Tannochsidebear

Yaaas 4-0 Aribo again after another beautiful move

We are playing some beautiful football, slick passing, fast tempo, some great off the ball running by everyone, inter-changing positions , Aribo in particular is everywhere and has such great ball control. This could be any number if we keep it up.

Lovely free flowing move again by us, Aribo cuts back onto his left and scores with aid of a deflection

3-0 Aribo!

2-0 Roofe header

Mistake from defender gifts the ball to Defoe who plays a lovely pass to release Kent who runs into box and squares it to Arfield for the side foot finish. That’s the early goal we craved.

Yaaaassss Scotty!

Very surprised to see Hamilton play with two strikers both pressing our back line and not allowing us to bring it out as easily as we like. Should leave more space for us to create in midfield and in final third

Cmon Gers let’s go! Hope we can get an early goal to calm things down. SG looking for pace and intensity in his pre-match interview, and if we get that a victory should also be forthcoming.

Rangers 4 Hamilton 0 fgs Defoe

Got to use the squad, good to see us freshen it up without bringing in Barker! Hopefully win this at a canter and can rotate more from the bench in the second half. Bheasts win again, so for all they have been rotten and heavily criticised they have still won 9 of 12 league games and only lost 1, so we have absolutely no room for slip ups.

Fair enough, they did make 2 subs at half time.

One thing I thought of at the time and it has been eating away at me since - I thought you were only allowed to make 3 changes, which can be for up to 5 subs. i.e. you have to put subs on in pairs as you can only stop the game 3 times. Benfica made 5 subs, with 4 interruptions to play. I thought at the time they were bringing on their last sub that they were not allowed to bring him on. Can anyone clarify one way or the other on this? I'm not going down the tims route of emailing UEFA demanding they award us the game, I ask just out of curiosity!

Has to be a toss up between Davis and Kamara, both of whom had fantastic games for us. Defensively we were very unlike our recent showings, with individual errors and poor positional play costing us goals, and with both full backs being beaten on several occasions to take away from their great attacking work. Jack started really poorly but grew into the game and made a few great tackles in the second half. Alfie looked back to almost his best and Kent changed the game with drawing the foul and red card at a time we were looking likely to be on the wrong end of a mauling. A great team display that was ruined with poor management in not making subs to kill the game and we concede an injury time goal that wouldn't have happened if we had been making 4 additional changes to eat up the clock in the last 5 minutes. I will plump for Kamara, I thought he was outstanding.

While there is no doubt this young lad is a real talent and looks likely to go on and have a great career, surely he/anyone cannot be called a former Rangers player unless they have played a first team game? Rangers youth player for sure, but not Rangers player, in my book anyway. (Pedantic Loyal!) Huge credit to Stevie for getting another big interview, and the boy comes across well, albeit he only sounds about 12! Not much Rangers content but an interesting listen.

Gerrard not using subs to kill the game and the clock is criminal. Not his first offence in similar circumstances either. While I would have grabbed a draw with both hands pre-match, and laughed at a draw after 15 mins, to not close that out from a winning position is really poor and most Bears will be gutted at a draw with Benfica, which in itself shows how far we have come.

And it’s come back to haunt us as tired legs don’t track back and they equalise

Really naive not to have been killing the clock and momentum by not using subs

Need to use our subs to good effect now both to freshen up and kill time

Really poor goal again to give away, and with plenty of time left it’s game on again when it was just about done.

Oh Tav! A heavy first touch denies him a simple finish to a beautiful move. Arfield on for Aribo

Benfica definitely haven’t chucked it, they are about to make their 5th sub after just 65 mins as they chase the game.

Kent hits the post after a great move yet again from us. That would definitely have killed it. We should have 5 here. Just let that sink in for a minute.

Another great move by us nearly opened them up again. Although Benfica are still a threat, mainly on the counter, we are very comfortable as we approach the hour mark and look like we can score more.

Quite incredible, Alfredo does it again!