craig

Not sure what point you are making. But if it is a point about endurance then the fact he is 20 means nothing. At 20, Rooney was a regular starter in one of the toughest leagues in the world. At 20, Tillman should already be in peak physical condition

Nope, and apparently no plans to even have discussions about his future.

Sadly, it isnt going to happen.

Kevin T used to run his Academy out of Paties Road. You should have nipped round the corner to his house and introduced yourself.....

As did Lundstram. Lundstram also hit the post.

I wonder if Bermuda will be represented in this, for good reasons, not corruption. The Bermuda General Secretary and President at the time played a fairly significant role in uncovering this. The General Secretary was "thrown a bung" by way of a brown envelope by one of Jack Warner's entourage at a concacaf meeting - General Secretary immediately gets the Bermuda FA President (an eminent lawyer in Bermuda) to come to his room and to inform him of what had just taken place. The two of them reported it up the chain and, I believe, is what kickstarted the investigation. The reason Warner wielded so much power is because Concacaf has 44 FIFA votes due to the caribbean islands and they always vote "en masse" which means Blatter could buy his way into remaining as FIFA President..... Trinidad & Tobago has a stadium which I believe is named after Jack Warner.... no big deal you would think... .until you dig in and find out that the stadium, financed by FIFA, is actually OWNED by Warner.... FIFA were so poor with contracts that Warner managed to use FIFA money to pay for the stadium, and put the ownership in his own name. This documentary will be a cracking watch hopefully.

Can't be true 🤣

Anthony Ralston has won more SPFL titles than Tav.... a stat that must prove he is better.....

None of our wide players score enough though, not just Kent. And I am not defending Kent, just pointing out how poor our play is in terms of chance creation and goals. Our wide players are playing, well, too wide and offer little inside where you can take shots. But I would also throw in that our midfielders don't offer themselves up in the danger areas often enough either. Pffftttt, football..... stupid game

I wasnt applying thresholds mate, my point was exactly as I stated - that we have seen more to compare Matondo to Kent in terms of minutes and position than Kent to Yilmaz, minutes and position. My sample set of league minutes was purely to prove we have seen more of Matondo to judge than we have of Yilmaz. League minutes Matondo is only behind Kent by 3 games whereas Yilmaz hasnt seen much game time at all. I agree it would be unfair not to look across all competitions - however, is it fair to Kent to be compared based on 180 minutes of league cup games against inferior opposition when he hasnt played those games, and is it fair to include Kent's CL minutes when those are far more difficult games - hence why, for Kent & Matondo, and I included Yilmaz as those were the 3 mentioned in dB's post, I used SPFL minutes Souness - what a guy - Ali Dia, lol. He is still taking pelters for that. FWIW, I think Yilmaz is a fine player - I just don't think a comparison between he and Kent makes sense at this point and I don't think we can establish he is good enough for a title winning team. Matondo gives me the fear though..... I am desperate for him to come good but my spidey senses tell me he is a very poor player !

He's away to find some stats that prove stats are worthwhile

One thing I know with certainty, if you don't create chances you definitely wont win games (beating Celtic 1-0 at Ibrox with a Callum McGregor OG notwithstanding, lol). Creating chances will most certainly give you a better chance of success. Funny how we (myself included) will use whatever stats we wish to prove our point whilst ignoring the ones which may suggest we have an agenda. Goals win you games - so should we now ignore all other stats ?

Bit of a whoosh moment for you I suggest. My point is that there has been more to be able to compare Kent to Matondo than Kent to Yilmaz. That post was about comparing Kent to Matondo, not Yilmaz to anyone (despite dB comparing the two) Yet you somehow tried to conflate the two and your suggestion looked, to me at least, to suggest that we havent seen enough of either to be able to make judgement (which is fair enough) but my point is that we have seen a fair bit more of Matondo than Yilmaz to be able to compare them to Kent - and that is before we get into the fact Yilmaz plays a different position to Kent whilst Matondo essentially is performing the same role on the opposite side. Anyway, again, veering off tangent in this thread so I will leave it at that.

I saw videos of Sebo before he joined Rangers and he looked good...... how did that work out for him in a Rangers jersey ? You don't need to spend a year watching a player to know whether he is a decent player or not. We will have to agree to disagree - I fail to see a player in Matondo and we don't have a Pep to do a "Sterling" on him. Kent is a far better player - in fact, as poor as Kent has been, he is better dribbling with BOTH feet than Matondo is with his preferred foot. I could mention that within your Stats on minutes played are that Kent has played 780 minutes in CL whilst Matondo has played 180.... so much tougher to get goal or assists in that competition - albeit Matondo actually does have an assist whilst Kent doesnt, but Kent is also defended differently from Matondo. All that said, we both are distracting from the original point of the thread so I will leave it at that and agree to disagree with you

You might want to try that again mate. Matondo has played in 450 minutes of SPFL football this season whilst Kent has played in 785 - so there is far more to compare those two than Kent at 785 minues and Yilmaz at 83 minutes. Kent - 9 SPFL games Matondo - 5 SPFL games Yilmaz - less than one SPFL game But, aye, my point doesnt stand 🤣

I wouldnt say our players are too nice. I would say they are naive. A smart player, seeing an opponent breaking defence into attack, noticing an overload, would bring the player down and take a yellow ie taking one for the team. Our players dont do that. I dont think it is being too nice but it is a lack of footballing intelligence. In fairness... the one time that someone in our team DID do it this season he got sent off for a yellow card offense and we dropped two points (Lundstram at Easter Road)

I dont think we competed against Ajax, at all. We should have been able to. But I dont think the same can be applied for all 6 games in the competition. Look at all 6 games individually - IMO : Ajax away - didnt compete Napoli home - competed well until Sands sending off, unlucky Liverpool away - competed(ish), they had lots of chances but we could have nicked a goal or two at the end Liverpool home - competed for an hour, quality of subs from Liverpool had a significant impact Napoli away - I didnt see the game so cant comment Ajax home - gave away a couple of soft goals, participation already over, easy to see why they wouldnt be as motivated (not excusing it) So it isnt that we didnt compete in any of the games, we did. But there were also games where we didnt. My observation about the Ajax game holds. These teams can match ALL of our best qualities and they have far more technical players than us. Doesnt mean in every game we lacked application and effort, though I contend in some of them we did. We, or at least I, also have the benefit of hindsight - maybe my expectations at that point in time was that we could, should, have been able to match them for physical attributes - the gulf between us and true Champions League teams is vast, moreso than I had anticipated.

None of those require passion, they require a footballing brain, something a number of our players lack

You havent seen much of that talent in a Rangers jersey so not sure how you can work out he has enough talent for a title winning team. He has played the equivalent of 4 games all season and less than a full game in the SPFL. Indeed half the game time he has seen since signing has been against lower tier opposition in the League Cup (against QotS and Dundee). So I am not sure, given he has lasted no more than 63 minutes in an SPFL game (2nd game of season at home to Killie) to determine he has title winning talent. You never disappoint dB. Always the Kent comparisons. How can you determine that Yilmaz has shown more spark in Scotland than Kent this season having played just 83 minutes in the league whilst Kent has scored in 4 different games, he played two games in the League Cup (Kent hasnt played in that at all yet) and in CL least said better for both. Matondo see Kent ? Seriously ? The ONLY thing Matondo has going for him is his pace. He is a very poor footballer (and I dont like saying that about our players) - his first touch is poor, his dribbling is poor, his decision-making is poor. He just hurts opponents with his pace. Trying to compare him to Kent is ridiculous - no matter how poor Kent's season may have been thus far, he is a far, far better player than Matondo.

McGregor shows passion - but was absolutely abject against Liverpool at Ibrox. Passion alone means absolutely nothing. You think the players they come up against can't match the passion, effort, commmitment - and batter us with technique ?

Ben Davies is better than both Balogun AND Katic.

You think that Ridvan has proven himself already ? I remain unconvinced, we need to see him with a run of games first - a decent showing against Queen of the South isn't nearly enough for him to have proven himself. Certainly not more than Matondo, who I am completely unconvinced by.

So, wait, you said we need bodies in midfield. Now you are saying a) we don't need creative bodies in midfield and b) we don't need any holding midfielders. So just what type of midfielders do we need ? We have plenty holding midfielders in Lundstram, Jack, Davis and Sands The players you mentioned don't really play in midfield though, they play in the advanced line - all of them really kind of play the "10" or on the wing. Easiest way for me to put it, I guess, to get my point across, is we could be doing with someone with Gascoigne-type attributes. None of our midfield has the ability to go past a player and make something happen, that can go past a player and attract more opponents to him out of fear, but also be able to spot a pass and break the lines vertically and take players out the game. Not sure given GvB's 4-2-3-1 preference why a right sided Lundstram would be something we need - where would he fit into the 2 in midfield ? And why if we already have so many holding midfielders ? If we had the players fit that you rightly mention we would be able to inter-change Kent and Lawrence on both sides, though I think I would prefer Lawrence playing the "10" and that also takes some of the pressure off Tillman to constantly be the creative spark. Of all the creative midfielders we have we presently have ONE that is fit (Tillman) who is inconsistent so, yes, we need more creativity in our midfield. I am not including Lowry as being fit because he has just come back from injury and shouldnt be rushed back into 75 minutes per game. Hagi out till post WC and same with Lawrence. Our other creativity is a faltering Kent (winger), Sakala (winger) whose second touch is a tackle and Matondo (winger) who is our version of the headless chicken Maeda.

Anyone who thinks we are in a position to compete at European level given circumstance and condition is either ignoring the situation or is hoodwinked by last season and getting to the Europa Final. Since 1993 (so in the last 30 years) we have had TWO seasons where we made European finals and both times we greatly punched above our weight. We have had another couple of decent forays in Europe which have been largely due to the unbelievable exploits of our previous manager and the legendary Walter. We should remember that for almost a decade of that time we were largely financially outspending English heavyweights and also financially competing with many of Europe's top clubs - yet still couldn't really make a dent in continental competition. Some of Europe's top clubs are spending well over 100 million in transfer fees and still find they can't compete at this level. With our paltry income neither should we be. Yes, we have a proud, storied history and are one of football's most successful clubs - but UEFA have seen to it that a handful of leagues and a handful of clubs within those leagues will continue to increase the chasm between the have and have-nots. Yet here we are, in a footballing, and financial, backwater - somehow thinking we should be competing at this level. We, myself, included - I actually felt we could finish 2nd in this group or, at worst, 3rd and drop to the Europa - I thought we could take points off both Ajax and Napoli home AND away.... how foolish I was - Napoli have such quality that they are my dark horses to go all the way. Throw in last season's beaten finalists and a Dutch club steeped in history and a knack of having technically wonderful players.... and zero points, and worst record in the competitions history, isnt as much of a surprise as we would otherwise think. Incredibly disappointing, yes. Surprising ? Shouldn't have been - though my blind faith had me believing. The team who finished 3rd in our group spent more money on one player than we spent on our whole squad in the summer..... and that one player so happened to be our player - so we are losing our best players but having to use those funds to revitalise a whole squad. The economics just don't stack up for us to be competitive at this level yet. The Europa last season, and even our runs in the previous couple of seasons before, appear to be the abhorration rather than the norm. For now, I am going to look back fondly on Manchester and Seville and recognise that I got to see my team in two finals that, realistically, I shouldnt have. Some will take the juxta position of that and be gutted/annoyed/frustrated that we have been very humbled in this season's CL, as is their prerogative. But a touch of realism should soon have most realizing that is where we are. Manchester and Seville should be cherished because they probably shouldnt have happened.

Not so much we need bodies in midfield.... we need a different TYPE of body in midfield. We lack creativity in our midfield. Celtic aside, we don't need two holding midfielders, one is enough with creativity beside them, someone who has the vision and ability to either see a vertical pass or to make that forward move themselves.