Tannochsidebear

The manager was asked that question in the post-match by Edgar and said the same thing, that is just how he walks and the plan was to introduce him last night for some minutes but the red card meant he couldnt, and that he will be getting minutes in each game going forward from now.

Yes and the fact that I dont need to spend another £30+ to visit that dump of a place that takes hours to get to, hours to get away from, and for 85% of it offers a pretty terrible view, and have a free midweek night instead of having to attend either the stadium or the pub to watch another borefest or two. That I am actually a bit relieved about that is a very worrying insight into how bad we have got at this time.

ffs Cammy we have only played three games, won 1 drawn 1 (at Tynecastle, hard place to win) and lost 1 due to a cheating referee and the fact we couldnt play at Ibrox, and over 10,000 of our fans didnt turn up to roar the team on. Might just as easily be our fault for not backing the team. I do get your point that its not looking good and we can see no improvement, yet, and I am far from feckin happy about it, but it is not fair to expect a turnaround of a broken squad in one window which still has 2 weeks to run while the manager has not been backed by the board.

Went for Souttar, defended well from what I could see. Won a ton of headers and a few challenges as well. Him and Propper seem to be developing nicely into a partnership in a short time. Dessers worked hard for sure, but most of his best work was defensive not offensive. I thought Dio was best of midfield, had a very good start to the game.

And a loan fee I would hope

Rangers 2 Kiev 1 fgs Dessers

I had the paper ticket with me but used the phone. Didn’t blow it up too much and only needed one side showing and it worked no problem. Think I will probably just take a paper copy with me again just to make sure as this is not a ST game.

Maybe so, but it's a tough environment to play in, and you simply cannot afford to miss several easy chances against your biggest rivals and expect your fans to be fully onside with your capabilities. Heroes are made in the big games of those who score winners. Take Maurice Edu, Katic, big Ugo to name just 3 that came to mind quickly. Cult heroes despite not always featuring or being supremely talented, simply because they scored goals in OF games that won us (or got us an important draw) the game. Dessers missed chances have been in close games that we could have won, and if he had scored we may well have won, that in turn may have won us the treble last season. Had he done so, there would be no debate about him, he would be adored by the fans.

I think the long and short of it is he missed big chances in OF games that cost us points. Also in Europe to a lesser extent (I’m not forgetting the stunner in Seville as some balance). As a Rangers striker you must take the easier chances in OF games or you are toast.

Easily Cerny the only sign of quality I can see. That the game completely died on its arse once he went off tells all.

Rangers 3 Motherwell 0 fgs Dessers

Went for Sterling, but could have been Jefte as it was only really the subs who impressed. Starting 11 worked hard but showed little quality throughout.

1-1 Tav

Wholesome praise for the young lad, but not sure I would even put him ahead of a Stuart McColl who I thought Barron reminded me of a poorer version of, never mind our so-called "Greatest Ever". A tough first game to be judging him on as the team were fairly awful but he got just as much wrong as he got right IMO so plenty of room for improvement but he certainly didnt lack commitment or desire.

Close between Dio & Barron, both get 4/10 and well clear of the rest.

Hearts 1 Rangers 2 fgs Lawrence

I sit in the Copland Rear about a third of the way up and between the 6yd box and 18 yd box on the main stand side. How that transfers to a single letter row in the horrible West stand I dont know? I am now in a over 4000 long queue for the Kiev ticket to try to make sure I get a South or North stand ticket. I might even see if i can buy a better seat on seat sub for league games and sell mine as I absolutely hate the West Stand views. At least I am 2 sections away from the Onions as my big fear was being close to them as well. Glad for bears who are happy with the seats they have been allocated, and there is no way of pleasing everyone I get that but really disappointed.

I’m guessing zero, didn’t think he was taking a wage.

At those prices it is more likely that all the auld codgers are buying them to give to the youngsters!

And King and Nsaila or whatever he's called. But I agree we need more quality there as none of these (clearly I know nothing of the newbie so exclude him) are good enough to be first picks. I think of Souttar, Balogun and Davies as rotational players or backup, they are not of sufficient quality or reliability to build your base from. In fact I can think of only Helander as a proper first team defender from all we have had since SG arrived, and he was of course made of chocolate so failed the reliability test. Am I missing anyone? Our list of CH in the last 7 years must be remarkably poor and is probably the biggest factor in us winning 3 out of the last 21 domestic trophies.

Going back to Frankie's update post, I was thinking that £11M of commitments would include staged payments for the likes of Danilo and Dessers. It is normal these days I believe to stage payments across a year or 2, and I am sure I have read this is very much our club's way of dealing in the market too. So when JB talks of this high number that may include staged payments for previous purchases, not only the likes of summer 2024 buys like Cerny and Cortes. I thought the interview was pretty much as expected and not as bad as others have said, he explained a bit about the timescales for the steel, the process there going forward, didnt expect him to say too much about how it was allowed to happen to get to this stage. Like others though I was a little surprised he took the tone as if he has only just joined the board now and not that he has been there for about 5 years now. I appreciate his was not a hands on role day to day and that we had CEO and other board members more involved but he should have took it a bit more on the chin for collective responsibility. A bit more humility perhaps. Explained a bit more about what he and PC are going to be doing to change the squad around with no more buying non-resale value players and also cutting costs (the wage bill I suspect being the biggest hit which is why Goldson Tav & Cantwell are being punted as they are suspected to be the biggest earners) and bringing in more legs and energy as well as hopefully quality.

He's gone, he's finally gone. Halle-feckin-luyah. £2M a year off the wage bill plus a fee. I am away to bet on us winning the league now that this serial loser, big-game bottler and half-time chucker is history. Well done big Phil in getting rid as I know he wasnt keen to leave.

I agree with most of this but are we really a weaker squad than the one that crumpled and bottled it at the end of last season? While I don’t know anything about any of the newbies that have been brought in, to my mind unless I’ve missed something the only players to have left we needed gone, so we can’t really be weaker?

I fancy us to win the league this year. I believe the manager will sort the squad out by the end of the window and if we avoid defeat in first OF game we will push on from there. CL qualification may be too much too soon.

I only caught snippets of the second half but the amount of bed wetting both here and on twitter reinforces my long-held view that all pre-season friendlies should be behind closed doors with no tv coverage. The matches almost always fail to entertain, the second half is usually non-stop interruptions with subs, and it would be far better for players to find their feet away from the glare of supporters. Getting booed off at HT in a bounce game is a new low. What chance do our young and new players have when they are not allowed even a half a bounce game without such harsh scrutiny?