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I think I have mentioned this before? The Sultans of Oman are absolute monarchs, best described as benevolent despots. During 1988, the incumbent was Qaboos bin Said and he was particularly benevolent. After attending Sandhurst in the early 60s, he served for three years in Lanarkshire's regiment, the Cameronians. In the late 70s, he financed the construction of the Royal Military Academy's olympic sized swimming pool. When you enter the building you are reminded of his benevolence by the life sized oil portrait of the Sultan replete in Cameronian number one dress. The border between Oman and Yeman remains largely undefined. These last sixty years, the Sultans have been conducting a Hearts and Minds exercise based on both education and health. Concurrently, well financed paramilitaries within Yemen have been conducting an insurgency of low intensity to run interference on schools and clinics. The Sultan's counter is a grouping of controlled patrols protecting said centres and the necessary supply lines. He prefers the Company and Battalion designations to be commanded by British officers. Thus, in August'88 I was leading a patrol company on a ten day visitation to villages and hamlets. The purpose was to ensure a couple of Kiwi nurses achieved access to conduct vaccinations and well women clinics(effects of female circumcision - don't ask). On the fifth evening we left a village and headed several klicks to a wadi with the intent to establish an overnight patrol harbour. I knew Rangers had played ra Yahoos that afternoon at Ibrox but, had maintained professional discipline. After stand-to I returned to my basher and asked my signals Sgt to rig a whip antennae knowing I was being unprofessional. It was silent hours and I tuned to the BBC World Service for the wonderful Paddy Feeny's football roundup. The desert revealed a starry, starry night and I listened as Paddy enthusiastically narrated, "all the action from the game of today at Ibrox". The ensuing five minutes were torture as Paddy played a sequence of 15-20 second commentary sections. He began with, "we were treated to a six goal thriller" and promptly followed with the commentary of McAvennie notching the first goal. I thought we have lost six nil. The next two commentary clips revealed we had secured a 2-1 half time lead. The descrition of Ray Wilkins 25 yard volley had me screaming, SILENTLY! When we scored our third, my thought was it will finish 3-3. When Mark Walters ran the fifth, I was in the Derry, the East Enclosure, the District Bar, ................ doing the bouncy whilst silently screaming. It will always remain the warmest of memories given the circumstances, even a cold scoff of tinned pilchards did not diminish my cheerfulness at cuffing ra Yahoos 5-1. It was another month and a return to Muscat before I saw video highlights.

I was once at a conference in America a few years ago and at a dinner in the evening the conversation moved to teenage music. Scottish guy I was with told a story about him and his mates meeting up in a youth club where they'd "sit round a tranny sharing a fag, listening to the charts". This sentence, which made perfect sense to me, led a guy from San Diego to get quite annoyed with him. I'm not he ever believed our innocent explanation.

At the risk of sounding monotonous, we could win easily by scoring more goals than we concede. He needs to drop this one striker guff which is basically negating Igamane's talents. Just as well Neil McCann has given up on management. He kept saying Rangers just weren't ticking and he couldn't put his finger on why.

@CammyF I tried to combine them into one graph, but it didn't come out well, so I've split them into two graphs. Home: Away:

This is the 'Igamane is not a #9' thing again. It is every week after our manager decides to try and play with him as a solo striker. It just doesn't work domestically. It might work in Europe as the games are completely different. Igamane for me is a Teddy Sheringham type player and needs and Andy Cole up front to play off of.

Watch the first Rangers goal from yesterday again ( the first o.g.) Hagi gets into a great position to put a delivery into the 6 yard box but where is the Rangers striker? There is no Rangers player in the 6 yard box This has been a recurring problem for me this season. Good deliveries into the penalty box and the Rangers striker(s) posted missing. Surely the manager & his staff can see this? My view has always been we need 2 strikers as we’re not good enough to with just the one. Probably Dessers up top and Igamane in a free role behind

Time to update the 'In This House We Believe' banner to 'In This House We Believe...Until the 93rd/94th Minute. its About time someone else scored in the dying seconds of the game. Did they try telling Bayern about their history? Didn't work, eh? 😜

Fortunately you were wrong.

They'll demand a "nearly won in Germany" award.

Capitulated is the right word - and havent recovered since those results, just further regression. If it was a blip then fair enough, he originally had enough credit after getting us into the title race this time last year after Beale disaster but now we have gone a longer period with these poor performances and results so quite rightly massive questions to be asked.

It kinda was a challenge- not gonna lie.....😀

I think Clement is to blame. Around this time last year we were flying. We then lost to Motherwell at home (he changed the way Tav and BB/ Ridvan played - I said inverted, @Rousseau told me off! 😉), then our away form fell away (Ross County and Dundee). He also started making some really strange team selections and subs which had an impact on our form. Those decisions have been mirrored this season and @Rousseau XG and XGA tell a sorry story. We should have won the league last season but capitulated and ended up a poor second (sounds all to familiar).

A year ago today we went top of the league.

There is no way they will go down, Ipswich and Wolves would need to win 4 more games out of 13 than Man Utd and thats not happening.

My wife is Anglo Indian (but a Yank). Her old man is 91, still runs his engineering business, but because we spend all our time between Atlanta and London, this was the only time I could find to visit, she had been there for a month before I got there. I'm in Delhi now, flying back in about 8 hours. Then off on a work trip, then off on a birthday holiday for the big 60

You have to be careful with such terminology now 🤣

Mutton looks like he wants to hang himsel------HERE's HOPING

Thank fuck we’d never have heard the end of it .

I’ll let you know later.

Wait until you have to explain "Snow off a dyke" to New England academics.

Was a good game last night. Sunderland probably deserved a draw

xGA away from home is a massive issue. We cant stuff teams out of games the same way we could under Smith or Big Eck. A high ball into our box or in behind causes chaos.

Wo Wow! That shows quite graphically how bad our away form has been.

A happy day and I think they would have gone on to win it but for the disruption of the team’s momentum. A team with a Gough, Brown and Ferguson in it would never have lost momentum. Could Smith or Wallace have got last year’s players on track? I don’t think so and if they couldn’t there’s no surprise that Clement didn’t. I fault him, though, for not being able to use the experience to get the players fired up sufficiently for this season.

My brothers and father had many a tranny, but they all changed long wheel base Mercedes Sprinters 😚

Not sure, but I would hasard a guess that our upturn on my xG chart corresponds to when they played together.

I think he misses Danilo.

Dessers slightly underperforming his xG. Igamane, in contrast, is overperforming his xG (9 goals from an xG of 7.2), so a dry spell is on the cards. He basically shoots from anywhere!

I moved to Holland in 1980 and at that time there was no internet as we now have. The only way I could hear a game was by radio from the BBC. The only radio I had that I could hear the game was in the car. it was an AM channel and every time it got exciting the signal seemed to disappear. I had something like "And Laudrup crosses the ball"and then crack crack crack, silence. i had to wait until the signal came back, and I could learn if the score was still the same. i remember I was sitting in the car and my neighbour came out of his house to walk the dog. Just at that moment it sounded like Rangers could score and then no signal. I was battering my hand against the dashboard in frustration. He walked past the car, looking at me as if I was mad. Sitting in the car without the engine running, having a fit. He must have thought I was off my head.

There's a complete denial amongst some of our fans regards our financial position versus theirs, the gap is way, way bigger than it was even in their biscuit tin days. And the avenues open to us to close that gap are disappearing. 55 masked it for a bit, due to us having a brilliant season, and them having an absolute retard as a manager. I loved Boyd as a player, but I avoid listening to him as a pundit, he's a roaster.

I didn’t see it but I heard we got the usual kris boyd criticism after the game & aimed at Clement as usual. Whilst I myself sometimes have some reservations about his team selections & tactics is it not generally accepted that without significant investment in the playing squad there is very little anyone else could do to get more out of the current squad? Boyd seems to think we’re on a level playing field with the yahoos who have spent considerably more than us and have got themselves a bigger and better squad. And if we’re downsizing ( especially in the wages) it’s going to be even more difficult for whoever the manager is