Tannochsidebear

We got exactly the type of game we thought we would. It was never going to be attractive pretty football, although I thought we should have been trying to move the ball quicker and we can certainly move better off the ball than we did. The midfield 3 of Ejaria Jack & Arfield did little to nothing to help us bring the ball out from the back, they stood beside their markers and for the most part gave no options to Goldson & McAulay to help start an attack. I thought this was the main reason we looked slow and didnt play with enough pace. The few times we got that right and one of them did their job properly and made space either for themselves or for another, it just about always led to a chance at goal, and applause from the crowd. It's funny how we all look at the game differently. Having read the thread here and read of how Candieas was MOTM, Jack was superb, Halliday was both brilliant and rubbish, Flanagan was good, Ejaria was rubbish and I am thinking I disagree completely with all of that. I thought Halliday had a decent game (not brilliant or rubbish, just solid) Ejaria had a great first half but faded second half, Jack was mostly anonymous, Candieas scored a good goal, was good defensively but rubbish in his real job of providing chances and crosses, Lafferty worked really hard but never looked liked a scoring threat, our 2 CH's dealt with their physical and aerial onslaught fantastically well. MOTM for me would be either Goldson or McAulay, who between them ensured we got a clean sheet and while the game was only 1-0 for a long time, that was the main reason we came out as winners. We will of course be set a much more different and difficult task on Thursday, and I am sure SG will bring in Barisic, Grezda, Morelos and perhaps another sitting midfielder (Rossiter or Hallidayprobably) and out will go Halliday (from LB anyway), Middleton, Lafferty & Ejaria. I would prefer to play Middleton to Candieas for the attacking option but DC's defensive work will be required on that side. I am no longer concerned with the other results in the league bar the bheasts, there is going to be no race for second this year, only for the title and I hope we can get enough points in December to keep in touch going into the second half of the season.

Glad to read Barasic should be ready for Thursday as he is clearly our best left back and I dont want to see Flanagan anywhere near a European game again. That level is far beyond him, and when I think Halliday is a better option at LB than him, I really dont see the point in retaining his services come the Jan window. I would like to see McAulay given a game with Goldson with Tav & AH as full backs. In midfield Jack as the sole holding player, although Rossiter or Coulibaly would do equally well in that spot as long as it is only one of the three playing. Ejaria & Arfield playing in midfield but with an eyey to trying to play further forward to create with Middleton & Grezda keeping their places in the attacking wide areas. They are both so much more creative and positive than Candieas who will play on Thursday when his defensive qualities are needed more. Morelos continues up front and should be looking to bang in another couple today. If we can break then early we can win easily.

I was assuming there would be no promotion for our colt side, otherwise you would be taking the place of a SPFL side (after promotion) and the wee diddy clubs wont ever vote for that. If we could get our second string into the Championship, that would be a different matter. I agree that there is very little evidence that colt teams playing in the same pyramid rarely produce player into the first team, and is therefore worth the effort at all. I would prefer our current system of loaning out good prospects to either SPFL premiership or Championship sides, or English Championship sides. Any lower down either chain is not good enough quality to get them first team ready.

What a surprise Lawwell running to the defence of his useful planted pet Doncaster. Well if Peter says its the best deal, thats the debate over then.

Does Davie Provan not know that mostly the Scotland team is made up of mostly the celtic team and ex-players? Gordon, Tierney, McGregor, Griffiths, Forrest, Bain, Hendry, as well as Mulgrew, Armstrong etc. If Scotland are so poor, how can celtic be so good? Its the same players? More hype and hypocrisy from Provo.

If we have talented youngsters that aren't ready for first team action but need competitive match experience, I cannot for the life of me think that the FIFTH tier of Scottish football will teach them anything, and certainly wont bring them on to get them ready for our first team. Our current system of loaning the best ones out to second tier Scottish teams (or even top tier) is much better. A whole team playing against 5th level sides will be a total waste of time IMO.

PLG's greatest signing. After signing a couple of dud centre halfs, PLG bought Papac to try to shore up a very leaky defence. But it was when Papac moved to left back that he made the position his own and grew into the affections of the fans with consistency, effort, heart and talent. A model pro to boot. All fans, and certainly all Rangers fans, have favourite players and some they dont rate at all. The biggest compliment I can pay Sasa is that I never heard anyone who didnt think we was worthy of wearing our shirt.

I have only seen it live, but it looked a great "old school" tackle. Of course I take your point that nowadays that is normally seen as endangering an opponent and a yellow/red card but in Scotland we all know that only applies if the tackler is a Rangers player or the recipient of the tackle is wearing green/grey hoops.

Cant agree Ian, I had a great view of it and thought that was a proper defenders tackle where you take out the ball and man together. A good old school tackle. It wasnt a foul. Such a shame it was our young lad on the receiving end, but thats football. With more experience he will see that one coming and ride it or get out of the way of it. As for Jack, I hope it is just the same type of injury that affect a lot of international players - cannybefuckedwiththispish-itis. Very common these days.

This really annoyed me. On a day when our display of gratitude towards the fallen spread across the stands and made me feel proud as punch, at the start of the second half the UB completely embarrass themselves, and therefore the rest of the Rangers support, with that "motherwell grasses" banner. I hadnt a clue what it referred to. If the story in this thread is true, then one of the UB has run over another person and not reported it. No matter the provocation, you cant do that. If the roles were reversed and a young UB member had been run over by, frankly, anyone, I would want the incident reported and let the law take its course. If there were mitigating circumstances like being fearful for your life in amongst an angry mob, then make your case surrounding that. The banner makes them as pathetic as the Hibs fans who claimed Wallace was a grass for seeking the protection of the law from unlawful actions by scumbags.

Ridiculous. He should concentrate on getting himself fit as one of only two strikers at the club and with Alfredo only one booking away from a suspension, not pissing off to join up with a manager that threw him under the bus and got him suspended for an important club game just a few weeks ago. O'Neill has some brass neck on him.

It is safe to say we have been inconsistent and unpredictable this season so far. We have taken just 21 points form our first 33 in the league. Between now and the end of 2018 we have a further 10 league games with quite a tough run of games. Out of the 30 points available, guess how many we will get. The winner gets some stale turkey and flat beer! Sun 11/11/18 Rangers v Motherwell Sat 24/11/18 Rangers v Livingston Sun 02/12/18 Hearts v Rangers Wed 05/12/18 Rangers v Aberdeen Sun 09/12/18 Dundee v Rangers Sun 16/12/18 Rangers v Hamilton Wed 19/12/18 Hibernian v Rangers Sun 23/12/18 St. Johnstone v Rangers Wed 26/12/18 Rangers v Hibernian Sat 29/12/18 Rangers v Bheasts I will go for 23 points out of the 30. Its just a bit of fun guys!

Incredible to think that we are still managing to sell out home games on Sunday afternoons, on Remembrance Sunday indeed, while our football has gone a little flat, we have dropped 12 points out of the first 11 games, dumped oot the cup by yet another insipid performance, this time against Dolly of all teams. Incredible backing from the fans. If only we had a team that stepped up and played with the same conviction. On another note, do you think we will have the big gun back again on Sunday? (Not Lafferty, the cannon gun thing that shatters eardrums!)

Fantastic job yet again from the guys at the Founders Trail. Congrats to all involved and keep up the great work.

Cant argue with that at all, just saying i completely understand the paying punters who show their frustrations in that manner. Europe has glossed over what has been a pretty awful league start. 12 points dropped in the first 10 games is dreadful. The fact we are not already completely out of the title race is due more to the tims weak start than ours. 3 clean sheets in 10 league games as well shows that for replacing 4 out of the back 5 we are still leaking too many goals, and therefore needing 2 to win in any match which is not how you win titles. I am happy enough to allow SG to make some mistakes (subs, tactics, player choices) along the as any rookie will, as long as we see some sort of improvement in performance and results in our bread and butter. I dont think we can say we have improved much for the huge outlay in summer 2018 in terms of domestic results. A huge outlay that nobody else apart from the tims were able to spend.

Absolutely spot on!

I'm sorry but after all the talk about putting on a performance to say sorry for Sunday and then to turn in another abject failure of a performance as a team collective then there isn't a team in the world that wouldnt get the bird after that ineffective garbage last night. I dont go in for that myself, but I dont have an issue with those who do. I also thought most of it was probably directed at the ref who was the latest in a long line of woeful one-sided whistlers. This is Rangers, we have higher standards and demand success. When the only consistency we show is in consecutive sub-standard performances it is little wonder the fans who have stumped up a lot of cash and bought into the hype generated by the club itself are getting antsy.

Interesting selection tonight. Halliday in midfield is a strange one, Wes in goals is asking for trouble, still no Grezda or Middleton from the start despite others failing to produce. Cmon the Rangers, lets do this!

By my reckoning we haven't "won" a semi final/final (without needing pens) in the last 8 attempts going back to the SF v Dundee Utd at Ibrox under Ally. Cant even remember what was before that one so it might be more. It might not be a hoodoo, but its absolutely disgusting for the biggest and best club in the country. Players, managers, coaches, have all come and gone but the sound of bottles crashing is the one thing that seems to follow us this decade. All you can do is get to the next SF and ensure you win it.

Not a clue. I actually think we will play without a striker and have a front 3 of Kent, Candieas and 1 of either Grezbo, Middleton or even Arfield pushed further forward in a false 9. It will be down to our movement and passing to create opportunities and hope that the dons defenders dont know who to pick up as the front 3 will be alternating consistently. Perhaps he will play Sadiq, you know the striker we have on loan from Serie A on big wages!! How about whoever is playing well in the forward positions in the reserves? What does it say for our whole system if we play without a striker when we have (albeit inexperienced) strikers playing every week in the reserves. Does it say to these guys that they are wasting their time as even with no strikers available they didnt get a sniff? How we line up and play tomorrow will tell us a lot about our young manager. I leave it in his capable hands and for now we can do nothing but back him to get it right,, but if we fail to reach the final, serious criticism will be coming his way for allowing this circumstance to happen. Not "get him out" or nonsense like that, but his management of the whole affair has been poor, from playing Morelos in an easy home QF when this could easily happen, not pushing Sadiq more (or getting rid) and not giving any reserves a bit of game time to try to get them used to their teammates. If he is going to play Middleton through the middle, why wasnt this tried last week at Hamilton, or in a bounce game during the int break? There are far more questions than answers, and the only easy way out of it all is a victory tomorrow which will allow us to say phew, we got through it, and move on. Penalties will do as long as we go through.

How difficult was it for Sky to do a quick check to see which venue the upcoming game was at. Lazy journalism again. Hope whoever wrote this is sacked, there are tons of young journos out of Uni or out of work that would love a chance to do wee stories for a major broadcaster, and would have the journalistic values to check their story for accuracy before publishing. Makes them look amateur.

This is our latest chance to show we can play away from home domestically when faced with a difficult pitch and an opponent who will try to stifle our play at every opportunity. The big difference for me between Livvy and Hamilton is the current mood and form of the home team, as Hamilton are struggling again this season and even this early it looks like it is between them, Dundee & St Mirren for the relegation/playoff slots. Our away form has been well documented and has been absolutely awful. 2 points from 12, sitting 11th out of the 12 in a table of just away games, and no wins yet is the one piece of the SG jigsaw that is really letting us down to date. We can start to put that right tomorrow with a convincing win which will give us the confidence to go into the two massive games in the next week. On a personal note, I am going to enjoy a bit of hospitality for the game tomorrow courtesy of Spice Hamilton and I am looking forward to that as well. It shows the difference this season as I am fairly comfortable with whatever starting 11 SG picks as all our top 16 or so players are of a fairly even standard. With Lafferty's stupidity and O'Neill's obtuseness preventing us from having the big striker available, the pressure to score will again fall to Morelos, and I have a feeling he will deliver tomorrow. Of course he needs supply and Kent has been bang in form recently and will no doubt be asked to provide chances again, as well as getting into the box to try to score himself. Let's Go!!

Agreed re Hearts game. I dont think the EFLC is much higher a level than ours. Outside the top 2/3 teams, there is an awful lot of overpaid mediocrity and hype in that division that any time I come across a game from there I am usually far from impressed at the technique and quality of player on show. The important thing is though he has to be starting games and getting a lot of minutes under his belt at a competitive level. There would be no point going to the bottom team in the Champ and getting overrun and gubbed twice a week.

It is more a library of information, a summary of ongoing recent events and it will be incredibly useful one day when it is roosting season for the chickens at BBC PQ CSC. More power to this thread, and hat doffed to @26th of foot for his enduring suffering whilst bringing us the latest bigotry our licence fee is paying for. I couldnt do it!

Still think he went a league too far down to really push his career on. The English Championship should have been the level he went to, League 1 is a very poor level. He would have been better going on loan back to Hamilton if he couldnt get a championship side.