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Showing content with the highest reputation on 21/08/20 in Posts

  1. Gutted Aribo is missing games. He has been a really key player.
    4 points
  2. One thing that seems to have been forgotten in all the debate around how much we should sell Ryan Kent for is our recruitment department.... when we knew we were paying £6.5 million for him there were howls of derision from many within our support. However, even at an opening gambit of £8.5 million that represents a £2 million uplift in just a season, for a player who the support felt wasnt worth the initial purchase price. And when you look at some of the other signings recently too, one has to conclude that our recruitment department these days seems to be in much safer hands.
    3 points
  3. Rhian Brewster isnt a right winger - he is a centre forward. That is where he played for Swansea all season. Lad may well go on and have a very good career but any time I saw him play for Swansea I was left unimpressed. Harry Wilson is another matter - that boy will have a very good career IMHO. Quality player - am a little surprised that Klopp would let him leave - also surprised that Howe didnt give him more game time at Bournemouth as they were screaming for creativity. We have NO chance of getting him though unless it was a loan - if they are selling him he will be inundated with offers. Benteke ? No thanks
    3 points
  4. I was lucky enough to be given a copy of a new book titled The 50 Greatest Rangers Games by Martyn Ramsay. This is my review of it. We all have a favourite Rangers match, or at least a handful that standout above all the others, but I’m not sure I could rank my top 50 and certainly not in order of importance. So I approached this book with a mix of trepidation and excitement. In a recent edition of When Saturday Comes magazine, the writer, Taylor Parks, talks about the 3 ages of football supporting. The last age is nostalgia; always looking back, comparing everything new to what’s been before. That’s the age I now inhabit. The book ’50 Greatest Rangers Games’, by Martyn Ramsay, is a sepia hued, blue-nose nostalgia-fest, that skilfully avoids rose-tinting the past, while celebrating the seasons, matches, moments and people who have shaped our club and our relationship with it. The premise is simple enough. Ramsay, who is involved in The Time Capsule on the Heart & Hand podcast, asked listeners to select their ten greatest Rangers matches in order of preference. From that a top 50 was created out of over 170 matches suggested. It’s democracy in action and like all democratic decisions it will have its dissenters. Ramsay is self-aware enough to say that this isn’t the definitive list, indeed I’m not sure even he fully agrees with all the matches chosen. It’s certainly not my top 50 and probably not yours either, but it is a wonderful collection of matches from our foundation right up to relatively recently. One of the more enjoyable aspects of these type of lists is disagreeing with them. Announcing to my startled family my incredulity that the Glasgow Cup Final of 1986 is missing, the match where Souness first showed me what could be possible, or why 3 European Finals make it but the other one doesn’t. Then you remember that this isn’t the author’s top 50, this is democracy’s, and, well, democracies don’t always get things right as we know. But I’m being churlish and nit-picking because while you might not agree with every match featured you’ll agree with most of them and you’ll enjoy all of them. Ramsay, wisely, doesn’t regurgitate match reports instead he paints a wider canvas drawing in the context of the game. Most chapters extract a little colour from supporters or players, helping to personalise the occasion. Ramsay even manages to use both Jerry Seinfeld and Albert Camus to aid his description of our first ever match, two great thinkers on one of the most important occasions in sporting history, now that’s inspired. This book isn’t tabloid hackery and it’s not cliche ridden hyperbole hoping to cash in on the blue pound either. The analysis is considered, the context is thoughtful and the overview honest. Not every match was football as poetry, sometimes the occasion was better than the performance and the book doesn’t hide from that. Memory is deceptive mistress. I found myself reading about matches I attended, and thought I recalled vividly, with renewed appreciation. Many of us will easily remember the Gascoignes and the Laudrups but forget that some of the sides Walter Smith wrung performances from were far from laden with superstars. I was astonished to read our bench for the famous Marseille home game in the first ever Champion’s League contained Steven Pressley, Gary McSwegan, David Hagen, Ally Maxwell and a semi-retired Davie Dodds; even I’d have fancied my chances against them as a 5-a-side team. Smith’s teams feature heavily in the top 50, which, as the author recognises, says more about the demographic of his listeners than the 115 or so years that came before Sir Walter’s reign. But I am that demographic and I lapped it up. My unrequited love affair with Ian Durrant was reawakened reading this and it was magical to relive some of his finest moments. There’s a line in the telling of a 1-0 victory over Celtic in 1986; “…amid the usual cacophony of Old Firm heavy metal, Cooper and Durrant managed to produce a moment of pure ballet” that lifts the reader far above the melee. Ramsay has captured not only the essence of that goal but also something deeper, why we, as otherwise normal, sensible middle-aged men and women invest so much of our time, energy and emotion into something that often makes us miserable. Simply, because there are moments that are almost transcendental, and Cooper’s flick and Durrant’s reading of it were that for me. That moment of beauty and joy sit proudly on the credit side of the ledger so often burdened down by financial catastrophe, lower league calamity and signing Ian Black. Many of your heroes are here, although some might be missing. You are reminded just how fortunate we are to support Rangers. Our top 50 contains league titles, domestic and European cup finals and famous victories over other great sides. If the last decade has taught us anything it’s to not take that for granted and to remember it and enjoy it more often. It’s not all victories, there are draws and even losses in this list, a reminder that greatness can be achieved in defeat as well. But Rangers aren’t about defeat, we’re about trophies and this book doesn’t disappoint on that count. The author has evidently done his homework, the amount of research that has clearly gone into every chapter is impressive. For instance I’m not sure I’d ever known that one of the reasons for the banning of the back pass was the amount of time Pat Bonner held the ball during a match at Italia 90. That this indirectly then led to one of our greatest ever victories over Leeds Utd was an interesting insight. Well done Packy! But it’s when writing directly about Rangers that Ramsay excels. It’s not just his study of the matches that shines through, although it does, it’s that this has obviously been a labour of love. There is emotion, warmth, honesty, jubilation, frustration and disappointment in his writing, but most of all there’s love. This isn’t just a book about Rangers, this is a book about a relationship that’s endured for most of his life. Most football supporters will be able to relate to that, but few will be able to express it so well. This book understands football fandom isn’t just about a professional player who is fleetingly wearing a blue jersey and scoring an important goal. It’s about how that makes us feel. Truly great football matches aren’t watched, they’re felt. It’s why I laugh whenever I’m faced with all that ‘new club, Sevco’ gibberish. Only someone who fundamentally doesn’t understand football could think that way. This book understands football. For me, the author has taken these matches and added the soul that's so often missing from written accounts. There’s a paragraph in The 50 Greatest Rangers Games that particularly resonated with me. It comes at the end of his chapter on the 1973 Scottish Cup Final and I’d read it the night before the news of Tom Forsyth’s passing, a match in which he scored a famous winner. Ramsay talks about the connection Rangers creates between generations of the same family and how that shared passion in Rangers allows us to communicate with each other, something we’re not always good at doing. It was a stand out paragraph for me in a book I really enjoyed. I’ll read it again, and I’ll give it to my Dad and to my sons to read too. I encourage you to do the same.
    3 points
  5. Can’t believe some of the negativity about Kent from our support
    3 points
  6. Now you know why our game at the girodome got moved to October from its traditional slot in August. Had this game been due to been played at ibrox it would have gone ahead as scheduled. welcome to the corrupt state of Scottish football. No wonder sponsors won’t touch it with a barge pole
    3 points
  7. Haven't seen much credit given to the lad for starting the season with a couple of goals.... that all seems to get swept under the rug when it suits.
    2 points
  8. Sounds like an ideal Christmas present for the auld man.
    2 points
  9. In seriousness though, it is just the nature of the game of football. People see different things in players. I have been equally surprised by the negativity towards many of our players through the years. To give just one example, I defended and backed Barisic when it seemed 95% of our support wanted him gone after the loss at Rugby Park. Goldson, Tavernier and Jack have been pilloried by sections of support regularly in the last couple of seasons and I have defended them too. Kent is just another player who people see very different things in, albeit I will happily admit that the vast majority clearly rate him very highly, including the Gaffer.
    2 points
  10. One good season and we will get 25 million for kent with a que of buyers.
    2 points
  11. Ranger 2 Kilmarnock 0 First goal scorer: Roofe
    2 points
  12. When it comes to ST sales and transfer fees take anything they say with a pinch of salt i always remember when we were in the lower divisions they claimed their ST sales were the same but whenever you saw the giro dome on match day it was half empty.
    2 points
  13. The likes of Croatia is where we should be looking for players. England is unaffordable
    2 points
  14. 1 point
  15. We should have taken advice from Connah's Quay - they had them sussed!
    1 point
  16. I've always believed that one of the defining characteristics of Celtic and its adherents is an ability to create fact out of fiction. Their willingness to believe what is clearly fiction and turn it into established truth would make a blind alchemist blush. If someone says they've sold 50,000 season tickets then the expediency of wanting it to be true will immediately make it "true". The Celtic world is a world of entirely flexible reality, where 50,000 season tickets is whatever you want it to be.
    1 point
  17. Every time Killie hove on to the horizon, we have the same discussion. I will make my usual contribution, because I believe we continue to make the same mistakes. The key to Killie is their powerhouse midfield trio. Both Dicker and Power sit in front of the central defenders. They are hard working, tough tackling, destroyers of forward momentum. They enjoy a third midfielder in the same vein(Tshibola so far this season), just forward and to their middle. This triangle allows penetration down either side towards the corner flags. Try playing through them, and the tough tackling begins. The path of least resistance is on the flanks, once you are down in the corners, the Killie full backs and whoever covers either flank further forward ie Burke and Brophy crowd you, allowing recirculation back across the midfield trio. This provides opportunity for interception and quick counter attack. We need players to go in and mix it, win the free kicks or turn them, inviting even more desperate tackles. How many times have we gone one up against Killie, then created three/four/five further chances to increase our lead, but fail to do so? In the last 15-20 minutes, the midfield trio step further forward, 20 yards or so; and the ball is intercepted more frequently, the ball begins to fizz across our box equally frequently. I think in Gerrard's tenure, Killie have taken more points off us than any other club? There is a trend there, and tomorrow will be no different.
    1 point
  18. Killie will be tough to break down but are unlikely to be anywhere near as defensive as Livi were. That should give us a bit more space to operate in so up to our attacking players to take advantage.
    1 point
  19. First maiden at eight minutes to lunch. Are England Australia in disguise? Answer: No. Root caught for his usual 29.
    1 point
  20. International breaks - arrggghhh hate them. Even when Rangers are playing poorly I would rather watch us than any international games. Maybe we'll see a change of formation tomorrow then - OK I know i have taken that too far!
    1 point
  21. Agreed. As much as I dislike them, Power and Dicker are a decent combo in there - and if they are using Brophy up top then they have pace, makes it all the more important to have Jack and Kamara whereby one of them can drop off to assist the CB's and squeeze the space for Brophy. We need to combat their presence in CM.
    1 point
  22. Just my opinion, Killie are one opponent where we need both Jack and Kamara. They have a strong midfield.
    1 point
  23. I saw a tweet saying the bid was £8.5m with add-ons. Agree thats not enough.
    1 point
  24. IMHO, it is more about tactics than the odd individual player. And has been for quite some time. I reckon Killie will be similar to St. Johnstone, defending deep but having a couple or more waiting for the counter. As I cannot see us going without either of the fullbacks, you would hope that the JacKamara becomes a Jack or Kamara and we play Itten and or Roofe from the start alongside Morelos, who also looks somewhat undroppable.
    1 point
  25. A brilliant review! ? Looking forward to reading the book too.
    1 point
  26. I wouldn't sell Kent simply because...who ya gonna replace him with? Barker? Jones? Unless Leeds go full retard and offer something like 17M...keep the little guy.
    1 point
  27. I would be surprised if we sold kent this year unless a daft bid comes in, think with a full pre season under his belt and staying injury free he will be worth more than 20 million. Im guessing the English teams have to have a quota of English players in their squad, which I would say makes kent more valuable than 10 million, they have just bid 25m for ben white from brighton, if they are willing to bid that for him then I would be wanting equal or more than for kent
    1 point
  28. As with every other game over the last year, I'll sit down to watch the game tomorrow hoping to see Tavernier deliver something like his form of the season before last. He was such a big part of our (albeit limited) success and to have that same contribution back today would be a major boost. However, I now suspect the player who slotted home penalties for fun and rampaged through defences has lost his mojo and it may be gone for good. In that deflated context he remains a very inappropriate choice of captain.
    1 point
  29. Neither can I but Ryan Kent has had an irrational army of detractors ever since his price was announced. Kent has been one of the few Rangers players this season who has shown good energy and been prepared to try something other than a safe square pass. Right now, other than Joe Aribo, Kent is about the only source of invention or direct play we have and is one player we really can't afford to be selling. I'd sell Morelos before I'd sell Kent.
    1 point
  30. Certainly started well this year and was hitting form end of last season
    1 point
  31. Try forgetting about flares, sealions, David Icke, orifices or Sauchiehall Street and just read what is written and then take a deep breath before responding.
    1 point
  32. 1 point
  33. Greece is not so much a member state as a captive country bound to the EU by crippling debt obligations. It may have a voice in principle but not in practice.
    1 point
  34. 1 point
  35. We'll there is little point in selling him then. A circa £3M profit (less if there was a sell on clause) isn't the business model we require to fund strengthening the squad or boost our finances.
    1 point
  36. You are obviously unable to read and comprehend basic information. I have never stated there was no Russian interference in the US election. Not once. I thought you were going out? Clearing your head would be a good idea.
    1 point
  37. How does the block grant relate to GDP though?
    1 point


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