Tannochsidebear

Is it not us who have had a chaotic pre-season? new manager, whole new backroom staff, 10 new players in, lots of players out, very early euro games to fit into pre-season schedule etc?

I really dont mind selling Wes and Windass as both are, IMO, below the level of player we should be trying to fill our team with, both in playing ability and winning attitude. What must be taken into consideration though is if we are selling to the English market, at PL or Champ level, that the fees are not realistically aligned to ability. £3M each should be the absolute bottom dollar price. Check out both their stats and compare them to English Champ players who are going for £10M. Even if we have to accept a bid of around £3M each, what absolutely must be included is a sell-on clause whereby we get 10/20% of further transfers. I am hoping we had similar for Waghorn, and if not someone deserves to be sacked. The prices for poor players in the English market are going up hugely every window, when selling to the English market we must be taking this into account. If Derby buy Waggy for £8M, we should be getting at least £800K from that deal. If not, why not?

First leg at home if we make it through. 9th August at Ibrox with return leg in Maribor/Georgia on 16th August. The absolute best draw we could have got. I know Maribor beat us in 2011 (disgraceful performance under Ally) but if were to have any chance of making it through to the 4th round, we couldnt have got it much better than the Croats followed by Maribor. It is 2 ties against sides that our football budget is massive compared to our opponents, and while money doesnt buy you guarantees, we have to believe for the investment in our squad over the last year or two we should be capable of winning ties like these. It will be down to the players and management to see if we do so. We can complain about not being able to compete with the Sevilles and Arsenals of this tournament, but we can have no such complaints about these three opponents (Shkupi already been dealt with!) in qualifying. On another good note, I dont go on holiday until 14th August so I will make the first leg at Ibrox should we overcome the Croats!!

Good luck to the lad. I just hope that if he plays every week, its because he deserves to, and not because we are having our team picked for us from Merseyside. We could certainly do with a proper winger who can actually cross to a teammate, or get past a defender and get a shot on target. Something we havent had for a while.

The draw date is crazy before the 2nd round has been played, but this is wherre it can benefit us. Say the Latvians, Georgians or Icelanders catcht heir bigger name opponent cold given it is their first games of the season, we then play an unseeded team we "should" be beating in the 3rd round whereas if the draw was after the 2nd round was complete, we would have to play a tough seeded team for definite. Of course, its all being very presumptuous given we have a 50/50 change of progressing past the Croats in the 2nd round.

I am absolutely amazed that we would consider taking a player on loan from a club that puts playing time stipulations into the contract. 70% of game time for a loanee is a huge number for an under-developed player. We cannot afford to take a player on loan who still needs a lot of work (otherwise he would be playing for his contracted club or be sold to another club), we need to be winning games playing our best players who are fit and in form. Something needs to be done about the number of players a club can have under contract. The farce that was Chelsea sending out something 40+ players on loan is not good for the game, especially if these types of clubs are putting in stipulations about who another manager has to play in his team. The first 11 should be entirely down to our manager to pick whomever he wants to for that particular game, not be wondering if he has to play an inferior player just to meet a quota. If the mother club thinks that highly of their player, then they shouldnt need to stipulate this in the contract, they should be confident that their player will be better than what we have in that position and will be a first choice for us. If not, dont give us the player, give him to a lesser level club where he will be a first pick on talent alone.

Thats a feckin outrage. I hope the club are reviewing the partnership with Thomas Cook. It has been known since the early part of 2018 that we would be in Europe and what the dates would be. To not have aircraft available (the excuse usually given) just means that an incredible lack of foresight and planning has taken place. Not all supporters can afford to take 3 days off to go to away matches via budget airlines, trains, coaches, taxis, etc to make their own way to these places, and depend on the travel club doing what it was set up to do. I have always been fairly accepting of being ripped off by TC for the convenience of the day trip as being self-employed I cant be away for more than a day at a time for football purposes, and the convenience of the day trip outweighs the excessive cost. To not provide this service must call into question the nature of our relationship with TC, who clearly do not care a jot about their contract with us. Sadly the club have always taken the view that the fewer Rangers fans that travel abroad the better, and are probably more than happy with TC decision to refuse to honour their contract.

That's a whole separate issue though @buster., and on the point you make he has done an absolutely magnificent job in getting control and getting rid of Ashley (almost!), refurbishing the stadium and Auchenhowie, starting to deal with the cabal in the SFA/SPFL. He gets huge approval for all that work. However if the last decade has taught us nothing it is that nobody gets a free ride anymore, and scrutiny will come in certain areas where there is clearly something that could have been handled better. This whole TP could and should have been dealt with quicker and cleaner. The appointment of Pedro and subsequent hanging out to dry of the youth coach were huge errors. Some good, some not so good. Is that not fair?

great info, cheers @buster.

Yes, its grandstanding by King no matter the small details. He seems to revel in fighting with authorities, even when he is wrong.

Yes, we should definately be having another game this weekend. The core fitness has been done, the matches are going to start coming two a week, so it is sharpness we need, which is exactly what friendlies can give you, if the right opponent is selected. The issues we are having is our forward players look off-form, or some may call it (politely) a lack of sharpness. This doesnt usually get better by doing more training sessions, this usually works out by getting more competitive match time under the belt.

BD, does King not mean that the TP ruling should have been addressed to his company, rather than to him personally, as his shares and therefore the concert were done through the company (New Wave I think?) It's probably a moot point and a bit of a distraction from the point the TP were making. I imagine if the TP said one thing (about the funds being ok to be held in SA) and then changed their mind, then there will be a paper trail for that, it's fairly black and white so someone is at it somewhere! The statement as a whole is just a bit of chest-thumping and offers little new information. Re-read last years statement and it feels the same.

Does anyone know if the Scottish transfer window is shutting at the same time as the English one this year which has been brought forward to 9 August. Apparantly to try to minimise disruption to sides a few weeks into the season, they have brought the window forward to just before he first league game. Makes a lot of sense, but means we only have 3 weeks to find some creativity and a goalscorer or we are seriously going to have problems breaking teams down this season. Perhaps Sadiq is the answer, but his career to date doesnt show much and I was guessing he was more backup.

Thanks for the info. I will do. Hopefully I get to the next round in person so I don’t have to go through this again!

Missed the first half hour trying to get the game at work. Tried a VPN to get RTV only to find RTV doesn’t work on iPads. ? Dashed home and signed up to Premier Sports only to find out that they employed Rangers hating duo McLean & Stewart who were typically awful. The pictures were terrible in first half and even broke down for a short time. And as if all that wasn’t bad enough I them was able to watch the game and see how bad we still are in creating and taking chances. Been a huge fan of AM but his form has gone completely. Windass had a good shot after beating a man skilfully but offers so little from a wide area. Im treating these 2 games as pre-season build up games and hoping this is to allow SG time to see how players play in match conditions as opposed to looking great in training, and I’m expecting our team to change accordingly before Aberdeen. If if we are still as poor by the time we get to Pittodrie then I’ll start to worry but I think it’s only fair to write this off as prep games.

Starting line-up confirmed McGregor Tav Goldson Katic Flanagan McCrorie Jack Candieas Murphy Morelos Windass Subs Alnwick, Halliday, Bradley, Docherty, Middleton, Ejaria, Rudden

I think he is referring to Pedro as the prat rather than Herrera. Seems fair enough to me, although my biggest criticism is to those who appointed Pedro in the first place.

Belgium 2 England 2 France 3 Croatia 1

The OP is of course absolutely spot on. Now in my 30th year with my RSC, the friendships, camaraderie, stories, great times we have had over the years have been incredible. These are repeated in RSC's all over the country, and indeed the world. The primary objective of course is to provide transport to enable supporters to attend Rangers games wherever they may take place. In these days of all-ticket games (it wasnt always like this!), it is getting more and more difficult to get enough tickets to fill buses and keep the RSC's economically viable. More and more rely on fundraising to make ends meet, with dances, totes, lottery, sportsmans dinners, etc taking place to boost coffers enough to keep buses on the road. A real shame therefore that the management at the club involved with ticketing and RSC's dont seem to share the sense of worth for RSC's that they deserve. Continual reductions in RSC ticket allocations, and basically no support for them at all, means that more and more are having to give up, merge or reduce buses to minibuses or cars. So much could and should be done to support this "lifeblood" of the support and the club, and I have written about it several times over the years with lots of ideas as to how to improve matters, but the club only seem interested in talking to RSC's when there is a problem within the support that they need help with.

Its a decent point dB, I personally dont think DJ can defend and melts under pressure so I have pretty much written him off from my thoughts, perhaps unfairly. Bringing Hodson & Halliday into the equation is just cruel on your part, just when we were trying to create some optimism! I would be happier with Beerman than those 2.

SG obviously fancies Flanagan as he would be too much trouble (and a fitness gamble) to bring him in to play backup, and Tav has been named captain so SG obviously rates him highly as well, so there is absolutely no chance we are bringing in another full back for a significant fee and wage. We simply need other first team players more than a backup full back. Do we not have a decent youth player at this position who can deputise if injuries kick in? We need to be giving these guys the glimpse of an opportunity of a first team spot. If they see 3 players in front of them all on first team wages, they know they have no chance of making it with us. File this Mohammadi story in the huge overflowing waste disposal unit marked "made up pish"

Looking forward to seeing our new look team in action tonight. Friendlies are nothing, this is the start of the real action. While we have brought in a whole host of new players, not all look like starters or are not ready to start yet, so it may be more familiar faces than new faces when the starting 11 is announced at 6.45. No matter the 11 chosen, we need to start this game (and campaign) well, and ensure next week is a mere formality. We cannot afford another Progres, or even a close tie, this has to lay down the marker that this is a new regime and a squad full of quality players that have a winning mentality. Love the look of the programme as well, I will certainly be buying one of them! What we know for certain is that McGregor, Goldson, Katic, Flanagan, Arfield, will all start from the new recruits, and I am looking forward to seeing them all in action under match conditions. I am also keen to see the system, style, tactics, how he uses his subs etc. There will be no rush to judgement (from me anyway!) after one game, just show us a sign that you know what you're doing under match conditions! Bigger tests are just around the corner and fast approaching, so lets hope we get the job done professionally and with the minimum of fuss tonight. C'mon the Gers!!

I see confirmation from the official site that Bruno has left the club by mutual consent, his contract being terminated. Sorry if this has been covered elsewhere. Short and to the point statement below; https://rangers.co.uk/news/headlines/bruno-alves/ RANGERS can today confirm Bruno Alves’ contract has been terminated by mutual agreement. Alves made 25 appearances for Rangers last season, of which six were as captain of the side. He also netted two goals for the Light Blues. Rangers wish the defender the very best for his future career

You may well be right with Hibs, but dolly should be around that 70-75 mark again. celtics season will be decided by the end of August. Make the CL groups and all is good. Don't, and the fire sale begins which should help us in trying to bridge the gap. I agree that if we can apply pressure, Rodgers is likely to buckle. There were signs last season of this but we couldn't sustain any pressure to break him.

Cheers R, appreciate you putting the time and effort into this for our enjoyment. (enter "you the man" gif here!)