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Unbelievable. It was a tougher set of fixtures than Celtic had.

Well done Rangers. Considering the makeshift back line, I'm surprised we won. Not the best performance but we got there!! Interesting to note that from the other 7 teams in the top 8, we faced 4 of them in our round of fixtures.

I live my life through honesty, objectivity and truth. And the odd pint of beer...

Whose side are you on, boy? Whose side are you on?

And I think this is what gets missed. If we got say £4m for him, last season that wouldn't have bought you Shankland.

Hannover? If there is a football club in Hamelin, we must establish contact immediately, and arrange for a loan of The Pied Piper. Clearly only he could charm our recalcitrant 'stars' to follow him down the M8, and onto a private jet, destination Whodafuckcares. Mmmmm.....What's Gazza up to these days?

So who comes in that will guarantee you over 20 goals a season? Players like that cost a lot of money.

Other than being able to stick the ball in the net more than any other player we have (for a season and a half). The hardest skill in football.

So if we sell Dessers we are left with a raw and developing Igamane and an unavailable Danilo. Given we paid over £1M less for Dessers his value for money is also far superior to Danilo. With Danilo being mostly injured, we are unlikely to be able to move him on so we're stuck with another permanently injured, high value, high earner on the wage bill.

Phillipe and Issame have shared and enormously enjoyed the odd Tagine. Alex Rae does not care for apricot with his lamb and knows there is no danger of such a combination at Motherwell.

We can make three changes to the EL squad for the last 16. Guys not currently in squad: Nsiala Fernandes Hagi Danilo Guys we might remove Dowell Lawrence

Any talk about Dessers shall be shelved till the summer ... 😎

And I thought you were an East Coaster.....

https://x.com/RangersFC/status/1885025243099517018 Rangers Football Club @RangersFC We can today confirm that Rabbi Matondo has joined German side @Hannover96 on loan, subject to international clearance. Everyone at Rangers wishes @rabbi_matondo all the best for his loan.

Well that's only true if you are lucky enough to find those hidden treasures. The key point being, for £4m and if you are looking only for the finished article, you ain't getting much.

It's not that we need a 20 goal a season striker to replace Dessers, it's we need someone who can stay fit and lead the line well. We did some basic analysis recently and Rangers score more goals when he's not leading the line than when he is. Whether that's a tactical tweak we make or simply because Igamane is better at holding the ball up and bringing others into the attack, I can't say. As you rightly point out Dessers is a 20 goal a seasons striker, but if he's not scoring Rangers struggle. Whereas when Igamane isn't scoring other players chip in more. Having Igamane and Dessers fit and firing is working quite well just now, Dessers as an impact sub or alongside Igamane is ideal with our current squad. I certainly wouldn't want him to leave without at least one other forward player joining in his place. Without wishing to jinx him Dessers fitness is one of his strengths and not something we should overlook to be fair to him.

We’ve appointed former spurs sports science guy Sam pooly into our back room team.

That's an interesting way of looking at it actually and probably true to an extent. I'd argue the criticism Dessers gets; not just from Rangers fans but other commentators in particular, really is unique in it's hypocrisy. He's clearly far from the world's best striker but he's also effective enough for the most part.

Trouble with that is that maybe Koppen and co have looked and found that a guaranteed 20 goal a season striker who offers more than Dessers costs more than Dessers. Igamane did not come with a guarantee, he was a gamble which looks like paying off for us

Coming to think of it, anyone complaining about food at matches obviously arent drinking enough before the game in the first place 😄

By far the best Champions League first round in a long long time. The different permutations were unbelievable and went right to final whistle. Villa were waiting for full time in Barca to confirm top 8, results went their way. Delighted for Uni Emery, what a job he has done and their draw isnt bad for the last 16. The stick he got previously at Arsenal and for his English in the media was a disgrace - easily one of the best coaches in Europe. The knock out draw could throw up multiple domestic matches. 1) Monaco or Brest v PSG or Benfica - PSG have a French Derby. However they are all out as they play Liverpool or Barcelona after that. 2) Sporting Lisbon or Club Brugge v Atalanta or Dortmund - Aston Villa will get one of these which is a good draw. 3) Man City or Celtic v Real Madrid or Bayern Munich - fantastic draw, Celtic are out regardless and Man City could go also. Bayer Leverkusen and Atletico Madrid await the winners so you could have the top 2 German clubs against each other and a Madrid derby. 4) Feyenoord or Juventus v PSV or AC Milan - Possible all Dutch and all Italian matches with Arsenal and Inter awaiting so a Milan derby is possible. UEFA dont get much right but they hit the jackpot with this format.

I've commented before on the abuse being completely uncalled for.

I will agree with that, yes. Like I said, I am no Dessers fanboy, just don't like the abuse he tales when he is our most reliable source of goals in the last 10 years

We wanted a 20 goal a season striker, and we got one. Due to our continued lack of trophies, Dessers became the focal point for us "failing", but as you say, we'd be worse off without him. Kyogo doesn't win trophies on his own, same as Dessers (and Tav) don't lose trophies on their own. It's came to a point that no matter what Dessers does, he'll never be accepted by all fans. Being booed onto the pitch, being booed off the pitch and being booed during games certainly isn't going to help. Kris Boyd was never fully accepted and he played (mostly) in a successful Rangers team, same can be said for others (Kenny Miller). Like you, I think Dessers offers more than Danilo and is currently our top scorer and some fans want to sell him for peanuts. Utter madness.

Given the draw and the injury situation ... some achievement. Tonight was not pretty, but we got through it. Hope we can reshuffle the squad for the EL phase now.

It's not just Scottish refs...they should have had as many booked as us.

It’s about half an hour now I’ve been counting consecutive passes and I think the most we’ve managed is 7-8. Very rare we manage more than 3-4. It’s painful to watch and we are fortunate USG are so bad.

Raskin has no respect for six foot five inch defenders.

Brilliant Dessers, holding the ball up and wins a corner, from which a well worked goal is scored. 😜 BTW, I think McCausland can do the wing back shift, he's often tracking back anyways.

Their Centre-back!

Agreed. And that now seems to be the recruitment team's policy, seeking out cheaper, younger players that can be improved and sold on. Koppen has said that he expects 90% of signings to see Ibrox as a staging post. I am OK with that, has served Ajax well for decades

Two Igamanes'.. 🤔 now that'd be some strikeforce.

Looking at the posts in this and many other threads there is a common theme. Winning is everything, and when we are not winning everything is hyper analysed and critiqued. If we were paying Dessers half what we are paying him (which is estimated to be what Kyogo was earning when he first arrived) then everyone would be happy with his contribution in isolation. Our lack of success wouldn't be as much of a factor, though it always really factors. As many have said Dessers has been a victim of circumstance for the most part. When he is scoring he is not doing enough as we are not competitive, when he is not scoring we are not competitive and no one is available to fill the gap. We also have had too many, and still do on high wages contributing nothing which while isnt his fault, he is a sellable asset while others offer nothing with no resale value. Its possible he stays with us for the next few seasons, we rack up some titles and trophies and he leaves a cult hero.

Found this quite interesting https://x.com/fmeetsdata/status/1884987628774387966 According to this we're most likely to face Elfsborg, Midtjyllandor or Fenerbache in the Play-off round...

The process itself must have a cost attached to it. Hopefully we've told the SFA to cover that.

Dessers and Imamate is what we have and will need to do unless we come upon someone better.

Yeah, I think about that all the time.

Doesn't that also depend on who flanks and supports the respective centre-forward? Our problem nowadays is not Dessers, or any other single centre-forward, but the lack of support he gets from people. In terms of goals that is. For it is not that Dessers is not assisting his fellow players. It's 18 goals and 5 assists this season, 22 and 9 for last. 40 goals in 89 games for us, plus 14 assists. We can all argue about how he doesn't do this or that as someone else did, but as long as we don't have any answer to our main problem, it doesn't matter who we play as the lone striker. Perhaps we simply need to get Kent back, so the penalty-king can follow up on his mission? Speaking of which ... sort of curious, isn't it? The lack of penalties we get this season.

The park end of Goodison getting renovated around the start of the premier league

Yes and money to bring in a replacement

There can be no debate over this. Unavailable players offer nothing.

Yep, its about winning trophies. Simples. I look at some of the discontent over in the east end and to me the main reason it doesn't bubble over is because of their success. It wont be until we properly challenge for the title that the cracks will be more obvious.

Incoming.......😀