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Dear Member, Club 1872 has been in dialogue with Rangers for several weeks regarding Michael Stewart’s offensive and defamatory comments on Sportsound regarding Alfredo Morelos and Jim Traynor. Rangers were in agreement with us that Michael Stewart’s comments were completely unacceptable, and made strong representations to the BBC on that basis. It was correct that the club engaged directly with BBC Scotland to make their position clear and attempt to resolve this issue. Rangers fans deserve to receive value for the licence fee which funds BBC Scotland’s activities. The decision to reinstate Mr Stewart, and the attempted justification for that reinstatement, makes it clear that under its current leadership BBC Scotland has no intention of ever properly discharging its duty to a significant section of licence fee payers in Scotland. In an eight minute rant, Mr Stewart did his best to cast doubt on racist abuse of Alfredo Morelos. He then went on to describe the placement of PR stories, an issue he had completely fabricated, as being “more concerning” than racist abuse and “the main story”. This clear and disgraceful attempt to minimise racism should have been condemned by BBC Scotland but instead they have completely ignored it. His defamatory comments about Jim Traynor were not only false and inflammatory but in our opinion were a factor in the physical assault on him just days later. Quite simply, Michael Stewart should have been sacked on the spot. The contrast between how BBC Scotland dealt with this and how the BBC in England have dealt with similar issues is stark. The assertion by BBC Scotland that they have now adequately resolved this issue by simply explaining Mr Stewart’s responsibilities to him is an insult to the intelligence. Mr Stewart was already well aware of his responsibilities having had several complaints lodged against him for similar behaviour - most notably when he denied that Rangers supporters were placed in a dangerous crushing situation at Rugby Park earlier this season despite clear evidence to the contrary. There is a pattern of behaviour with Michael Stewart on any Rangers related topic and his motivation is abundantly clear to anyone who pays attention. BBC Scotland’s reputation, already damaged by their refusal to deal properly with their ongoing biased coverage of Rangers, now lies in tatters over this matter. It is decisions like this that have led to more and more questions being asked about the future of the licence fee. Rangers supporters are correct to mistrust BBC Scotland and it is clear that the organisation is deeply flawed at an institutional level. There is no accountability, no integrity and no responsibility - from senior management all the way down to Mr Stewart’s level. Rangers are correct to withdraw from all dialogue and we believe that those discussions should not resume until the BBC is able to demonstrate with action, not words, that they have regained some control over BBC Sport Scotland.

An oversight on my part. I thought the Referee was excellent tonight.

After the despair of Sunday, completely elated tonight. What a tremendous team performance. I am absolutely delighted for Ryan Kent. Let's hope he gets a resurge in confidence from that, not just his goal but his defensive performance in the second half. Well done to the team. Not a single failure tonight. Now kick on from here domestically and take more of those chances. Well done to the management. Got it right tonight.

Bring on Copenhagen in the next round.

I fear that we will regret missing three (3) gilt edges chances in that half.

I like the way @Rick Roberts is able to articulate brilliantly how we all feel. This is another great piece. Great job!

The most refreshing part of the evening.

We have a good side who can perform against other good sides who play football. Our problem is that's not the bulk of the Scottish league. It has to be figured out how to deal with these hammer throwers.

Let's not. Think back over the last eight years and enjoy this!

To put this result and achievement into perspective, 7 years ago tonight I witnessed Rangers being held 1-1 away to Stirling Albion.... 1st team to get to the last 16 of Europa League after coming through the qualifying rounds....

I thought the pressing was spot on. In the first leg we didn't cover their wingbacks - our full backs were tucked in too much. And, their midfield runs into the half-space weren't picked up. Today, our fullback pressed their wingbacks aggressively with our midfielders covering the runs in the half-space. Offensively, we continued where we left off in exposing their high line. Terrific stuff.

I have to say that having a decent referee, a decent surface, and a distinct lack of hammermen in the opposition make a huge difference.

I thought his defensive work was brilliant; bursting a gut to cover every blade of grass.

This is a great result. We've just beat the form team in Portugal home and away. Europe keeps delivering emphatic signs of our improvement. Realising that we were in no danger of losing our lead to Porto with 15 minutes to go was really good. This is even better.

Braga had a couple of chances, both headers. We showed them the outside and won the headers from the crosses. They had 13 corners and several free kicks. Both Goldson and Edmundson stood up to it. We battered them, scorned three very good opportunities, missed a penalty, had a goal VARred off, and put away the hardest chance. A great ball from Hagi, played blind; then Kent's first touch was sublime, taking him across the defender. A firm finish. Kamberi's first 30 minutes was hard, he insisted on being offside. On three occasions, standing on the half-way line would have saved him. In saying this, I thought he added a lot, he is a strong runner. I cannot decide on the man of the match, it's between Edmundson and Jack? Anyone fancy a pop at Man U next? It would be a huge money maker.

Edmondson was excellent, composed!. Goldson was also excellent, nice to see Ojo coming on and doing well, Kamberi did well and worked hard all night

Sorry there was no match thread, could this be made the match thread?

Gutted I missed it. Just assumed we would lose. That will teach me!

As promised I’m back to celebrate at 9 ? what a performance!

Tonight was a reminder how much we miss Ryan Jack when he's not available. I thought him, Scott Arfield and Connor Goldson were immense but there wasn't really a failure tonight and it's a long time since that was the case. And imagine being a Braga fan turning up to see that fantastic Rangers support in your own back yard.

Isn't that something special, what an achievement.

Agree with all that and I thought the subs worked and were at the right times. Bring on Hearts. I think we'll get one of the English clubs - if they all get through. My first positive post for about 3 weeks

Our game management was spot on tonight!. Can we not just play in Europe every week?

Was great to see Edmunson handle the game so effectively. Hardly any game time this season and then playing away from home in Braga, great job!

A very comfortable win. Credit to the players for maintaining their composure, finally taking a less probable chance and defending very, very well. Fans were also fantastic...

Just like being at your work, then.

Doubters and Haters - up ye's

He didn't look nervous at all.

I also complained to the BBC, here is the generic response in full. To my knowledge Stewart made no apology himself. Thanks for contacting us regarding Michael Stewart’s comments on Sportsound on 3 February. Please accept our apologies for the delay in replying.As set out in the BBC’s complaints process, if others complain about the same issue, for efficiency our response to everyone may be the same. We’re sorry not to reply individually, but we hope this response addresses the points raised.On Sportsound on 4 February the programme carried the following apology and acknowledgement that the previous evening’s programme did not meet our editorial values and standards:“We apologise to James Traynor for the discussion on Sportsound last night. It was not fair and balanced and he did not have the opportunity to respond.“On this occasion we did not adhere to our editorial values and standards and we have reminded those concerned of their responsibility to follow our guidelines while working for the BBC.”BBC Sport Scotland has also released the following statement:“Following Sportsound on Monday February 3rd we have clearly explained the BBC editorial guidelines around fairness and accuracy to Michael Stewart. We expect our pundits to be forthright, but fair. Michael agrees with this. On that basis Michael is now available for selection for Sportscene and Sportsound.”We trust this addresses your concerns, and thank you again for taking the time to get in touch.

Nice to see Fat Eck featuring on Gersnet. It seems like a lifetime ago when the likes of @JohnMc and myself were regulars on his blog. Excellent article too!

Since we're airing personal "beliefs" about the Scottish football authorities and their foot soldiers, the referees, here's my thoughts. I've watched the game for over half a century and in that time I've seen things change from being mildly pro-Rangers to profoundly the opposite. "Things" being the way games are refereed, how punishments are meted out and how games are presented by the media. There's no doubt in my mind that at one time things generally tended to go in favour of Rangers on the park, and certainly in the media, but that changed somewhere along the way. I've often thought when it was that Rangers became disadvantaged. I think any preferential treatment we enjoyed disappeared during Celtic's NIAR years but it wasn't until the Souness years that we became pariahs in our own back yard and since then our relationship with authority has been universally disagreeable. In the last 10-15 years this has become an active vendetta. I am clear in my mind there is a specific and sustained attempt by the authorities to damage Rangers. There is no question remaining that this is translated on the pitch to deliberate cheating by several referees. The only surprise left for me is that there should still be supporters who prefer to deny this. In a country where denial and cover-up are fundamental aspects of life, where decades of child abuse by the Catholic Church and a major sporting organisation can simply be swept under the carpet, is the notion of institutional cheating really so difficult to accept? Several people said to me at the start of this season that Rangers would not be allowed to win Celtic's title and so it has panned out. This isn't sport any more, it's tribal dominance at any cost, whatever it takes.

Fat Eck is a great writer, well done getting him Frankie.

As always, excellent stuff from @Rick Roberts so make sure you set aside a few mins to have a read later! https://www.gersnet.co.uk/index.php/news-category/current-affairs/1151-the-jerking-of-knees-and-other-tales Part 1 - Rebuild Begins I’ll reset the clock to when Dave King and the three bears came in: January 2015, over five years ago now. Let’s count this as ground zero as the previous regimes were a sand upon which nothing purposeful could be built. And at that time almost every facet of the club was a pitiful, dilapidated mess. 2015, a New Year and McDowall was in place following McCoist’s departure. The football was dreadful, soulless and fruitless - lurching to third place in that year’s Championship tells us everything we need to know. The boardroom was a battlefield and much of the corporate violence and parting shots from the charlatans are still being felt many years in the future. The first six months on the pitch were a write-off but then more important work and energy were required elsewhere, repairing the club and laying down some proper foundations for the first time in four (if not fourteen) years. With that in mind, given our place and time, Mark Warburton was somewhat of a coup. Up-and-coming, a decent enough shout and generally well-received. He came aboard in June 2015. We got some good value and promising players in the door, and importantly, we started to take tangible steps forward. We had some football and players to properly celebrate for the first time in a while. One thread to consider which is still valid today were the budgetary constraints. For Rangers, and Rangers-sized expectations, the money was still very limited. He came, he saw, he was gone (or was pushed out the door he had opened). Things had run their course and perhaps Rangers had out-grown Warburton. By the end, the timing and manner of departure in Feb 2017 were inglorious and it left us in a bit of a pickle. Youth coach Graeme Murty stood up and stepped in. This was still our first season back in the SPFL Premiership and it had been a steep learning curve for everybody. Pedro Caixinha joined in March 2017 and was probably the first contentious move from the club but with some of the players brought in (e.g. Bruno Alves and Mexican internationalists) I could certainly see the intrigue at the time. In reality (through migraine-inducing hindsight) it was a disaster and probably wasted a whole season. The Caixinha experiment ended not much more than six months later. Player-wise we arguably saw a general improvement. However, we undoubtedly saw too much wastage and shouldered many unwanted burdens which would linger for a few years. Caixinha was perhaps doomed from the start and was certainly never going get a fair crack at it, as the press were on his back from day one and wishing him to fail - that said our board should have known better. Next up is perhaps the least impressive move from the board as Murty was again asked to stand-up and took the reins through to the end of April 2018. This really was wasted time. The only tolerable explanation was that the Gerrard deal was already in the pipeline and we had chosen to wait it out until his arrival. Off the pitch and our growth was (still is?) being stunted by Mike Ashley’s depraved badness. We’ve had Dave King and others tied up in legal rope for years. Our press relations, in Scotland anyway, still at rock bottom and our name still a punchbag for any small-minded broadcaster with low self-esteem. By any measure our turnover was still pretty poor - not that we shouldn’t have been pulling away from Aberdeen and the rest of the pack by this stage. The constant clear outs, periods of uncertainty and upheaval didn’t help anybody. Part 2 - Gerrard Years Like most fans, I was happy when Steven Gerrard joined. And mostly I still am. He brought a clarity and a positive, tangible rise in standards across the club. A higher state of consciousness and stability, if you will. The Gerrard name is an undoubted factor. It commands respect across the football world and it has helped us land some prospects and players perhaps otherwise unavailable to us. In 2018/2019 our Europa League adventure brought a welcome distraction and something fresh and enjoyable away from the perma-toxic domestic slog. Progress was being made but we were still guilty of being soft and predictable. Our competitors were again figuring us out as the officials allowed the game to be taken to the floor. An unwanted trend of this season was the lack of winning runs and the unwelcome bottom line was the lack of any trophy. We had found another gear but couldn’t find it anywhere near often enough. Like the year before, 2019/2020 has been highlighted by our Europa run. This has been a truly incredible achievement, really. But perhaps we’d swap some of that stardust for a bit more grit and functionality domestically. There has been tangible improvements and solutions to old problems but, again, there have been more mistakes. The win rate has improved, a lot. But the repeat of the post-break slump is a serious concern. It is currently nearing the end of February and the mood, like the title challenge, are burst balls – both very much deflated after a flurry of dropped points. A heroic Europa win against Braga appears at this stage a dead cat bounce. How the season unfolds from this point forward will dictate whether plaudits and reprieves are on hand or whether thermo-nuclear criticism will be aimed at Gerrard and his team. Recruitment will be scrutinised - a less than perfect hit rate is expected and low risk, low cost punts can be worthwhile but the lack of real contribution to the campaign, compounded by a lack of success, will judge last summer to be a poor window. More wasted time. A lucky few have been the manager's favourites and have been afforded regular valuable match time but some have offered little. We have to yield to the manager's discretion on his choice and handling of his players but if a standard is applied then it must be applied to all? Surely favouritism has to be earned and reviewed on a weekly basis. I agree with the logic of Gerrard’s philosophy of insisting on perfection in training but is being an excellent or diligent trainer worth anything if you’re not showing up on the park? Everybody will have theories about the post-break slump. I subscribe to the theory of over-reaching and unsustainable form. From a purely athletic point of view, then peak physical form only lasts for several weeks. Exceptional or gifted athletes may be able to operate at a consistently high level throughout the year but even for them there is a window of peak conditioning that they can work towards. Outwith that window there is a drop off. Anyone not naturally exceptional or gifted has to strive harder to reach those same peaks. And when it comes then the inevitable drop off is greater. Perhaps a positive we can draw from our Europa nights and December form is that Gerrard and his staff are able to build our players into a place of exceptional form – a plateau within the season where we have a footballing unit capable of operating at a very high level and capable of giving everyone a run for their money. But perhaps too, in those moments we are performing well above the sum of our parts and when the form drops, then the residual level is only average. Players can only go to the well so often. Striving for perfection is fine but continually over-reaching is unsustainable. The science of athletic performance and capacity is well defined and measurable, but equally other factors exist which all play a part and follow similar curves – concentration, focus, ambition, morality etc. For world class players like Gerrard, and world class squads like Liverpool’s, then perhaps the reach to perfection is sustainable over a long period of time. But not all men are equal and the reach for lesser players is perhaps too much. Maybe not at first, but after a month, or six months then it would understandably start to falter – physically and mentally. The solution would be to use and rotate the squad to stagger these peaks and loads. This perhaps dulls the highs but then it also minimises the lows. Alternatively, we find a high quality, more capable, more consistent calibre of player who can handle these demands – not easy within a limited budget. Others have stated and explained the limitations of our tactics and our go-to set-up and formation, which appear well suited to certain situations, but which are now repeatedly falling short in domestic games. All of these are factors, and all are fixable if our management team can recognise short-comings and adapt. I would like to think that pride doesn’t prevent us bringing in whatever help is needed to clear any blind spots and find solutions. Part 3 - Reflection Before I started this, I would have said we were pretty much on course but upon reflection we have written off considerable chunks of entire seasons (admittedly my outlook may have hardened in recent weeks watching this season escape from our grasp). To be at Rangers compels that every single minute has to be focused towards winning. I believe the board has some questions to answer on that score. We cannot change the past, but we can learn from it. I believe they have to provide greater and more robust support to Gerrard in all areas of football and the business of football. The media impasse and accompanying PR mess are worrying. Our assets and brand being attacked and devalued is worrying. The referee situation and any possibility of external influence on our title challenge is unacceptable. The merchandise/retail situation remains frustrating with Hummel and Elite now apparently on the black-list. The board have to stand up here, they have to improve – on both communication and performance. If they cannot perform then they must bring in help or move on, because like the playing staff, there isn’t any time for sentimentality at Rangers. On the park, we are where we are. We have some real assets and quality to build upon. We could possibly be further along but equally we could be considerably worse off too (and I don't think this can be dismissed or taken for granted, considering the scale of the rebuild). Gerrard is certainly capable of getting this squad of players punching above their weight on occasion and I really can’t see any knee-jerk upheaval going smoothly or without considerable cost and disruption. We need better players in, absolutely, but another total rework and rebuild is not an attractive or viable option. Like all areas of the club, there is an ongoing necessity to see quality and consistency added to the right positions. Returning success to Rangers was never going to be an overnight job for Dave King and, five years in, it's never been more true. Taking all the above into account, then the old adage of patience being a virtue has to be our conclusion.

“Fans were also fantastic...” I have to question that Frankie, sorry. on the whole maybe, and fine voice absolutely. But burying the vocal and whole-hearted support behind the whole shouldn’t excuse the “minority” from their actions tonight. we will be incredibly lucky if we don’t see, at the very least, a partial stadium closure, and by that I mean one whole stand, for the next game. so that “fantastic support” might have caused us to lose £35x10,0000 (or fairly close) - so £350,000 in ticket revenue (assuming nothing a full stadium closure). its fucking ridiculous when they all know that everyone has eyes on us. dislike it or not, think it’s unfair or not, but how many times do we need to shoot ourselves in the foot ?? and to say “the fans were fantastic” without the caveat disappoints me as a Gersnet member. We should be better, we should be leading from the front. Delighted as I am tonight, I fear we’re going to get pummelled for the useless add-one. That support could have provided the same level of support tonight without the ads-one. The defiance is costing the club. And that, to me, calls into question what is more important to these folks.

That is not the B.B.C. hack.

At first glance it looked like it but in actual fact it was too straight but the keeper did brilliantly to save it after almost diving past the strike.

Wolves would be nice bring back some memories

She'll have more sympathy for you than her mother would, I'll wager.

Just the Irish part ...

It was a fantastic reaction save from the keeper. He guessed right but still had to get an incredibly strong hand on a well hit shot. It happens.

If we thought last week was bizarre, then this game is even more so. After a nervous first 5mins or so, we've been the better team by a distance and should be winning by at least two goals. Only the Braga goalkeeper has stopped us putting the tie beyond the hosts and as much as we can be critical of Kamberi and Hagi for not taking the chances, we should remain positive for the second half. Lots of football to played but we've done well at the back, competed well in midfield and created a few chances. Yes, there have been a few slack passes and it's a real disappointment we're not in front but I hope the team keep their heads high as they've done well in that half.

Unbelievable. He looked a bit nervous when standing over the ball. Hit the ball at a decent height for the keeper. feck. well done for standing up for it though Hagi

Arfield has been pretty good since the break. I had completely forgotten that he wasn't on the Dubai trip! I was concerned about him having to play over the break, but it's clearly been beneficial.

Scottish football is falling into the same traps with Stewart. Like Hartson and Sutton, someone is winding him up and telling him what to say and when to say it. And the BBC are providing the platform. After his ban every time-served sevcoholic was out in his defence. A picture or two of him at a celtic event and he's now the saviour of Scottish football. Pitiful stuff.

The same as their referees(wind assisted handball).