This piece is an extract from yesterday's Rangers Insider newsletter, which is emailed out at 5pm every weekday with a round-up of the day's top stories and exclusive analysis from the Rangers Review team.

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If you type Connor Goldson into an internet search engine, you’ll find reams upon reams of chatter about contentious handball decisions.

The microscope has certainly been focused on the Rangers vice-skipper for two incidents in recent games against Celtic and Dundee United.

What you should find instead is discussions about the 30-year-old's positive impact since a long-awaited return to the Rangers backline.

Suddenly a defence that looked so fragile a few weeks ago you could drive a double-decker bus through it has been more resolute and robust.

Since his return against Aberdeen last month, Rangers have kept three clean sheets in five games and are giving up fewer opportunities on goal.

This upturn in defensive stability isn’t down to Goldson alone, of course. A fit Ben Davies has contributed greatly and the pair look to be developing an understanding game by game which bodes well for the rest of the season.

READ MORE: Rangers' full-back balance Michael Beale must strike - Iain King

One can only hope, particularly for Davies’ sake, that the former Liverpool man steers clear of niggling injuries which have plagued him in recent years.

It’s something noted by his former Preston centre-back partner Paul Huntington who spoke to the Rangers Review last week, saying: “Once he gets a run of games that’s when you’ll see the best of him when he’s fully match fit and playing week in, week out.

“Rangers have managed him well and he’s played the last three games so hopefully that’s him got his fitness now, I think he’ll be an asset.

“I played against Connor Goldson as well in League One and the Championship. If they can both stay fit and get a good run of games together, I think they could have a good balance.”

Huntington’s Goldson-Davies assessment seems to ring true on the handful of games they’ve played together as a pairing. They complement each other well and both are good enough to concentrate on their own game as opposed to over-compensating for the other as we witnessed earlier in the season, when the likes of James Sands and to a lesser extent Leon King, given his lack of experience, was drafted into the back four.

Similar to Davies, Goldson has had his own injury troubles to seek this term. He had to endure an unusually long spell on the sidelines after hobbling off against Liverpool back in October.

At the time, there was trepidation as to what his absence could mean for a Rangers defence going forward and it didn’t take long before we found out, with the Anfield side running riot in the second half.

Although not immune to criticism, Goldson is the bedrock on which this Rangers defence is built and the team is far weaker without his presence.

It's not only on the park where he is able to influence matters, as Michael Beale recently highlighted.

“I think most people now realise how good Connor is,” the manager said prior to the 3-2 win over Aberdeen at Pittodrie.

Rangers Review: (Image: NQ)

“We have more than one captain in this team. James Tavernier wears the armband, but Connor is a real leader behind the scenes. That Liverpool game when he picked up the injury is a good example.

“Connor is a strong voice. We all saw that the season where there were no fans and all we could hear was him moaning.

“But that’s a good thing as he gives the team personality.

“Over the club’s last 250 games, he’s probably played 99 per cent of them.

“When you have a guy who is so consistent in his selection, and then you lose him for so many games, it does rock the squad. Especially so when the other centre-half, the left-sided one, changes so much.”

Beale talks a good game and his point is spot on. Goldson is essential if the Ibrox side wish to change the narrative of this season and turn it into something more becoming of Rangers Football Club.

Simply put, if Rangers are to end the campaign with silverware they’ll do so with Connor Goldson at the heart of it.