Tannochsidebear

My guess is that they want to "postpone" a home game on the second weekend of the season to fit in a "glamour" friendly so the fixtures had to pan out this way. Only a guess!

The one very tough situation is that we have away games in the first quarter to the top 3 sides, tims, jambos & dolly. Of course this should mean that we get to play all 3 at Ibrox post-split, which may be important if we haven't won the league by then!

Thats is a very surprising but welcome start to the campaign. We should have 12 points out of 12 going into the first OF game, whereas the bheasts have to overcome both Hearts and Dolly in their first four games. Cue a lot of tims crying fix! The home OF game is scheduled for Hogmanay!

I was checking the league cup fixtures yesterday and noticed that we dont have a game on matchday 5 - 30th July, and was assuming we would arrange a home friendly for that date. Burnley seem a decent choice again. I wont be going as I dont like friendlies but I hope that with the prices being set at reasonable levels we will get a good crowd along for this.

Russia 1- 1 Slovakia Romania 2- 1Switzerland France 3- 0Albania England 2- 1Wales Ukraine 2- 0Northern Ireland Germany 2- 1Poland Italy1 - 0Sweden Czech Rep1 -1 Croatia Spain2 - 1Turkey Belgium2 - 1R. of Ireland Iceland2 - 1Hungary Portugal2 - 1Austria

Bloody hell, what an embarrasing set of results from day 1 I got Better get my finger out to avoid the wooden spoon, will have a good look at them all tonight. The funny thing is I am doing quite well at the bookies this tournament so far where my bets dont match my predictions! I was totally scunnered by that late Wales goal on Saturday as I had the scorecast and a few other bets all coming up if that ended 1-1. Still ahead on it but that would have meant I was playing with the bookies money for the rest of the tournament.

Therein lies the difference between the Germans and English when it comes to tournament football. Both are defending a corner with 60 seconds of injury time remaining and a slender 1-0 lead. England fail to defend properly and give up an equaliser whereas Germany defend properly, break upfield and score a second goal.

This 1-0 isnt good enough for me (writing at 63 mins) when I have both teams to score on one line and Swiss -1 on the other. If either had any composure up front this would have been high-scoring as chances have been created by both sides. Poor in quality and I dont think either are as good as the Romanians but at least both are looking to attack and not just a borefest as some other games will no doubt be over next couple of weeks.

There isnt a ref in Scotland that will send off Brooooon in an OF game. He has a licence to do whatever he likes.

Remarks like that are not helpful. It only motivates the opponent, it doesnt scare them. He talks well about football does Barton, I wish he would just not talk about what he is going to do until he has at least proven he can do it for us regularly on the park.

I have been quite confidently predicting that the Frogs will win the tournament on home soil (see '84 & '98) and also with some very good players in top form like Griessman, Payet & Konte. However nobody told me they had managed to get Wilson & Kiernan to be their centre backs!! Thats a total game changer - will need to be putting some cash on Spain or Germany now as France wont win with that defence. The centre backs were absolutely awful. I heard in commentary that they are missing three centre backs, and it looked like it. An early contender for goal/player of the tournament was the wonderful display by Payet of West Ham/France. I hope the Hammers have a big release fee built in as if he continues like that he wont be playing at their new stadium next season. I have thought Payet was WH star man all season and I loved watching him when the Hammers were on tv, but I wasnt sure if this would transform to International football or indeed in France would allow him the freedom to play to his strengths. He was a joy to watch last night. Moving on to today, I am meeting up with a few mates in town for the Wales/England double header but thanks to Rousseau for the heads up about the first game today, which I had been thinking was going to be an easy victory for the Swiss with nothing of note to look out for. Brothers playing against each other at International level? That must be a first? I might have to re-think my betting strategy if it is going to be played like a derby match with a lot of in-built tension. Also going by the Romanian performance last night, these two might be eyeing up their sole chance of a victory in todays game and a chance to clinch a third place spot.

Well I can't argue with logic like that! Hope your right!

Is that where he plays? If so, I would be happy with that. Of course, he hasn't signed yet!

I don't read anything 3 names has to say and give credence to his ramblings even less. I know MW likes to get his business done early in order to work in pre-season with the team he wants to start the season with. Under other managers we were happy as long as the signings were made right up to our first competitive match, which is about 5 weeks away. Our first day of pre-season is 10 days away (I think?), so ONLY by MW's stated aims is time getting close and huge big holes in our squad still requiring filling. I am still working on 5 weeks to get the players in, so not too bothered by lack of action at this stage with everyone on holiday.

Only Barton for me has the necessary pedigree and quality required to go straight into our first team out of all the signings made to date. Our weaknesses, there for all to see in the faltering last few weeks of the season resulting in losing a cup final to a terrible hibs side, should not be forgotten and the priority signings are certainly not Dom Ball, who couldnt even get into a centre half position ahead of the awful Wilson/Kiernan partnership. Where oh where are our two centre backs, centre forward and creative midfield player? Where is our full-back cover? GK cover? The squad is nowhere near complete. I am still relatively calm given we are still not even in pre-season however.

If we were the tims, we would be spinning this as absolute proof that we are being victimised and targeted anti-rangers policing, and calling on everybody and anybody to say just how this needs to be stopped.

France 3-0 Romania Albania 0-2 Switzerland Wales 1-1 Slovakia England 2-1 Russia Turkey 1-1 Croatia Poland 1-1 Northern Ireland Germany 3-1 Ukraine Spain 3-1 Czech Rep Rep of Ireland 0-3 Sweden Belgium 1-1 Italy Austria 1-1 Hungary Portgual 4-1 Iceland

Is it April 1 again already. What an absolute nonsense this is. Why on earth would we (Scottish football) want pub teams from Wales & NI to play against U20 prem teams (we played mostly U17s last year) and all the lower league teams? I hope we withdraw and have nothing to do with it. If we are to accept this as a good idea, why on earth would a Welsh team get a bye to round 4? Absolute nonsense and demeans our game. So Linfield get to play European qualifier(s), then play Ross County's kids? Given our youth teams regularly beat Linfield over recent years, these Welsh & Irish teams bring nothing, absolutely nothing, to this tournament apart from the potential for trouble. Can you imagine our U20 team gets an away draw at an ira supporting team from NI? Would attract nothing but trouble! Add in strict liability and watch this turn into a total disaster.

We were doing fine until we won the diddy cup, league and OF SF all in a week, then put the tools away. Seen it happen before, will no doubt see it happen again. As for the cup final, a mixture of what I said above and 4/5 players missing from an already too small squad was in the end too much to overcome (pathetic defending aside). I said clearly we can't expect to win the league, my point is simply we should never be coming third or lower with the resources available to us.

6% preference shares I seem to recall. Better than an ISA for sure!

Yes I like the BBC sports section - UK wide site. It keeps me up to date with the other sports I love (tennis, cricket) and also English footy. BBC Scotland is typically awful (Wilson excepted), but easy to navigate for a technophobe like me! I know what you were getting at though!

No problem to me mate, if you are willing to do it fair play to you. Just making sure you knew there was another option.

You cant have it both ways Rousseau! Take celtic out the equation and you will admit we have the best manager, best players, best coaches, best facilities, best sports science, best scouting set-up and therefore should finish above every one of the other 10 clubs in that division. To not do so will be a total failure, a bit like McLeish in his final season, or Ally a couple of years ago. Unless there are huge mitigating circumstances (massive injuries/suspensions) then third place should see the Rangers manager fired. I dont care who it is or what they have done, to come third in a two horse race is a sacking offence when the gap between our resources and the rest of the league is so huge. I dont for a minute believe that Warburton's side will come third so I see it as a bit of a moot point, but think how many points we will have to drop to come third, (in 15-16 the figure would be a minimum of 44 points dropped in 38 games) and then ask yourself if Rangers supporters will accept dropping that amount of points to the sides in our league. The answer is a resounding no. Have some faith that Warburton knows exactly what he needs to do for the coming season and we will be challenging for first, and while I have no problem if we fail to come first given the huge gulf in resources between us and them, I dont expect a huge margin or defeat for second as we should not be dropping the number of points required to fail to come second with all the above positive factors taken into account.

Just seen the BBC have a predictor league running where you can set up a league with your mates. That may be the simplest option for us as the BBC are doing all the work! Link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/predictor

The summer that PLG came in was sensational, and the expectation was enormous. I seen it mentioned the other day that the 06-07 season was our most successful ever for selling ST in pre-season, and this was definitely the reason why. If we can get anywhere close to that number this year we will be doing very well indeed.