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We will lose players during the next month, there will be knocks, injuries and suspensions that's inevitable. We might play in some shocking conditions, it's winter in Scotland after all so poor pitches and poor conditions are going to be a factor too. What Clement needs is luck, good luck. If we can keep key players fit and in form we've a chance of coming through what is a farcical amount of football in a short space of time. More importantly though is if we don't, if do lose some key players, if we drop some points, endure some disappointing results, that we don't overreact. Our squad isn't as strong as it should be, and it seems our fitness and medical standards aren't what they should be either. It's remarkable what Clement has managed to achieve results and performance wise in a short time, but he's not a magician, there are players in our squad who simply aren't good enough, who we'll need to persevere with for now. It's great to be looking forward to watching us again, to be hopeful instead of pessimistic, but Clement has shown enough in a short time to be afforded some leeway if there are hiccups in the coming weeks.

Should be a quick conversation- ‘Hi boss I’m frustrated at my lack of game time’. ‘You’ve been injured for about a year and a half you walloper’

I've really enjoyed this over the last couple of weeks and has really helped pass the time and ensure some interesting debate. All things considered, whilst there's some obviously (fairly) recency bias, I think that's a very good team. I'm sure we'd all still argue long and hard for our own personal favourites in there but the beauty of this debate is that none of us are right anyway. FWIW, I'm not so sure I'd change ay of the positions now I see it on paper as the XI is an excellent blend of attacking quality, flair and goals backed up by an able, solid and clever defence. Now, who can we play with this team?

Speaking of wide players, I've seen a few mentions of us taking Ryan Kent back on loan. That would really, really disappoint me and I hope it's just 'journalists' doing the 2 + 2 = 5.

This has been an excellent diversion from the boredom of yet another international break. A real trip down memory lane and clearly some of us have more to remember than others 🤣 Thanks @Rousseau

This next block of games between Pittodrie on Sunday and Kilmarnock on 2nd January there are 12 games in 37 days in 3 different competitions. The League Cup final v Dolly will surely see us welcome back the old trophy we have won more than anyone else, while the 2 Europa fixtures will hopefully see us confirm post-Xmas Euro football to look forward to, but it is of course the 9 league fixtures where our season will be defined when the dust settles. Aberdeen A St Mirren H Hearts A Dundee H St Johnstone H Motherwell A Ross County H Bheasts A Kilmarnock H The 5 home games should be straight forward victories, so it is the 4 away games that will probably let us see if we have a shot at this title or not. A successful period will have us top or certainly close to it, anything less and it’s probably done. Thoughts?

The wizardry in that midfield is stunning.

"12 games in 37 days will define the season" is a true sentiment imo, but It will not change my mind on Clement being a great appointment. MB left a poor quality, disjointed, unfit mess in his wake and it will take some sorting out. Anything from this season will be a bonus for me.

It has been put to me often -very often, indeed- that the supernatural beliefs of many Scottish fooball match officials greatly influence their decision making on field, and, now, off it, too, with the advent of VAR ( which, I am told, is as clear an example of superstition triumphing over technology as one might wish to see). If this proposition is correct, it is, surely, less than prudent to dismiss 'supernatural' aspects of refereeing as nonsense, and consign them to the oblivion of the Lounge, where cogent discussion is wont to disappear, untraceably, among the outpourings of the borderline criminally insane.

Of course, I dislike these posts mostly because of the Juju...

This. I dislike these posts. Every game is crucial; every game is must-win; every game defines our season. It was always thus.

Morelos (1) and Tavernier (3) were the only "current" players to receive votes.

Not for me and that’s ignoring the fact he phoned it in the last year of his deal. His ‘performance’ v them in the league cup was a disgrace

That's the fun thing, we'll never know!.

I mentioned the other week that Clement just feels different to previous and I like what he is doing, I mentioned there seems to be a bit more professionalism about him and around the place. I think he is much stronger than Gio plus he doesnt have Beale's ego. The international break could prove huge as he will have finally had some time to work with the players who werent away so whether it be fitness or tactically, we may start seeing some more improvements. Sunday is a banana skin though, Id easily take a smash and grab 3 points AKA Arfield.

Some folks seem to like to dream and set targets. I dislike it and much prefer to take it as it comes, one game at a time. Judgements are meant to be made while looking backwards, not forwards.

Getting a tad ahead of ourselves claim down boys

Wouldn't be surprise if this is his agents trying to work a better deal...

I'm not fussed on him either way, I highly doubt there is concrete interest from these teams. He'll be 21 in the summer which is not young in footballing terms.

I don't want to come across as an arrogant little Englander but it's pretty fucking hard to not qualify for tournaments with the expansions and the nations league now. I'll happily take flak for this but both Scotland and Wales have squads of which the majority of players are EFL championship standard, albeit good championship players. I think it's a myth that these generations of players for yours and the Welsh team are breaking the mould - they've just played in a very forgiving qualification system at the time. For what it's worth I think England under Southgate are flat track bullies and have a chronic inferiority complex - they have the players to win something but not the mindset (or coach).

I could. The hysteria off the back of Scotland (ranked 33) beating nations ranked 44, 77 and 111 is OTT. Overall during the campaign we took points from one team ranked above us (Spain at home) and dropped points against 2 teams ranked below us. We qualified, but you have to expect to in the group we were drawn in. We'll get skelped as usual at the finals.

Great thread, thank you @Rousseau The final team contained 10 our of my 11 votes. Just Stevens out for Jardine, which I'm sure is very fair. So I'm content with the final 11, so my subs would be: McGregor Amoruso Stevens Numan RDB Durrant I.Ferguson DJ Mols

You may be correct, but you can't argue with the results and qualification record Scotland have under Clarke.

Left back is a problem position for Clement - Borna coming to the end of his Rangers career and Ridvan not what we need.

Goram Stevens Gough Butcher Caldow Cooper Durrant Gazza Laudrup Parlane McCoist Subs - Woods, RDB, Hateley, DJ, Ian Ferguson, Barry Ferguson

He did indeed

This was tough, but here we go. Mols Negri Albertz GVB B Ferguson Amato Numan Amoruso Gough Hutton Goram subs - Prso, McCoist, Klos, I. Ferguson, Butcher, Cooper, Gazza, Caniggia

Massive no thanks on Kent. Downed tools last year

Vote of thanks to @Rousseau for a most interesting exercise producing an elected team of world beaters. I only picked Jardine, Greig, Baxter and Laudrup but my one real quibble with the majority is Robertson instead of Caldow. Caldow was world class. Robertson was only excellent. My team: Ritchie Jardine, Young (Capt.)McKinnon, Caldow; Greig, Durrant, Baxter; Laudrup, Miller, Brand. Subs: Goram, Stevens, Gough, McMillan, Henderson. Manager, J Scotland Symon, Chief Coach, Walter Smith. Motivation and Incentivisation Coaches, Jock Shaw and Bobby Shearer. I’ll be changing my mind next week. I’m thinking McMillan for Durrant. I’ll stick with Millar and Brand but Stein and Forrest would be lethal.

Excluding those with a single vote:

Nice finish to the team sticking the 92-93 kit on them. EDIT - Just noticed you have 2 x number 4s and 6s or was this their numbers? @Rousseau Perhaps this lot need a manager vote though? An enjoyable thing to do though during the international break, well done for your efforts on that. I voted 7 of the 11 in the final team but Im thinking of tweaking my final team due to formation. Having a wee think now.

I think that’s a fair assessment. Although I’d argue Clement looks to have put more of a structure and a style of play in place with tempo and urgency. Which Gio and Beale never really managed.

My Grandfather was ten years of age when Rangers secured the 1899 league championship and, he never let us forget it. Uniquely, Rangers won every league game that season and the club skipper, Robert Hamilton played every game as centre forward. His record over ten seasons is remarkable, reaping 184 goals in 209 appearances and notching another 15 goals in 11 Scottish internationals. According to the auld lad, Robert just wanted to shoot from anywhere on the pitch. Robert was a genuine lad o'pairts, finished football and entered tertiary education, became a teacher the a Headteacher, became a Councillor in his native Elgin for a couple of decades, spending the last several as the town's Lord Provost. He concluded as Chair of Moray Education Board. The club should honour Robert C Hamilton's legacy. Jimmy Fleming holds a few club records to this day; highest scorer in a single match(9), the most goals in the Scottish Cup(44) and, in a Queen of the South game at Ibrox he ran from the Rangers bye-line to the Queens six yard line, evading between six and a dozen tackles(dependent upon the number of wee goldies my Grandfather had consumed) before finishing high into the net. He scored 220 goals in 267 appearances over ten seasons. Another of this era with fantastic stats is Willie Reid, 195 goals in 240 appearances then, there is Jimmy Smith with 249 goals in 258 appearances and again, Bob McPhail with 261 in 408 appearances. My old man did not care for Jimmy Smith, referred to him as a bully. He loved Willie Thornton, Millar and Brand but, particularly lionised Jim Forrest. We know Jim was the John Lawrence decreed scapegoat for Berwick'67 and Dad was strong in his opinion that Jim's absence in Nuremberg cost the club the ECWC later that year. Jim was prolific scoring 145 goals in 163 games. I remember as an eight year old being in awe of his figures in 1965, 57 goals in a season. Jim only spent five and a half years at the club. My first real Rangers hero was Colin Stein, signed for £100,000 from Hibs in 1968. He notched two hat-tricks and a double in his three games against Hibs, Clyde and, Arbroath. We felt we were on to something amid the dark days of Jock Stein domination. Colin was a forerunner for Morelos, sure he had a temper and never backed down to challenges presented by opposition defenders. Colin missed the League Cup final 1-0 victory over Sellik because the Chair of the Disciplinary Committee, Sir Bob Kelly(also Celtic Chair) suspended Stein for six weeks which finished the Monday after the Saturday final. Waddell turned him into the Lone Ranger, support when it arrived came from Bud Johnson. This combination grabbed the necessary goals to secure the ECWC in '72. Colin chased down everything and this was never better epitomised on Christmas day 1970 at Easter Road. Shivering on that old high terrace, the snow fell in injury time with game locked at nil-nil. Stein went on a long run to get on the end of a ball into the box, knocking it into the net. He returned to the same pitch and superbly headed Rangers towards our first title in 11 years. Derek Parlane was the King of Ibrox Park for a time, notching a five goal haul and a four goal spread against the Pars and Killie respectively. He vied continually with DJ for the number nine spot. Derek Johnstone was a remarkable player whether it be in defence, midfield or, attack. DJ's 210 goals must contain the reminder that at least half of his 549 appearances were not as centre forward. We come to Hateley and McCoist. They are correctly remembered fondly as the partnership and I believe if Ally had not broke his leg on international duty in Lisbon, they would have secured Rangers the big one in season '92-'93. They were special. Mark could do it all, run in behind and beyond defences and score with either foot or head. Ally missed as many as he notched but importantly was always in position to miss in the first place. Ally's exceptional record is unrivalled at the club, 355 goals in 581 appearances. He had at least a dozen partnerships up front in his 15 seasons at Rangers. My front pairing is McCoist and Stein.

They are severely boring to watch but should be one of the best teams to watch considering their squad. I cant believe against Malta he played Maguire and Henderson. They are joint favourites 4/1 with France for the Euros but they dont have that winning mentality that France, Germany and Italy have - these 3 are "tournament teams" that just need to get into tournaments and will always have a chance.

On matters concerning Rangers, my Grandfather and old man rarely agreed. We sat together in Section G of the old main stand for a decade from mid-60s to mid-70s. I was positioned between them and experienced the sniping growing to heavy artillery exchanges every other fortnight. If you view a photo' of Section G, I am the one of several hundred NOT replete in a bunnet. One player had both singing from the same hymn sheet, the Deedle Dawdle aka Wullie Waddell. Waddell was one of a number of Rangers who had their careers interupted by the several years of World War two. Post conflict, Rangers offensive capabilities were sustained by Waddell and Thornton MM. Rangers iron curtain defence were pitted against Hibs famous five forwards and any forward ball was latched on to by pacey Waddell. He dragged Rangers up the park and regularly released crosses for Willie Thornton to finish. Rangers domination in decade immediately after the was was built on solid defence but, it was Waddell and Thornton that created and scored the vital trophy winning goals. Wullie Henderson made a dynamic impact, his arrival saw Alec Scott depart for Everton. Direct running with pace and a feign followed by a low hard shot. Wullie was precocious and gallus with it, bags of swagger. Often, we hear Jinky did not receive the number of caps his play deserved. An inconvenient fact not parroted by the our separated brethren is that when Jock Stein took temporary controll of Scotland for 1966 world cup qualification, he selected Henderson more often than Jinky because Wullie was more direct and effective. He morphed into a probing midfielder, lots of give and go and, was important in both ECWC sides of '67 and'72. Tommy McLean arrived from Killie and he became the threat to Wullie in the way Wullie threatened Scott. Tommy was a thoughtful winger and possessed a range of chips and crosses to keep most defences on their heels. He formed a wonderful partnership with Sandy Jardine on the right flank and a most effective partnership with DJ up front. His crossing was pin point. Another player who benefitted from Tommy's know how was Alfie Conn. Sandy would overlap, DJ would stretch to the last man up front and, Alfie would come short with a ton of space to work within. I thought Trevor Steven could be the new Tommy and, apart from leaving for Marseille too early in his first spell and almost constant injury in his second; it could have happened, he was most gifted. I watched Brian Laudrup's Ibrox debut against Motherwell in the company of my Dad. After 20 minutes he turned and stated Laudrup's crouched start and stop, start surging running style was reminiscent of Waddell. In the 88th minute with the teams' tying 1-1 and, the 'Well had a corner; the ball was cleared to the right of our penalty area and, Laudrup took off running the length of the pitch. He laid the ball off to big Dunc' and he finished to secure a 2-1 victory. He had it all and gave the opposition the fear. He turned a Charlie Miller lob into the Dundee United box into a worldy nine in a row clinching header. I vote Brian Laudrup.