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We can discuss tactics ad nauseum ,bottom line is ,we need players that are good enough.

Dundee game will be at Ibrox! https://www.rangers.co.uk/article/rangers-confirm-dundee-fixture-to-be-played-at-ibrox/7sJmkKE4z5HPhPvIStcSaE

Yeah, his form has really fallen off a cliff this season. Half his passing goes to the opposition and his lack of pace means he's not contributing from an attacking standpoint. We've relied on him driving us forward for so many years and now that's away the team struggles.

I also saw one in a supermarket queue last week unwashed celtic top on ,just after the CL draw was made, he was on his phone obviously checking the draw. I said to him ‘You got a few winnable matches there’ he replied ‘Aye looks like it ’, I said ,”You definitely be looking to pump Young Boys” …he never laughed,..they are a humourless bunch.

Agree, Dessers regularly commits to a press when its not on and the others aren’t ready for the trigger, it then comes down to the others having the intelligence not to go if they can’t get there in time

I repeat myself due to old age 😀

There's a scape-goat or bashing-boy every season. The main problem with Dessers lies not in the fact that he misses chances like all strikers do - and no-one should remind us of Morelos' last season - but that we lack other players to score a similar amount of goals. So any of his misses become more costly. IMHO, he's sure not a or the problem.

He's bang on lads, sorry. 4-4-2 against the ball is the way this team should defend. It's not damage limitation but not getting beat over there is a small step to recovery. If he wants to go man for man, do it...but do it and if your press fails get back into shape sharpish, we weren't doing that. What I saw from Clement was sound in principle, you need fit, brave and intelligent players to do it and it looked like we lacked all of those things. Game state played a huge part in our xG end up though. Clement can't cling to that, Liverpool smashed Utd by 3 and Ten Hag was wittering on about their chances and xG - Liverpool sat back after '60. Maybe his ego was bruised after last season and he felt obliged to go man for man - containing them has more often than not worked for us except for the game at Hampden and Gio unleashing Bassey.

until we drop Tav we will play with three at the back

I don't know what your point is.

Not really ... if you pick the players that play for that system. What we do right now is ... 4-2-3-1 - 2 centre-halfs ... who have to carry the bulk of any balls over the top by the opposition AS WELL AS much of the creative play from the back The current folk there do their best, but are far from excellent and often have to cover for the advancing fullbacks, leaving gaps in the middle. If the opposition send less than 4 chap into attack, we often have problems. - 2 "wingbacks" who are supposed to play the winger-role more often than not, but are leaving lots of empty spaces on either side if caught up field ... which happens quite often against the Parked Bus Union. Tav got and gets his head out of the nose by delivering the odd perfect cross or corner per game which results into a goal, or scores a penalty or free-kick (as seemingly no-one else was/is allowed to take these). His defensive work can be excellent or shocking, usually some of both per game. Ridvan and Jefte are clearly more attack-minded and capable than most fullbacks we had on that side, and not shy of a good shot. One has injury problems, the other needs a month or two more to settle into the delicacies of the Scottish game. - 2 defensive midfielders (which is one too many against most Scottish teams) who are supposed to fill spaces left by the wingbacks or centre-halfs doing the aforementioned job, to break up play, start the build up from the back and, if possible, run into spaces in the centre of attack, screening the penalty area etc.. IMHO, Barron, Diomande, and Sterling can all do this job, the best in those roles were Davis and Jack, the former for his build-up play, the latter for his defensive work. The three prime boys for the role can sure do it, these last few seasons showed, though, that we need more people in the attacking third, not at the back or in the middle. We toiled and laboured in midfield, instead of putting pressure on the defensive walls. MAYBE, given the power of Barron and Sterling, as well as the possibility of sending Diomande into a more forward role, this system will work better this season. But I stand by my point that we do not need to DMs most of the time. -3 offensive midfielders / attackers / forwards looks nice on paper, but these people have to deliver if we play with but one natural striker. We try our luck with people who can play all slots of the front line, yet, only Sima showed any real promise. The rest is far too erratic or score-shy to make this system work. What we look forward too now is Cerny, Matondo, Cortes, and McCausland finding a rich vein of goalscoring form, as well as Bajrami, Lawrence, Dowell, as well as Hagi and Lowry chipping in with a few. Yet, when you look at these names, you wonder how three of those will be able to do this in every given game against 7 to 8 defenders? -1 striker ... you see, Dessers is in many ways the new Morelos. The sole saviour up top who essentially has to score from every other chance against packed defences, or we stare at low-score or no-score games. The whole idea of 3 attacking midfielders and 1 striker is fine and modern in games where you play an opposition that plays open football. That is not the case in Scotland, and has not been the case for the best part of a decade. I have no idea how the Scum lines up, but it doesn't matter, as they obviously have the quality needed in these positions to put any other Scottish team to the sword. Every system needs both the players for it, as well as an opposition you can use it against. What we need, no matter the numbers on the system sheet, is another striker who can support our centre forward where we need it most.

I definitely won't be attending. Testimonials made sense when footballers were paid more normal salaries, not now.

I haven’t really rated their front three either since Jota left. I thought he was exactly what you want in a modern winger, but they’ve failed to strengthen that position since. Unfortunately they have enough about them to accommodate that and we don’t.

I'm not sure of the relevance of the Parks being involved (or not in the case of Douglas), other than to have a gratuitous dig at them. There's not going to be a significant increase in the capacity, no matter who's in charge.

An intriguing proposal. It could be improved upon only by dismissal of M. Clement, and appointment, in his stead, of Mr Craig Levein.

If you can't wait for the current one to be ready you'll get the last upload on my homepage on twitter @The_Sharp_Files

It was a pig who was shouting at Tav. Disgusting behaviour.

Alec Smith, manager at Aberdeen, noted that when Rangers lost possession McCoist and Hateley would immediately run back to occupy space in front of the defence. Can’t say I noticed it but Smith is a more accurate observer than I.

For me Dessers misses easy chances, doesn't hold play up, falls over far too easily, is constantly trying to make friends with officials and opposition players and has the first touch of a blind baby elephant. He has short decent spells (like his mini recent scoring spree) but then reverts to type and we get a handful of matches where he plays like he did against the scum. His whole career has been like that, so it's unlikely it'll change. Comparing him to McCoist is pointless. McCoist's job was to score goals. Forwards have to do a lot more these days.

Like not saving weakly hit shots from 30 yards out?

My criticism of him is nothing to do with chance conversion. Its everything else that he doesn't offer that is a problem.

I fully agree with your point, but Dessers scored 16 league goals last season. I think the criticism comes from his wastefulness: 16 goals from an xG of 19. He was wasteful. But, he has been clinical this season: 3 goals from an xG of 3.1. Superb. If he keeps close to that even the haters will fall in line. Dessers is not one of our main issues.

There is our standard games where he scores, the big games in europe where he is hit and miss, Celtic is our only truly big game domestically how many goal does he have vs Celtic ? Now our striker should be getting at least a goal a game vs them, I like dessers but unless he changes and starts banging in goals vs them he can score as many as he likes vs the Motherwells and Ross counties unless he scores vs them and we win them matches then he is just a good backup player, beating them is what wins you leagues.

We're more fluid than what you're describing. Tavernier has been inverting for a while: Auxiliary wingers? In phases, sure. In phases they're not. 'That our DMs are primarily defence-minded players is' incorrect. I posted a pass network a few weeks ago showing Diomande - despite playing as part of a '2' on paper - was pushed forward, playing as an #8. He even plays as a #10 at times. Lawrence -who hasn't got a defensive bone in his body - has played as part of a double pivot. So, it's not 'how we line up in terms of playing personnel'. Tavernier is a RB playing as a DM; Barron is a DM dropping in to play as a CB in build-up; Diomande is a DM that pushes forward. Our #10 presses forward without the ball. (Not all at the same time, of course.) The 4-2-3-1 is only used on paper. The game is more fluid than that. Hence my original point: formations are mostly irrelevant.

They're both definitely on my GTF list.

The Dessers has no presencce argument is false imo. At porkheid his pressing was fine the first fifteen minutes when he was pressing as part of a front three, but Matondo's weekly injury scuppered that. After that point it's just Dessers hasling two or three defenders and wasting his energy. Dessers is the least of our problems, and unless he gets the Rangers injury virus will defo score enough goals to justify his position.

And off course those type of strikers grow on trees and you can pick them up from your local Poundland. Our whole attacking line is weak, not just the number 9.

You're getting sucked into the idea that one formation equals one way of playing, which isn't true: at times we've defended in a 4-4-2 and attacked in a 3-2-5, despite it always being a 4-2-3-1 on paper - hence my original point: formations are mostly irrelevant. For me, they are only useful in reference to game state. I have always said we're lacking quality players.

We do not have the players to play 4-2-3-1, no matter how fluid we try to be. And haven't had them for the best part of a decade.

It's all going to charity anyway

We'll see. If I was the manager of the likes of one of the other SPL clubs I'd be looking at getting at him. Our captain shouldn't be seen as a weakness, in my humble opinion.

Tav will be fine in most domestic matches. He is clearly hopeless away against them and has been for quite some time. Just to be clear, him and Dessers were the two players I wanted gone first during the last window.

I'm no hater either, but we could all see it coming. It's glaring due to its predictability, when you know an average journeyman winger is gonna roast your full back, yet again, it's time to make that change.

Arguably worse, but it's only been 4 league games. We conceded 0.84 goals per game last season, we're conceding 1 goal per game this season. (Only league data, as that's all I have at hand.)

3-5-2 and the ugly wee Jap doesn't score that goal. 3-5-2 solves the Tav dilemma (for a while at least) as we can play him right side of the 5 (or 1 in from the right) First point is clear to me.. the second is just a way to get him in the team (captain n all that)

Formations are irrelevant. The game is fluid. We've played a 4 in build-up, we've played a 3 in build-up. We've played with a single 10, we've played with two 8s. We've played wingers wide, we've played them as inside forwards. Our fullbacks have overlapped and inverted. Even if you just mean against them, we've also tried different things. The 4-4-2 mid block in the SC final was probably the best. But, that's just in defence. We just don't have the quality to take our chances or cut out defensive mistakes. We can only let PC cook and give the players the time to get used to the automatisms.

Three at the back solves nothing. I want ten at the back. (5-4-1) Park the bus in every single game. It has to be so awful that every Scottish football fan has a breakdown when he checks the scores and sees Rangers 0 Jobbers 0.

Just saw the videos of the Rangers fans shouting at the manager and players. Deary me. Are we determined to provide the Tims with more ammunition? Thats bloody embarrassing.

Gone for Barron as he was the only one as far i could see that continued to at very least jog around the pitch unlike the other statues.