that Christopher Jullien’s decisive goal should have been ruled out for offside felt like a bucketful of salt tipped into the widest of wounds. Tomorrow offers a chance for some derby redress. And Goldson is adamant that, after enduring so much pain, Steven Gerrard’s men should approach Parkhead with confidence drawn from their ultimately fruitless display at the national stadium. ‘It was horrible, especially in a cup final,’ said the ex-Brighton man, reflecting on the feeling from December 8. ‘It was probably my worst day in football. Sometimes you think you’d rather walk out of there having been battered, outplayed and having lost by three or four nil than lose the way we did because it was heartbreaking after being in control of the whole game. ‘We need to use the level of our performance in the cup final as a platform. We showed everyone this game is not a mismatch and we’re just as good as them and can outplay them at times. ‘I went home afterwards, sat down and thought what more could we have done, what more could we have given as a team? There weren’t really any answers.’ Alfredo Morelos missed a second-half penalty after Celtic right-back Jeremie Frimpong was ordered off. Playing the last half hour against ten men, Rangers still couldn’t find a way beyond Fraser Forster. Goldson’s devastation was clear at the final whistle. ‘With my personality, and at this club, I built myself up for three days thinking there was no way we were going to lose that game of football,’ he recalled. ‘Then you play and, after five or ten minutes, I thought it was our day. ‘I could tell with the hunger and the intensity we had — we were playing the majority of the first half in their half, although the goal didn’t come. ‘We got the penalty and their boy was sent off, so I thought: “Here we go, we get one and we can go on and win the game”. ‘We didn’t, though, and ended up losing. The emotion then comes to you straight away. You see their players celebrating and you look at your own team-mates, with whom you spend every day, and know we haven’t managed to get the result. It hurts. I’m not going to sit here and say it doesn’t. ‘I’ve heard people say you shouldn’t show emotion but we’re all humans and it showed on the day how much it meant to us.’ Rangers also lost this season’s opening Premiership derby at Ibrox but, after two wins over Celtic last term, Goldson argues Gerrard’s side have significantly closed the gap during the last 18 months. ‘It’s two good teams going head to head and the result can go either way,’ he added. ‘There isn’t a divide in quality between the teams any more.’ Odsonne Edouard has often been the man who makes the difference for Celtic. The 21-year-old French forward, who wasn’t fit enough to start in the final at Hampden, has amassed five goals against Rangers to date. ‘You can’t focus on one player and just try to follow him around,’ said Goldson. ‘Then, all of a sudden, you’ll have runners going behind you. Because he (Edouard) is clever. He’s not your out-and-out No 9 who plays directly up against you and wants to run the channels. ‘He wants to drop in and get on the ball more, to leave space in behind for others to run into. That’s how Celtic get a lot of their goals. ‘They have numerous players who can hurt us, wide players, number 10s and 8s who score goals. So we just need to play as we do every week, defend as a unit and try to make it as difficult as we can for them to score past us.’