Tannochsidebear

Maybe I am more simple in terms of tactical awareness, but in my book we have struggled to match the tempo of the opening weeks for two simple reasons. 1. Our passing is slower, the movement from the midfielders and forwards is not as quick and as often as before and is therefore easier to defend against. 2. We are no longer attacking in packs when we lose possession in the final third and therefore we are not winning the ball back as often in dangerous areas. We scored a lot of goals in the first few weeks by winning the ball back well upfield. While being thoroughly entertained in the early weeks by the above two points in particular, it was also a worry that we would not be able to maintain that level of intensity over the course of a season, especially with a small squad. For the same reasons as our opponents visibly tired late in games by our above tactics, it seems as though our front 6 no longer have the same energy as in the early weeks. We still look a lot fitter than our opponents, rightly so given the resources, but the intensity has most certainly dropped. I would respectfully suggest that it is nothing to do with the opponents working us out or how to play us, or systems learned from the almighty Pep, and more to do with our own intensity, pace of movement, and accuracy of passing in the final third. We do not play against Real Madrid and Dortmund every week, but Livingston & Morton, and we do not need the tactical genius of Kasparov to break them down, just good players playing well and a system that works.

Wont argue with much of that Frankie, aside from I dont really see Wes as being that great with his feet, and his distribution I think needs some work as when he takes a cross and looks to break quickly, he always seems to miss the one Rangers player in space! There is no point leaving two/three players up when defending set pieces if the keeper cant hit any of them with an early ball. Neither of the two main keepers on our books seem capable of pulling off match-winning saves that they had no right to get to, and that is the difference at the top level and worth a good few points over a tight season, and perhaps even get you through an extra round in Europe/cups and IMO neither will be good enough once we are established back at the top but may suffice for this and next season.

I think Bell is a good keeper, that like so many last season, we did not see the best of. I am still not overly impressed with Wes, and he would struggle to make my top 10 Rangers keepers in the last 25 year, and while sufficient for where we are now, does not look like a keeper to win us matches/titles.

The chunt has no problem writing what Lawwell tells him to write, hence ridiculous articles in the past bumming up poor septic players valuations.

Should be playing in front of Kenny Misser in my book. Every minute of game time we waste by giving it to Miller we are stopping this lad with real potential from progressing. I am very surprised a manager with such a forward thinking and progressive outlook is persevering with the abysmal Miller with someone like Hardie waiting for a chance.

The wages on offer from an English Championship club were double what we offered, but we managed to sell the club to him with live tv games, exposure, fan adoration, potentially European games etc. That he and his agent accepted the lower deal with the cheap buy-out seemed a fair deal to me at the time. Of course, what we as a club should be doing now is giving the boy a substantial pay rise and removing the buy-out clause, or at least putting it at a more realistic level if they insist on it remaning.

Your point is spot on Pete. If the story was Hughes saves man from burning flat it would have been ex-Motherwell player Hughes. The Daily Rhebel has plenty, plenty previous for this sort of stuff, as do the other tabloids, but they do not balance it with ex-celts in court stories.

I have heard that Tav has a buy-out in his contract, and it isn't a huge sum. This was why we managed to get him despite him having other offers with much higher wages. This was told to me just after he signed, before we knew how well he was going to fit in.

I have been to most of these since the start but can't make it tonight. Hopefully get some updates, especially from the Q&A with Mr Robertson who we have heard very little from to date.

So why do we insist on sending up both centre halfs for corners when we have no intention of putting the ball into the box aerially? Surely it is best, if this is the approach, to keep your best defenders back at the half-way line, and put your best attacking players in the dangerous areas? It is fine being so analytical about possession statistics, but there has to be an end product to possession or you end up being a busy fool. Perhaps if we concentrated more on shooting from the edge of the box (apart from in the warm-up) we might have better success for our possession, and defenders would have more than one thing to think about. At the moment when Zelalem or Oduwa get the abll at the edge of the box, the only certainty is that they are not going to shoot. That makes it much easier to defend against. I noticed at Morton that these two dont even take part in the shooty-in at the end of the warm-up, they just stood hitting lame 10 yard passes to each other. Not that I put much emphasis into the shooty-in as it looks like just a bit of fun for the players after the serious warm-up stuff and before the kick-off, but to not take part and then not to even shoot despite many opportunities to do so is looking more like a fault in their game which hopefully can be addressed during their time with us as I think both could score goals from the edge of the box, or create rebounds for the strikers.

I didnt think of that!! Tough if he is, this is a UK site!

I see the Evening Times has a very loose definition of "Legend". For me Brown comes nowhere near that status. There was a reason he was the only uncapped player in the 9IAR team, and that is because, without Gough, he actually wasnt all that good IMO. Yes, if a forward needed "sorting out" Brown would be first up, but he was the weak link by far in a very good team. I dont have a problem with what he says in the article, as most of it has already been covered by Gersnet in recent days, although we are now 13 games into the season and we should be seeing some sort of partnership forming by now, and Wilson for me is getting worse, not better.

See before you publish this Frankie, please change defense to defence. I hate that Americanism. I am guessing Rousseau uses an English (US) spellchecker! Now I will try to read the article without going all NFL in my head every time I read the word. Sorry, pedantic bassa here.

As Boabie says above, this is a new board and the first board for probably over a decade that has fans interests at heart. Of course the proof will be evident over coming months/years as to how the current board achieve all they pronounce.

Absolutely not. Proper supporter facilities should be a given for us, and the club have to budget accordingly to ensure services for all supporters are of a standard that we want our club to achieve. I do not believe there should be a separate levy just to pay for disabled access improvements. We contribute 35k ST monies, millions more on other services and the club get other income from tv, merch, prizes, sponsorship etc. While these levels are currently poor by previous standards, they will rise again over the next few years. We also have another share issue in the next year or so. The club will know the UEFA guidelines and will set aside budgets accordingly. Anything else and they will have failed us. This may impact on our squad improvement budgets over coming seasons but we must take a longer term view to get our stadium back to being something to be extremely proud of and that all other clubs admire.

Its not a tough old fashioned centre back, it's a proper centre back who read the game and direct his fellow defenders into areas to cope with opponents attacks.

Get one/two proper centre defenders in and perhaps a genuine holding midfielder and we are fine. Our problem this season has been that our two centre backs, Wilson especially, have been caught flat-footed, have made poor decisions, have not marked properly, have not taken up good starting positions, and are prone to ball-watching and letting their man drift away on the blind side. Having two inexperienced centre defenders (Wilson may not be a kid but he has not played 100 first class games) was always a gamble, and it is one I am hoping Warburton (and certainly Weir) sees needs redressed in either January or next summer. With Ball as the only CH back-up it is just more of the same, and having tried all combinations of the three W&W clearly think he is not as good as Wilson or Keirnan so then there was no point bringing him up here, as he doesn't offer anything different to the two in possession just now. I dont think we need a spare man as such (at this level), just one/two good experienced fast defenders. Easier said than done, but we should not have to compromise our attacking intent because our centre backs are not a good enough combination to play there. Perhaps we could play Wilson OR Keirnan alongside a Weir/Gough/Cuellar type who can organise and dominate and talk the other one through games. More likely both need replaced for next season.

Glad to hear you are on the mend BH, hope the recovery is speedy and the upcoming results are positive.

voted, good luck

I would echo that. Hope everything goes well BH, and you are back in top form very soon.

As well as that I was thinking that this was his reward for backing the new board quite vociferously in the early months of 2015. An absolute legend as a player and an inspirational captain. If it is just a title as a reward and perhaps in recognition that as he is based in the USA there was no point in giving him a non-exec Directorship, then this probably fits quite well. My guess is that anything he is doing to promote the club in the USA, he would have been doing anyway without the title but this might give him more clout over there to help us build into this market.

When the opponents press our split central pair, Halliday has been coming back and acting as pivot. This was very noticable at Dumbarton on Saturday. However when Dumbarton didnt press, Halliday stayed further forward as part of the midfield 5 as you put it. Halliday isn't a natural holding midfielder though, and therefore doesnt offer our centre halfs much protection against the counter attack. Perhaps Eustace will sit deeper both when we have possession as well as when we are defending. A good analysis of the system being used here and elsewhere though. We have had protective players before although we didnt play this system before. Hemdani being the perfect defensive midfielder that we seen the best of in Europe when the quality of opponent was improved above SPL level. That is my only downside to bringing Eustace into the side. While it certainly should offer more protection for the still shaky defence, do we really need this specialised role this season for league matches? We are winning comfortably and creating chances, with all of our midfielders contributing in a positive way with goals and assists and I would say these positive contributions outweigh the amount of times that our exposed defence have conceded due to not having a holding midfielder, or pivot. It is all good for debate and a good problem for the manager to try to sort out. We shall watch with interest over coming weeks how our system develops.

Quite simply a must for every Bear, this excellent tour lets you breathe in our history, from our birth to the gravestones of legendary contributors, and finishing off with a stadium tour including the blue room, marble staircase, and of course our magnificent trophy room. Done it twice now and it gets better as the guys find more and more info about our early years.

For marketing purposes only. Which really sticks in the throat given that most well-minding Bears are boycotting strips until Ashley plays fair. Don't like the purple either, and given our blue tops were perfectly fine against Dumbartons colours, it was a terrible decision by the club to go through with this. My guess is we are contractually obliged to wear it on a certain number of occasions and our board had to oblige, and picked one of the few away games not televised live to limit the exposure given to something that will only make money for SD and Ashley, not us. The sooner we can get a fair contract for merch the better for all concerned, and we might even be able to align ourselves with a top quality manufacturer and distributor.

I dont know what word you used, but I cant believe there is an adjective for they scummy bawbags that is not allowed to be used on a Rangers site! I'm guessing it was the "F" word that they frequently use as an adjective for themselves, and that Police advise is troublesome only when used with other adjectives or in an abusive context. I can call a celtic fan a "F" as long as it is not derogotary. e.g. we are playing the F next week is ok, but Brown is a dirty F B is not. And we wonder why the courts are so inconsistent with the application of the SNP's flagship piece of legislation.