Tannochsidebear

Clement said at the Armadillo on Sunday night that some injured players (he named Sima) asked to go to Benfica to cheer their teammates on and he loved that, so it won’t automatically mean he is ready to play but hopefully he is.

Scottish champions for 23/24 go straight into the new league stage for 24/25. Scottish runners up go into Q3 path for non-champions and would need to win 2 rounds of qualifying to get into the group stages. For access lists, dates, Co-efficients etc the best site by miles is Bert Kassies, link here - https://kassiesa.net/uefa/AccessList2024.html

Benfica 1 Rangers 2 fgs Tavernier

Initially sceptical, I’m coming round to the idea. While the full 36 team league standings format is a bit mental, the exciting bit is getting to play 8 different opponents once, not just 3 opponents twice. Clearly the luck of the draw is important as you could end up playing Real Madrid & Bayern Munich while a similar ranked team plays Porto & PSV and all points gained are in one table but to qualify for knockout stages you have to finish ahead of only 8 teams. I would imagine we would be seeded in pot 3 so we play 2 pot 3 teams and 2 pot 4 teams, so half our games are against similar standard teams, and if you pick up enough points from those games that should be enough to get a juicy KO game for plenty of Euros in February.

I am sure the manager and players dont see it that way. They dont come to Rangers to play in our shitty league. They come to do well in Europe and get noticed for their performances on that stage. Clement will pick his strongest side, and they will give absolutely everything to get a result. Whether we get a result or not remains to be seen, but this squad genuinely think they can beat anyone, and have no fear.

In our worst defensive performance of the Clement era, I just cant pick a defender as all were honking, Butland included. Gone for Mr Versatile, doesnt ever hide and tried his best in a position that doesnt suit him.

Another really tough game tonight at a venue we dont have a good history at in this fixture. If we play anything like we did on Saturday we will win easily, but this pitch doesnt allow you to play like that, nor does our opponent. McInnes will do his usual, slow the game down, run down the clock, lots of stoppages, lots of fouls, quick counters and aggresive set pieces. For our side, I would probably go with Lundstrum and Sterling giving us solidity in the midfield, Balogun & Barasic in for Souttar & Yilmaz, with Silva rotating the starts up front and that leaves the 3 in behind. I fancy a start for McAusland and Diomande has to continue you would think so that leaves the one wide position and it might be Wright given the nod to start with. Not the team I would select but trying to second guess the manager. We must match the fight and hunger and then be clinical. Win this one and I will genuinely start to believe (ok I already do but trying to keep it quiet!)

Despite having over 2 months to organise, it seems the Rangers Travel Partner has yet again been unable to provide a travel option for Rangers fans. It was announced today there will be no official flight to Lisbon for Rangers supporters to go and see the game. Sport Options, catering for all 5 remaining UK participants in the two Thursday Cups, have yet again managed to put on a flight at a reasonable price. Unfortunately for me, they (rightly) gave fans who travelled with them earlier in the season first dibs and the flight was filled within 15 minutes with hundreds more missing out. It is completely unacceptable for the club to align with a travel partner who cannot provide travel. I understand the last partner got binned for the very same reason but this new one seems equally incompetent. For fans who don’t want to spend 3 days in various airports zigzagging across Europe to get to the game the day trip or 1 night direct option is the only option, and while it is usually much more expensive that is the trade-off and you can make that choice. The club is normally not shy in making a buck out of the fans, and I can only imagine this scenario is costing the club money too. In 2008 the Nithsdale Loyal RSC booked and ran a 240 seater plane at very little notice to Lisbon for our quarter final tie v Sporting en route to Manchester. It was our second charter of the season following another full flight to Barcelona for our CL game the previous autumn. Surely if a supporters club can arrange, administer and run a flight then these travel partners should be able to provide the same?

Certainly one of the more difficult draws we could have got for our seeded position, but we got two very entertaining draws with them in the groups a couple of years back so not impossible. I'm hoping to get a day trip to this one, but of more importance is Hearts on Saturday and Killie on Wednesday.

A very difficult one this week, with no real standout for me. Always a bit more difficult watching on tv as well as you dont see the whole game for the work put in off the ball for example, as I was in Lanzarote for the last week and so had to make do with the welcoming and fantastic Bluebells Bar in Puerto Del Carmen which I would highly recommend to any bears that find their way near there during the season. A very poor pitch and another cheat of a referee (where does Peter find them?) were the standout performers but neither in our favour or in a positive manner, so I will give the vote to the captain who joined Greig as our highest scoring defender of all time in just a fraction of the time it took our so-called "greatest ever" to get there.

An absolutely massive two games coming up now against two in-form opponents who are 3rd & 4th in the table. If we can win both we stay at least 2 clear with 10 to play and we have 4 out of 5 fixtures before the split that are, on paper and current form, easier. Of course after these 2 we have Europa and Scottish cup ties as well so it’s going to be important to plan ahead with rotation, avoid further injuries, and don’t allow the momentum to shift.

St Johnstone 0 Rangers 2 fgs Silva

Agree with most comments in this thread about the selection, Wright has seldom delivered from a starting slot and is better from the bench (low bar I know!) and I’m comfortable with Barasic starting as I don’t think there is much difference going forward and he is the slightly better defender but this looks more like the first choice team middle to front. We must start fast and strong. Got a great opportunity to go 2 points clear with 12 games remaining but Levein and the officials will make this very difficult so we need to be right on it.

Is that not 10 goals and 2 assists from that stats table? So 12 goal involvements?

Rangers 4 Ross County 0 fgs Cantwell

Ok I concede St Mirren or Bonnyrigg or ICT or Airdrie would all make for a fun weekend!

From the presser it looks like Jack starts, alongside Diomande and Cortes, so maybe quite a few changes which will be good to see how they perform. Looking forward to a few goals and comfortable victory and a meeting with Morton at Ibrox in the QF for more of the same.

Great performance, great result, great atmosphere. The crowd really got the team going and vice versa. Great performances from Cantwell and Lundstrum. Good contributions from Matondo and McCausland (but will he ever take a man on on the outside?) and good cameos from Silva and Diamonde. With Ross County and St Johnstone in the next week while the bheasts go to Hibs then host Killie, could we even be clear in the lead by Sunday week? Bet365 have us as 4/5 favourites for the title now (before yesterday we were joint favourites at 5/6. Whisper it, but this is looking good if we can maintain this momentum. Obviously the negative was, yet again, Goldson. How many times is he going to be allowed to cost us goals in big games and still remain first choice. £38Kpw wages and 6 years of mistakes costing us dozens of points, cups, the Europa, and he still continues to be the worst defender at the club but first pick by every manager he has played under. I just dont get it? But even Goldson (and Don Robertson's performance) cant spoil the buzz today after that game, bring on the next one. 14 cup finals left to go.

2 absolute standouts Cantwell and Lundstrum. I've gone for the match-winner. If Clement can get these type of performances regularly out of Cantwell it will go a long way towards the title.

Rangers 2 Aberdeen 1 fgs Cantwell

If we win the title - then yes If we dont win the league title - then no It really is that simple.

I’m really worried about this game tomorrow. A Dolly team with some new found confidence after getting rid of another failed yahoo, and then bringing in a hugely experienced manager pretty famous for turning round underperforming teams, alongside Don Robertson being his usual one-sided consistent cheat against us, I’ve got the fear! I will gladly bite your hand off for an ugly single goal victory. A huge test for PC and the players. We must match the fight our opponent will show first and foremost, then hope our better players can win us the game, if allowed.

Cantwell, with McCausland and Silva not far behind. Hope Todd has as influential a game on Tuesday.

Good performance, good result. The bookies now have us as joint favourites for the title. Only concern is we are not ruthless enough and goal difference may be an issue so we have to push on for the whole game every time to get those extra goals. Absolutely huge game now on Tuesday against Dolly who will come and run , kick, snarl all night and we simply cannot afford to drop any more points against them. I’d love an emphatic victory but I’ll take any win.

Like most I would have liked a goalscoring striker to be brought in, I really believe that would have secured the title. While Dessers has had a good game or two recently, he is still for me miles off the standard we need and his misses are truly awful. He needs to be replaced but it wont be this season clearly. From what little we have seen of Silva so far, he again looks like one who prefers to pass or take another touch when a shooting chance presents itself, so will not be prolific enough or greedy enough to get the goals to jsutify his price tag. Hope im wrong on both as we have a treble within our grasp if we can take enough of the chances we create. As for the two late additions, as usual I know absolutely nothing about them and i couldnt pick them out of a line up, but I hope to see them both over the next 4 home games in 2 weeks and be impressed. Certainly better than what they are replacing is the minimum (very low) expectation. The comforting bigger picture is that our opponent didnt strengthen either, so at least we havent lost ground in that sense. It's all to play for. If we hadnt been cheated by referees (lets call it what it was) in the 2 OF games to date we would have a healthy lead, so we must keep beating more of the other 10 than they do and that will take us close. The biggest question is just what the hell does PC do with the Euro squad? With only 3 changes allowed and at least 5 required, he is really up against it and has huge decisions to make and will be leaving out 2 important players no matter what. The Beale legacy continues to harm us. At least he will have a couple of weeks (I think?) before he has to nail his squad so he can see how the 2 newbies settle in and if they look like they are going to take time to settle then they may get Thursdays off. We must surely bring in Balogun and Ridvan as one is our best centre half and the other is the only cover for Borna who seems to be picking up more injuries as time goes on. You would think Silva is certain to be added to the squad. Remove Sima, Davies, Lammers, Roofe, Cifuentes or any of the injured or likely to be injured again anytime soon long list.