Tannochsidebear

Saints 1 Rangers 2 FGS Garner

It's a no-brainer, as they say!

PC: maybe a couple of young players will be starting the game on Sunday. More than on Wednesday. Interesting comment here - do we think this means a start for Barjonas and perhaps others too?

More PC: Bruno Alves is a fantastic players. I would like to sign him, Ronaldo and Messi. A great comment by Pedro there!

Haven't commented on this thread yet but it is certainly an interesting read and quite polarising. I liked Naismith as a player, thought he was very badly advised to do "the presser" and he is most certainly head and shoulders above anything we currently have. As a rule I dont like players coming back, especially ones who wanted to leave (as opposed to sold), so if we could get someone of similar quality at a similar price without that baggage I would probably prefer that - noting that is going to be far from easy. For all the criticism of Pedro I have thrown at him, it is really an impossible task he has ahead over the next month to try to completely strip and rebuild an entire squad. It would be difficult enough in a normal summer with a 10-12 week window to work in, but he will be judged on our Euro results like it or not, and this does not give him anywhere near enough time to do all the wheeling and dealing required. With this in mind a signing like Naismith might be a safer option given he knows the club and the expectations and will fit right in without any problem. I hope Stewart Robertson and Andrew Dickson have had their holidays or are happy to wait until September because there is not a minute to waste!

If others are happy with the state of the club, the board's performance overall, the management team, and our players then that is their right to live in what must be a beautiful wee bubble. I have so much love and ambition for our club that I refuse to be satisfied with second best or excuses about why we are third best in a two team league, why we settle for an unknown manager with a poor CV, or that we should be content with mediocrity just because we were bought by a (do I really need to say alleged here?) fraudster and then signed up to a terrible commercial deal by our new owners after they got control. I support the team and attend just about every game (and have done for 30 years home away and abroad) and it breaks my heart to see such a poor selection of players wearing our famous jerseys. I signed up to the RST at the outset, signed up to RF, have continued both my monthly contributions to C1872, have worked with the club on a working group committee to try to help where I could. I am secretary of the RSC I have been a member of for nearly 30 years and put in plenty of work for them and also use another RSC for home games. I think that gives me the right to vent on a messageboard when the standards I want and expect from our club are not met. I dont ever claim to be right, just voicing my opinion and I respect the other guys on here (mostly!) that offer different opinions as long as we are all supporting the same club, which thankfully on Gersnet seems to be the case. I would probably be on Gersnet a lot more if things were better and we had a lot of positives to discuss, it would certainly be more fun, but we are where we are and I make no apologies if my sometimes negativity is in keeping with our reality.

Yes John Gilligan is a fantastic guy, a talented businessman, and a real Bear and the type we could do with more of.

Graham Park is a disaster. There really was no genuine interview process, just 6 wasted weeks before his mate's man got the job [snipped]. It was a done deal all about cronyism. Disgusting that this was allowed to happen at our football club. If he is DOF, we are royally fecked. Knows no more about football than any other punter in the stands (in fact my source says he knows nothing!), but has a rich daddy.

With over £1.2M in the bank from members like me (currently paying £18.72 and £11.25pm to C1872) which is not helping our club at all, and with the current shenanigans with the board of C1872, I think I can be forgiven if I scoff at your suggestion. Perhaps instead of snide comments you can raise the case for the defence and point out why he is the man to take us forward, and also what you have seen from him so far in his 9 games to give you any confidence in his ability that a lot of Bears are not seeing? It is not un-staunch to point out on a fans message board that if the manager has the cv of a dud, gets his teams to play like a dud, gets the results of a dud, then perhaps, and only perhaps, he is a dud. I truly hope i'm wrong, (and it has happened many times before so there is evidence to back it up!) but I have a bad feeling about it. Some quality signings will lift the place (and probably sell a few more ST's) and give us all a bit of belief again, but this has been a truly horrible season from pretty much the first kick of the ball to seemingly the last.

Said the exact same on the bus home last night. It is glaringly obvious Pedro is miles out of his depth (as his CV suggested he would be). Failure to make the difficult decision NOW will see another stroll to the title for our enemy and another wasted year.

I suspect this is spot on the money BD, but I would hope the flip side to that would be that some would not want the responsibility, and profile of Directorship or perhaps not have the time to take on such a role but would happily lend a hand in a sub-group to deliver a specific project that perhaps had a timespan of only a few months and was something they really bought into. Thinking back to my own experience back in the day with RST I knew I never had sufficient time to offer myself up for Directorship, but I had discussions a couple of times about perhaps getting involved in sub-groups on subjects I was interested in or had knowledge about.

Wishful thinking Gribz! I would gladly pay double for my season ticket if they promised me Pedro wont be in charge!

Positives - qualified for Europe. Only one game to go! A shame we only get six weeks away from it all before we start all over again. If ever we could do with a three month break it is this year!

I thought it was Pedro getting the bird for the stupid substitution as Toral wasn't great but he was miles better than the other two in midfield tonight up to that point. Not good whatever way you look at it.

I can see Pedro dropping both Windass and Holt for tonight. He (rightly) slaughtered Holt (without naming him) who as one of only two men back dived into a tackle on Hearts counter-attack and by failing to win the ball made it easy for Hearts to score, instead of jockeying the player out to the sideline and wait for his team-mates to get back to help. I like Holt and I have him as our best midfielder (that we own!) but that was poor play which i hope he learns from. Windass is a novelty act whose rare good touches are vastly outweighed by mediocrity and anonymity in equal measures, so far out his depth at this level. I predict a return to the lower leagues in England this summer with his fellow ex-Accrington player who were probably the most surprising of Warburtons signings given the level they were playing at. Still dont understand them and only aids the rumours that several transfers were more about the off-books cash transfers than players ability. Defensive options are limited, but I would like to see Jak get the gloves for the last two games to see if he is any good. Wes has been bang average for me, so let us see if, like with Gilks, we have a better keeper in reserve than first choice. Either Hodson or Beerman at left back would seem the only choice with Tav, Hill & Bates the only fit options. Garner & McKay have to start given they are both in form and scored in our last game, and Miller seems bomb-proof so he will hopefully play the other wide forward position and not be used in midfield where we effectively run a man down with him running about like a headless chicken giving the ball away continually. As a wide forward he has been quite effective when brought off the bench early last season, and his recent assists at Firhill and Ibrox have both come from that position, so if he has to play at all, it has to be there. That leaves Toral plus two in midfield. Perhaps Barjonas will get a first start, or maybe Forrester (is he fit yet?) or perhaps another product of the youths can get a game. It is a dead rubber and no amount of press hype changes that fact, so better to get a sight of some untried players than continue with failures. My preference would be for Holt, Toral plus one other, but I think Pedro might punish Holt for his error on Saturday.

Bears 2 Sheep 1 FGS Garner

Unit sure what sort of team we are going to put out at Perth then because if Pedro does the cull right, we will only have about 4 players with a future on Sunday! I do like this way of doing it though, it gives all the players told they don't have a future plenty of time to find another club and they can get their agents on the case right away. We need these guys off the books asap so we can start bringing in new players before June 5 when pre-season begins.

But I keep getting told he is our best striker. If he is our best striker, why is he not playing as a striker? We have struggled to score goals all season, yet Miller is our best striker, and our best player, but bring up his dreadful goals return and all of a sudden I get but he isn't being played as a striker. So is it all three managers this season are wrong by thinking he is not our best striker, or he is but his goals record is shit? Given that goals win games and the striker is the most important position, am I seriously getting told here that Miller is our best striker but is not being played as a striker because other inferior strikers are being preferred?

Down south so only caught the game on to in pub with sound off (thankfully!) but thought we were OK in first half and could have been further ahead at the break. Loved the free kick slid to Tav with Miller pulling the defender away to create the space, that could work if tried again. Second half was turgid. Holt was terrible at Hearts goal, he simply cannot commit to that tackle in that situation and I hope this is pointed out to him by Pedro in no uncertain terms in the game review. Miller in midfield is not working. I would have thought that Pedro, after seeing how badly Miller was in the man-marking Brown role in the OF disaster, would have played Miller up front or not at all but it seems he is another manager that loves to cram round pegs into square holes. Millers midfield performances are making me hark back to the bad old days of Jig being shoehorned into centre mid just to give him a game without being a liability in defence or attack. I await Miller starting next week at full back. In reality, this season can't end quickly enough for us Bears, so just 2 more torture sessions left before our biggest and most important game since last years SCF which is our Euro qualifier at the end of June about 6 weeks from now. There is a gargantuan amount of work to be done to be ready for that game, which is pretty much impossible to expect, so we have to hope for a kind draw or 3 and a bit of luck on the park too. At least we don't have the awful league cup sections to play in!

Just catching up on This thread, a very enjoyable read BH, thanks for that. As for the name check when discussing Miller, I must bite and add when 13 goals in 44 games for the Rangers number 9 gets you POTY you know your club have had the worst season imaginable. As for where would we be without him. I would suggest if Hardie was retained instead of loaned and Dodoo was given more game time and even Garner perhaps, then we may well have scored a lot more goals this season, and perhaps won a few more games, but we will never know.

I can't for the life of me understand why Miller gets another year and Hill doesn't. Hill has been by far the superior player of the two this season, AND has had to play all season with Wilson or Kiernan as his partner, which must be an absolute nightmare. If you want some experienced good pros then keep both. If you want to bring in real quality, dump both. I just don't understand why he picks just one, and the wrong one at that.

I'm sorry trublu, but any Rangers manager who gets a tanking in a cup semi-final against them, then gets his tactics horribly wrong the very next game and oversees the worst result at Ibrox against them in history, has already burnt a lot of bridges with the support. Most I speak to are resigned that we have to give him a chance and a transfer window or two to change the squad around a bit but have no or very little confidence that our board appointed the right man. I personally feel sorry for the man, who seems very decent and has a strong desire to do well, but to me looks so far out of his depth. He will get my full support, I have renewed and ticked all the boxes again as usual, but I fear next season is going to be more of the same, and I dont believe he will be in charge in a years time.

I would like to wish all attending this a very enjoyable afternoon. I am gutted at both missing the game tomorrow and the festivities amongst good fellow Bears afterwards. I look forward to reading all about it over the weekend.

Rangers 2 Hearts 1 Garner FGS

Pedro has only been here for a number of weeks and I already cant listen to his interviews with a straight face. The words say one thing, of a tactically astute, deep thinking, positive and demanding boss, his teams on the park look rudderless, bereft of ideas, tactically inept, and carefree. It doesnt look to me like this group of players are buying into his vision. The shortest close season in history is nowhere near enough time for him to make the changes necessary, IF he was good enough and had the resources to do it in the first place. I already fear how much his departure (and all the guys he has brought in with him) is going to cost us, and not just in monetary terms, when the blame is inevitably thrust his way before Christmas.