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I’m amazed that my fellow fans are getting in such a tizzy over this , never in my 54 years have I witnessed teams such as these , adopt the tactics they currently use . The first time livi were in our box was the 42nd minute when Barclay went on a run , and they were at home . we simply need to find a midfielder that can shot from distance , aka Albertz , we simply do not have that in our team , and given how good our manager was it amazes me that he isn’t trying to find a player like that .

A couple of times we took short corners too which I didnt really get. Surely take every chance to get it in the box

The English club faced most often by Rangers is Everton. Reference Chelsea, I attended the first three friendlies, all Rangers victories. The first was a 0-1 win at Stamford Bridge, a thirty yard screamer by Jardine in a '71 testimonial. The second and third games were weeks apart in the mid-eighties, home and away. I suspect they were arranged because both clubs were out of Europe. Rangers won both 3-2, Chelsea's Micky Hazzard was the stand out player in both matches. Interestingly, the game at Ibrox had a twenty minute hiatus because of floodlight failure. I have also witnessed a dozen friendlies against both Arsenal and Spurs; however, the only game where I saw real bad blood was a match at Loftus Road circa 1968. The game ended 2-2 with punches and kicks being regularly exchanged between players. It culminated with Rodney Marsh booting Kai Johansen in the face. The action in Acton was keen that evening as ten thousand Bears righted perceived wrongs. My old man booked a hotel in Kensington, it was our Butler who reported the violence.

To be fair he showed more in his cameo than Hagi, Arfield and others showed.

I'm obviously in the minority, but what do people see on McCorie? He is not the standard we require and shown nothing to suggest he could become a mainstay in the team. Sticks on my throat wishing him well at Aberdeen, but I do, wish the lad all the best.

This. Long balls into channels get defenders turning. Long balls to target men has low returns for me. I would love for once to see SG totally go against type and go into games like yesterday with a different approach. What would happen if WE sat back and made Livingston come out more? Would it open up the play more for balls over the top and counter attacks? In turn stretching the play more. I understand the onus is on us to dominate and take it to them but what's the point of having 80% possession with nowt to show for it.

Hence why we need proper wide players as was too congested in the middle of the park. Get the ball out wide and attack from wide areas to get deliveries into two (not one) strikers. And did we really need a back four and two sitting midfielders against a team who sat in all game on Sunday ?

I was very surprised his butler was assigned such duties, in my experience contact with the constabulary was always a footmans responsibility.

You're both correct, I think. It's not long balls to a target man, though, is it? Cross diagonals are common (we do attempt that from time to time), and balls in behind (in behind for us is the byline!). I don't like long balls into a target man, but I do think we should be attempting long diagonals, long passes into feet, and perhaps into the channel when applicable.

It's alright saying shoot from distance but even the it will be like pinball bouncing off the sardine defence and only luck getting on target. Set pieces looked our best chance but we were denied by poor refereeing and cute defending.

His treatment of Murphy is strange though. He went to Burton and in 10 games scored 7 and assisted 2. He showed that he still has it. But Gerrard won't even put him on the bench. As I said, I think he likes a certain type of player and it is disappointing when quality players like Murphy lose out.

The manager and his team see the players in training each day and they have obviously come to the conclusion that neither Murphy or Middleton are good enough as they are not even included on the subs bench. With respect to Middleton he did not hold down a regular place in the Hibs side where he went on loan. There he was playing in a team that does not play against sides that park the bus the way they do with Rangers. This should have given him a good opportunity to showcase his skills and pace but he did not take the opportunity. I rather suspect he has a limited future at Rangers.

I'm not surprised by that. I still can't believe we spent that much on him. With Aribo missing and Hagi not living up to expectations, Kent was our best creative player. As usual, there were flashes but more often than not there's no end product.

I feel like we're not working on offensive movement; it's too off-the-cuff. I think they set the general positions -- Morelos central, Kent and Hagi roaming around, with Barisic wide left, Tavernier wide right, which is fine -- but then they leave it to them to do something, and they don't know what to do. We need to be working on attacking movements (if player A has it, then x, y, z move here and there, etc.) and set patterns in passing (Jack into Morelos, with a first time ball into Hagi, who should be aware of this, and then Morelos spins in-behind). That's an over-simplification, but that's the idea. I don't think a formation change will help, because the issue is the way we play with the ball.

We're a bit too predictable. Teams that are happy to play for a point know how to set up against us. Gerrard should have changed things sooner yesterday. We never looked like doing anything until the final fifteen minutes.

Aribo is our most important player and I was immediately worried when I saw he wasn’t playing. We rely on him as a team to break down teams and create goals. It is so unfortunate that we lost him for this game. I’ve only seen the RTV highlights (10 mins long). A lot of possession and wee half chances but quite worrying that there weren’t really any good chances at all. The best chance was probably the one Kent hit wide from a run. Hagi & Morelos barely featured, which is a worry. Kent featured quite a bit but nothing came of anything he did, and he seemed to be turning himself into a centre midfielder at times? I don’t want my forward/winger roaming around the middle of the park. In a game in which we have 77% possession the forwards need to be doing better to turn that into chances, I don’t think you can just blame Jack and Kamara. That’s not to say I don’t think the management got tactics wrong though. I think it’s time to try 3-5-2 or something in these games. Celtic used it to great effect in the second half of last season.

Last season we conceded 4 goals in our first four matches and lost one of them. Keeping clean sheets would have earned us an additional 15 points in the matches played last season. We would still have dropped points in a few turgid nil - nil matches but we would also have been top of the league.

Its interesting that in his post-match interview Gerrard seemed to place most of the blame on the forwards not having enough creativity and considered that the defence was fine and that Jack and Kamara controlled the game. This would seem to suggest he believes Hagi, Kent, Arfield? and Morelos did not do enough. I thought Hagi had a quiet game and wonder if he is suited to the type of physical and aggressive game played by Livingston. Kent was a bit better but, given the fee we paid for him, I would like to see more end product coming from him.

It isnt that simple though when teams play like Livvy did - they had a bank of 4 and their midfield 5 sat about 5 yards in front of them - there was literally zero space to be able to play balls into feet and hold it up.

I actually don't know whether that's irony, but these three don't face up to 7-9-man defences every other week.

Patterson seems a better player than Hickey. Very strange.

I think that's the point though, the game was so stale and stagnant that it needed shots from distance or crosses to inject that piece of randomness. You can call it luck but really what it is is creating uncertainty for Livingston in their box.

When the clock was ticking away fast at the end, we had essentialy 2 striker in Roofe and Itten up front and were raining crosses and shot in from all angles. Granted, Livi were tiring, but we had more chances and more chaos in their area than the 90 before. It would do no harm to at least test a 4-4-2 with but one DM but 2 real wingers to hit the line and rain crosses into an area occupied by 2 strikers. With our fullbacks in support more often than not, it would sure create a more attacking threat than what we see now, as the main striker as well as any inside left / right is well covered by one or more defenders. Said inside left / right guys are far too often out of position to establish a good link with the respective full-backs. Likewise, what good it is to have 60 - 80 % of possession each game, but that possession is mainly our CHs and DMs? They don't hurt the opposition and the latter know it.

I agreed with you but we are wrong and 26th is right. Thirty one matches, an annual event in the 1890s/1900s.

Everton? I'm surprised, know we have faced Arsenal 27 times so thought they would have topped the list.

Having two strikers to hold the ball up and get us further up the field in games like that is very important IMO. It makes it easier to find a forward pass too because you have more to aim at.

I think he will do well. There will be a good chance of a sell on fee. Maybe he will do well enough to win a move back one day.

He is on form and has started the season confidently. He is actually fulfilling more of a Windass role at the moment, not creating goals directly much but dangerous on the counter attack and starting to score more goals. I still think he would do very well on the right wing though where he could more easily use his pace and get to the byline.

On that subject, not including goals he has scored himself, Rangers have scored 47 league goals since Kent's last league assist in February 19 vs Hamilton Accies, 28 games ago. He plays in our front 3 and we spent £7m on him to create goals. I said when we signed him that I would be bemoaning his lack of end product and here we are.

I don't like teams that rely on the individual creativity of a player, where they rely on a piece of magic. It's not dependable, consistent or repeatable. I think a group of average players, well drilled in attacking movements (tell them exactly how they should be moving) is more dependable and repeatable and consistent than relying on a top-class player to change the game. Case in point is Leeds Utd. Squad of average players, languishing in the lower half of the table, and now champions because they have a manager that is very controlling in that regard.

Neither of them are really DMs for a start.

I've not seen the interview, but this was my feeling. Our defensive control was superb. Kamara was superb, I thought, because he reads the game, covers, creates angles for ball recycling etc - Jack less so, for me, in this particular game. I love the diamond we create, where Kamara creates a situational back three, with jack just in front. We were able to pass out from the back quite easily. Kamara and Jack were guilty of hanging on to the ball, but only because no one was showing for it. I lost count of the number of times we played out, giving it to Jack in space, only for him to dawdle because there's no one to pass to! (I don't subscribe to this 'we don't need 2 DMs' argument - it's a bit of a naive argument, IMO. ) And, I still criticised their inability to commit men, as you state above. The forwards are not doing enough. Hagi and Kent especially were receiving the ball back to goal, and then only went back. Is it so difficult to receive side on, so they can swerve out of that first pressure? McCann made that point in the last game. The pass into Kent went backwards, whereas when Morelos received it, he's side on and turns his man to make something happen -- I think he then wins a foul which Barisic scores? I even thought Barker was better in the few minutes he got! He's not great at all, but he was able to turn and try to take on a man.

Gerrard loves fast and fit attacking midfielders. It’s why Murphy and Stewart can’t get a look in despite being better players than those playing ahead of them.

I think, like most, I'm also scratching my head at Barker still getting opportunities. He must be great in training or something because I just don't see what he brings to our team, unfortunately.

I thought off the evidence of the Sheep game we were tweeking our game to handle this problem. But it was much the same as last season. Glaringly obvious what was the issue today, whenever they turn the ball over, Jack/Kamara or whoever picks up the ball take too many touches and take the safe option. Morelos didn't drop deep to receive today like he did in the first match, a simple tactic that creates space in behind. As well as being very frustrating to watch it's somewhat amazing to me that we can't work this out. You need good movement and quick forward passing to cause disruption but it's very slow and predictable from us. Crossing was good today from Tav and Borna but again predictable going through them. I'm looking for Jack and Kamara to get involved more. If one of them plays into one of our front 4 then follows the pass and receives back then space has opened from the defender shadowing our attacker. Jack or Kamara then needs to play forward to one of the other 3 attackers who should then play off that 4th attacker who first receives from jack/Kamara and off we go. While this happens, depending what side of the pitch it is, Borna or Tav can tuck in for jack/Kamara. Got to pull defences around. All we make them do is shuffle side to side and defend crosses.

On the H&H post match pod they talked about the Livi Assistant Manager David Martindale shouting at his players to “do him” on a few occasions. I didn’t personally hear the comments as I had the crowd noise in the background but I can completely believe it. I think we all know that teams set out to try and level the game by being physical with us. And let’s face it, it’s worked on too many occasions in recent years so I can well see why folk read comments like Holt’s and fear the worst. We are also poorly served in this country by referees who allow overly-physical teams to play this way, whilst punishing the likes of Morelos for dissent, even though a Livi player on at least one occasion was guilty of the exact same offence, but with no yellow card given. We simply are refereed to a different standard at times, and that feeds into the mindset of “here we go again”. In terms of today’s game...Physical play within the rules is fine, and I think Livi did that today for the most part. There were no standout bad challenges from memory. All we can do is keep highlighting things and keep campaigning for change in the refereeing community. Regardless though, we have better players and should have been able to make that count. We only had ourselves to blame.

?? Where was this violent play you spoke of ? You know, the one where you KNEW it was what Holt meant ? if anyone is rambling it’s you. You’re babbling incoherent nonsense in an attempt to deflect from being unequivocally wrong about Holt sending his team out to inflict violent play. Nice deflection though ? Sometimes it’s better, easier and saves embarrassment to simply admit you were wrong ?

It’s not a cult rule. It’s called respect or, in your assessment of Gerrard, lack of respect.

The way we play at present from the back creates an imbalance in the forward areas. We have Helander and Goldson who pass the ball to Jack who then relays the ball Kamara which Livingston were quite happy for us to do because it results in us having only six forward of the ball whilst they have nine at the back meaning everyone is tightly marked. As Rousseau has suggested one of the centre backs has to break forward and commit a Livi player to create space into which Jack or Kamara can then set up the attack but from a more forward area.

Aye a lazy Sunday for you.

I'm starting to think we'll never win the league if we perservere with Jack and Kamara in midfield. It's just too slow for me. There were so many times we could play quick balls but Jack/Kamara are happy to just saunter and it kills any tempo

I'd feel better if we'd created chances, but didn't take them.

I doubt the guy was there then