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Well played Rangers - lots of positives to be taken from tonight's performance. On to Saturday now.

A disagreement on Covid shouldn't lead to you leaving the site. You said a few incendiary things which I reacted to and also attempted to dispute the arguments that you put forward as I strongly disagree with you on Covid-19, although not necessarily the implications of it on other areas, which I haven't commented on. We disagree. It happens. We should just put it behind us and move on.

Whilst not agreeing with everything in Gaffers posts in this thread I do find plenty of merit in them as despite the best efforts of the left as far as I'm aware it's not yet illegal to hold a contrarian view. I've spent 13 of the last 14 weeks in hospital due to infections the last week in the infectious diseases ward. I almost died because of this Covid 19 and yet I've never had it. I was misdiagnosed over the phone by NHS 24 at the onset of the outbreak here as having Covid 19 and told to isolate for a fortnight and take paracetamol to control my temperature. After a week the paracetamol ceased to work and my temperature was over 40 degrees, finally a nurse practitioner came out to see me and sent me straight to hospital where they diagnosed sepsis and 3 different bacterial infections which resulted in over 280 iv antibiotic infusions plus 2 single antibiotic infusions that cost over £1600 each. Got home for a week only to be rushed back in with a different infection and yet more iv antibiotics and now face a minimum 6 month course of antibiotic pills and at least 6 months probably 9 of complete bed rest, basically robbing me of a whole year of the few I have left. Nearly killed by the hysteria over Covid 19, I suspect there will be many thousands with similar tales with many no longer here to tell them. One of the doctors who initially treated had had Covid 19 and in his case he said that he'd had worse "normal flus". He said the policy of clearing hospital beds had probably killed and will continue to kill for many years far more people than it saved, he pointed out the hysteria over ventilators and said he was unaware of a single Covid 19 death caused by a lack of ventilators in the UK. He was equally critical of both UK and Scottish Governments and said despite the rhetoric there wasn't a fag paper between the policies of both, said a mass fully functional test and trace system would have been of far more assistance in controlling the disease that the hot potch that transpired. Interestingly he said to watch out for the long term results from the Swedish model over the next few years compared to elsewhere he thought the Swedes would come out of it better longer term. Without a vaccine he says it has to be herd immunity (blames the panic that causes on an ignorant media propagating misconceptions) or the virus dies out naturally. Don't get me wrong Covid 19 is real, very real but the consequences caused by the virus will prove more far more dangerous and long lasting than the virus itself. Little comfort to those of you who have lost family or friends to it I know. There hasn't been any recorded cases in Grampian in a month but as I was waiting to be discharged on Monday they were preparing 2 rooms for 2 suspected cases.

Sure I heard on commentary that Lyon had played some pre-season games.

Edmondson was man of match by a country....team played well....good to see the famous live again.

Kings of Lyon. Two games on the Rhone Savage, scored five, conceded nil.

Very pleasing to see young Mayo & Paterson get some game time and doing excellent, loved watching Rangers playing again. @CammyF we are now going onto win the EL and? Scottish treble

Sine die for bringing the Scottish game into disrepute.

Shouldn't joke about that! every chance they would try it?

Oh I know.... but they’re still the only one that’s entered admin since COVID halted seasons. There are massive questions need answered in the Wigan situation.

We sing of Rangers, The Rangers, Glasgow Rangers, The Famous Glasgow Rangers etc. All the same to me, never understood people getting their knickers in a twist over it.

As much as the machinations of Brexit and the approach to Covid-19 are inexorably linked in terms of the key political actors and the absolute shit show with which both are being managed, the criticism of the government's approach is not because of Brexit. A classic case of playing the man/woman rather than the ball.

Whatever happened to the idea that season ticket holders would be able to view pre season friendlies via Rangers TV?

The first book reference Rangers was penned by John Allan. The title was, 'The story of the Rangers - the first fifty years'. John Allan was more of a statistician than a historian, He told a tale of derring-do. He did not finish the tome until 1923 and to continue the title he decided Rangers were founded in 1873. All the annuals of Scottish football tell that Rangers were founded in the first week of February in 1872. We should recognise that John Allan did not portray a true history of the foundation of our club.

I'm not getting carried away - but bring on Leverkusen

Although it was scarey at times, I like that we opted for playing out from the goalie instead of going long. Gerrard's been watching a lot of Liverpool vids I presume...

What chance the SFA slap a 10 match ban on Kent for violent conduct ??

The tackle on Jack was terrible yet he let that go?????, it's a friendly, ref should have just booked him then told Rangers to take him off

In olden days, this being a friendly, the ref would have booked him, and told the bench to sub him at ht. Common sense. The incident was barely handbags. French ref, I assume.

Soft, especially given the assault on Jack, but srupidly raised his hands so it's technically a red. However, Rangers in Europe with 10 men (or less) is a common occurrence ?

Totally against the run of play, nice work at a corner, Kent races down the bye-line and Hagi (?) taps it home. 1-0 after 20 mins.

The apparently immininent full decision from CAS will be interesting, but in the interim..... From today's Times' legal supplement: Uefa snatches defeat from jaws of victory Manchester City’s successful appeal highlights the regulator’s many failures, writes Jonathan Ames Jonathan Ames Thursday July 16 2020, 12.01am, The Times https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/law/uefa-snatches-defeat-from-jaws-of-victory-j79rmfb7d Manchester City’s executives may have been tempted to emulate Premier League strikers by turning cartwheel celebrations after a ban imposed on the club from participating in European competitions was lifted this week. However, the top brass at the Etihad Stadium, the club’s legal team, and football lawyers more widely, are keeping a lid on their relief that the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) overturned the regulator’s earlier ruling that the club had breached Uefa’s financial fair play (FFP) regulations. City’s response involved little more than saying that it “wishes to thank the panel members for their diligence and the due process that they administered”. Wider reaction to the ruling from the court in Switzerland on Monday was also muted. As a London lawyer explains: “The financial fair play rules are a sensitive issue for our football club clients — they don’t like to see us speaking in public about them.” That approach is described as “pusillanimous nonsense” by another lawyer. And indeed a few specialists are robust in their analysis of the case. “This week’s ruling has merely provoked even more severe doubts that Uefa is just not up to the task both to regulate the financial conduct of European football clubs and correctly enforce the regulations,” writes Mark Stephens, a partner at Howard Kennedy, in this week’s Brief, the weekly legal affairs email from The Times. There could be no better illustration of the importance of money in modern professional football than this saga. Nine years ago Uefa introduced the financial fair play regulations so that clubs could only spend what they earn. The aim was to prevent clubs from going bust. Clubs in European competition cannot lose more than £27 million over a three-year period. Uefa had originally sanctioned City, which is owned by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan of Abu Dhabi, for allegedly providing misleading financial information and failing to co-operate with investigators at the regulator’s club financial control body. Although the court ruling this week ditched the ban, it still fined the club €10 million (£9 million) for obstructing Uefa’s investigation. Particularly damning for Uefa was that the court found that the charges against City fell outside the regulator’s own five-year limitation period, or were not established. In short, Uefa and its legal team look somewhat inept. Full details of the court’s ruling are expected today or tomorrow. Nonetheless, Graham Shear, a partner at Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner, says that the ruling “looks like a big blow for Uefa’s credibility as a regulator”. Shear says that the statute of limitations in the disciplinary rules “is simple in its scope” and that its exceptions, including for fraud, “appear to have been held by CAS not to apply in this case”. More broadly, lawyers point to an odd approach by the regulator, where Uefa pursued a case over events that were alleged to have occurred during a period that appeared to be covered by an earlier settlement with City. “Presumably, Uefa had detailed legal advice on both points prior to embarking on the disciplinary proceedings and the CAS appeal,” Shear says, “but the outcome cannot help but undermine its reputation for interpreting and enforcing its own regulations.” James Arnold, a lawyer with Cooke Young & Keidan, says that City’s appeal highlights “procedural weaknesses in enforcing disciplinary measures for FFP violations”. Arnold points out that club officials at City raised concerns about the process that resulted in the ban in a move that echoed the strategies of AC Milan and Paris Saint-Germain. The Italian and French clubs appealed bans resulting from alleged breaches of the financial rules on the grounds of procedural failings rather than on the substantive charges. Stephens is clear that in his view the financial fair play regulations are now “dead rules walking”. He says that there is a general failure at Uefa and among some sport lawyers “to appreciate how badly the rules are drafted”. However, not all specialists share this pessimism. Jamie Singer, a partner at Onside Law, says that the rules “remain valuable and important”, although he concedes that “the belief that Uefa can actually monitor and enforce them has been dealt a huge blow”. Singer says that the regulator is relatively toothless in that it has no power to force clubs to co-operate with its investigations. “If City chose not to co-operate,” he says, “it made it very hard for Uefa to investigate and secure the evidence they needed to persuade an independent court that the offences had been committed.” Singer agrees that the rules “need to be reviewed to give them much more teeth to force clubs to co-operate and disclose information. There needs to be severe penalties for failing to do so. It is no use having severe penalties for breaching rules if clubs can obstruct Uefa from ably presenting its case.” If there is one positive element to emerge from this high-profile and embarrassing episode, Stephens writes in The Brief, it is that “the decision to go against the ruling of [Uefa’s club financial control body] is significant as it shows CAS continues to be sufficiently independent to contradict European football’s rich and powerful governing body”.

We were told back in June: Lastly, we have worked to achieve a temporary virtual solution for season ticket holders who are unable to access Ibrox due to Covid related restrictions. All 2020/21 Season Ticket holders will receive the following benefits until Ibrox is back at its full 50,000 capacity: Access to live coverage of all home Premiership matches (an individual access code will be provided to each season ticket holder) Enhanced RangersTV Live match coverage with a pre-match, half-time and post-match show, hosted by Rangers personalities and other special guests An exclusive match day preview video shared on each matchday ahead of the live show Complimentary RangersTV live coverage access for ALL Ibrox 20/21 pre-season matches (schedule to be announced in due course) Complimentary digital match programme provided ahead of each matchday (light version) so the friendlies at Ibrox should be available through RangersTV

As our defence is crap and the midfield not much better I would go one at the back and the rest up front and stand on the touchline roaring get *******into them

After watching some of the displays since the break I have called them a lot of names.

Assuming that you'd also have a keeper with that formation, we should destroy most lesser teams if we play with a 3-1-3-4 formation as we'd have 12 players on the park.

Additional problem with the window being open so long is that should we have a decent start to our league campaign then the yahoo will spend big to get their 9-3/4 in a row.

Now favourite for the job on some bookmakers sites. Someone claimed to have seen him in Bristol on Monday on their forum. They obviously are ignoring the fact that he took training on Monday and Tuesday in Glasgow. ?

I wanna see a lot of the our unknown commodities. I wanna see that third Williams sister, Big Calvin lined up at LB. That guy is built like a strong safety. I heard he has some wheels on him too. I would also like to see Mayo and Patterson get serious minutes.

Better tell the Board to cancel the 150th celebrations in 2022 then!

You've provided un-sourced Flu numbers, but that's it, I think? I'm sorry you've been hit personally, but you're not alone, there. BD was clearly riled by your interpretation, but he can speak for himself. As far as I can see, the following are your main posts, which kind of merge into each other: According to WHO, there have been approximately 573,288 deaths from COVID-19 reported worldwide (as of July); and estimates that 290,000 to 650,000 people die of flu-related causes every year worldwide. The COVID-19 deaths cover 2-3 months. The Flu 'estimates' are based on 12 months. Even if COVID-19 deaths are 'hugely exaggerated', the figures suggest it is clearly much more dangerous than the Flu. Moreover, there are Flu vaccines, of which a large proportion of the population get every year. There is no COVID-19 vaccine. There’s a lot we don’t know about COVID-19 — how it spreads, how it infects people, how it causes damage in the body, how the immune system responds to it, etc. Flu, on the other hand, has been around for a long time, so scientists and doctors know a lot about it, including the best way to treat people. There was a source I saw that was as sceptical about the seriousness of COVID-19 as you are, which stated that around 21,000 died from flu every 'winter season' (5 months?), whereas around 9,000 had died from COVID-19 over around 2 months. These figures suggest it's quite comparable. However, I believe these figures only include hospital deaths from COVID-19, so we can assume it is much more, as those in care homes etc. are more at risk. Moreover, lockdown has curtailed the spread, whereas the Flu spreads unrestricted. I don't see how you can claim it's not more dangerous than previous strains - even if the numbers are grossly exaggerated. BD challenged your Actuaries data quite thoroughly. I can't comment on your claim that 'fairly senior NHS' staff are being threatened with suspension if they 'speak out', because it's just based on your word. I'm not an expert -- I've probably missed a lot -- but even a cursory look at the figures suggests your claims are spurious -- that sounds harsh, but at the very least you have a colourful interpretation. Someone more capable could do a better job at challenging your view, if you were willing.

The big bad Gers!