Connor Goldson left Rangers this summer after six years at Ibrox. The manner of his own exit still rankles. Speaking on the Open Goal podcast, the defender didn’t hold back on how the club handles departures. His frustration centred on what happened to James Tavernier after 11 years of service. The Connor Goldson Rangers exit saga has reopened a debate about how the club treats players once their time is up. Tavernier’s case was cited as the clearest example.
Connor Goldson spoke out on Ibrox departures and standards
“Mental. I don’t know another football club that could do that after 11 years,” Goldson said, reacting to how Rangers’ longest-serving captain was let go. He went further on what Tavernier gave the club during his time at Ibrox.
“What he gave to the club… I said it after the League Cup Final that he won’t be appreciated until he leaves,” Goldson added, pointing to a captain who lifted trophies and carried the armband through some of the club’s toughest years. You can read the full interview in the Daily Record report on McCoist and Goldson.
For Goldson, the issue isn’t just Tavernier’s treatment. It’s what it says about the culture at Rangers now compared with the standards the club has always claimed to hold itself to.
Ally McCoist’s 2013 warning highlights historical off-field pattern
Goldson’s comments land against a backdrop that Rangers fans know well. Back in 2013, Ally McCoist, then manager at Ibrox, made a point of separating what happens on the pitch from what happens off it.
“Those standards are as important. If not more so than winning games of football. We’ve always had fantastic standards. We’ve prided ourselves on that. Hopefully that will never change,” McCoist said at the time.
More than a decade on, that warning reads less like a passing comment and more like a template for the discussions Rangers supporters keep having. Goldson’s frustration over Tavernier’s exit. His own unsavoury departure. It all suggests McCoist’s plea for consistent standards hasn’t always been met.
Past fallout from Murty argument to Seville final dismissal
This isn’t the first time Rangers have faced questions about how the club treats its own. Lee Wallace and Kenny Miller were both suspended and effectively frozen out after a dressing room row with interim manager Graeme Murty. A dispute that split opinion among supporters and showed how quickly a Rangers career could unravel once a disagreement turned public.
Giovanni van Bronckhorst’s exit tells a similar story from a different angle. He led Rangers to the Europa League final in Seville. One of the club’s biggest European nights in years. He was gone within six months. For many fans, that swift change summed up a pattern where success on the pitch offered no guarantee of stability off it.
Set alongside Goldson’s account of Tavernier’s departure, these episodes point to a recurring theme at Ibrox Stadium. Big moments and long service don’t always translate into the kind of treatment McCoist described back in 2013.
Derek McInnes derby double shows pitch progress amid standard debates
None of this history takes away from what’s happening under Derek McInnes right now. The manager has led Rangers to two wins over Celtic in the space of a single week. First in the Premier Sports Cup. Then in the league. A run that has lifted the mood around Ibrox considerably.
Confidence has grown with each performance, and our McCoist on the derby win coverage captured just how significant that double was for a squad still finding its identity under McInnes. It followed a warning ahead of the Celtic clash that results needed to back up the talk, and McInnes duly delivered with a settled side, detailed in our piece on the confirmed lineup against Celtic.
The results give Rangers fans something to build on, even as the fallout from the Connor Goldson Rangers exit and Tavernier’s departure raises questions about how the club manages relationships with the players who help deliver those moments. McInnes has shown what’s possible on the pitch. Whether the standards Goldson and McCoist both spoke about follow suit off it remains a separate conversation for the boardroom.
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