der Berliner

Well, yards (sic!) better than the Hibernian game. 2 good goals, 3 points, too bad for Hagi ... and now another unwanted break.

One-way traffic all night long so far. If only they could resist the odd step-over or clever trick and shoot once opportunity arises ...

Rangers vs St Johnstone set to be moved to Sunday NIGHT as SPFL solve fixture headache due to Great Scottish Run ... ... you think you've seen it all before. I'm fine with it, as I'll be working at the local ice hockey game in the afternoon and will be home for kick-off.

Much of the above is correct. We surely lack some stability in the financial department, still, IMHO, we'd have fared and will fare better had we adopted tactics according to the games at hand. While many laughed at Warburton's claim "of making Plan A better", we (the managers) essentially never thought about Plan B or C. We simply shoehorned players into these positions, sometimes better, sometimes not. More or less hoping that "quality will change the day". The stubbornness amongst our managers of this last decade was bordering on insanity, IMHO. On hindsight, we had one rather well-thought of winger/attacker in Kent, yet no-one was willing to spend even 3 or 5m for him. So his contract ran out. We had one of the most solid defenders in Goldson (remember the 55 season), yet, no-one was willing to pay any reasonable figure for him at the height of his career with us. Even more shocking, all of Europe was swooning over this right-back of ours, scoring 100+ goals and assisting about as many, and no-one was showing up with a reasonable bid. (Maybe they did, but we weren't told ... as unlikely as this is.) Not to speak of Morelos .... Perhaps we just overestimated the quality that was there? A thousand flies can't be all wrong ...

BTW, going by the comments on FF, the refs did all they could to get the Yahoo girls a late draw yesterday.

Well, we can do the German mentality thing and blame our players etc. more than we take that step back and look at the opposition. As Idisi said, the second half of the Hibs (!!!) game was really poor, and I didn't look forward to last night, knowing what little change Clement would do - and was able to do. We are where we are and have the players showing this. What Clement has to deliver is a team that grabs the title and with it a chance for the golden automatic CL slot. We'll get slaughtered by the same teams that came and will come to Ibrox this season, but at least we can start building a team. That's the dire reality - and probably the very same which Swedish, Danish and other low-key league teams' face. My main bone of contention remains the lack of change in players and system according to the task at hand. It broke, Warburton, McCoist, Caixinha, SG, Gio, and Beale. Madness really ... if you remember how few managers we had before Sir Walter.

We play them like we play most Scottish teams. If they turn half their quality on, they'll cut us apart. We laughed at the Scum, but ...

Dessers wasn't held by one guy, but two. Interesting. Can we give Cerny the jersey of Kent? He's as lethal as the Czech guy ...

Bad pass from Barron, but no-one covered Lacazete, midfield too slow to react. Lot of pashion involved, yet, we're getting caught up field and these chaps can cut you open in no-time.

Tavernier, Cerny, Cerny again, and Fofana. Who scores?

Maybe the blame lies not with Hagi, but those who whipped up the contract.

Raskin has been out for ages and hardly any minutes to his name this season either. He's not there for the more physical games, but IMHO more forward-minded than most we had recently. Diomande is a bit of a conundrum. Sometimes it looks like he's there for the joy of the game and action, but forgets what to do with the ball. We've probably the youngest DM/CM in a long time, Barron (22), Diomande (22), Raskin (23) and Sterling also just (24). I'm not sure whether we can make these four click with one another (sometimes we need more steel, sometimes we don't ... yet we always play the same pairing), and at times we need to tell e.g. Diomande that he should stay further forward rather than run about when his presence in the defensive third is not required. I was rather disappointed with Dowell (also just 26), who IMHO did not occupy free spaces to receive and play the ball as you would expect from someone who's put on for exactly this role. Thus, we often couldn't get out of bother, as there was no player to play a pass to.

It was noted over on the German board shortly after HT. Some X feed reply said that both he and Raskin signalled to the bench during the first half. Neither looked in any bother ... from over here 😎 Hibs took the game to us in the second half, and we didn't look comfortable at all. Sterling and Kasanwirjo look to be more on the aggressive side, so no problem bringing them on. My main point of bother was that we didn't have enough attacking people on (even though Sterling tried his best) to keep Hibs occupied in their own half. But that is a feature for ages now. Two or three attackers shall prevail against 4 or 6 defenders, who, if they get the ball, lump it over our midfield (and preferably to the flanks left empty by our fullbacks), and we soon end up in bother. But in saying this, I only preach to the converted anyway ... Trying "to play out of defence" is also one of these things that makes you scream at the monitor. Even if the manager thinks otherwise, these chaps out there should know what to do. Which adds to the frustration.

... which was probably not replayed 15 times on BBC et al?

Bizarre fact ... four games on the trot without conceding.

We need to get Kasanwirjo on much earlier, so Tav can finally live his dream as striker! Brutal toil for most of the second half, in contrast to us, Hibs actually played some slick passing football ... and luckily lacked the final touch/pass. As I said before, Lawrence and Dowell are not made for this high-intensity stuff, offer very little either way. You need far more aggression here, and quicker decision-making. We could just as well have kept Igamane on alongside Dessers, so there would have been more pressing. Three points, game (felt) 326 after our return you don't want to write home about, next stop Olympique Lyon. Anyone knows what Lee McCulloch, Daniel Cousin, and DeMarcus Beasley are doing these days?

We may still get 3 goals from somewhere, but there is so little creativity since the 65th min onwards ... and the level of football is quite poor. Having 90 % midfielders and defenders on surely doesn't help either.

Remakrs on X that both McCaulsand and Raskin signalled to get off at HT in the first half. Some brutal stuff there at the back. There's hardly anything that Dowell and Lawrence offer in games like these, get Sterling on please.

Did Butland actually touch the ball for the corner during which Souttar handled the ball? The latter was given because he raised the elbow higher than what is deemed natural, so no problem with this. So far, we toil on, as per usual against Hibs, who know how to hit us on the counter. Very little to show for in the final third, which is once more down to having too few attackers there. Lawrence, aside from his goal, was hardly to be seen, Cerny was hitting every player in front of him ... and much of the real threat came via McCausland and Jefte. Raskin looks willing and capable to spray passes, but looks short of game time (no wonder). I'd chuck Cerny at HT, bring on Bajrami and possibly even Dessers for Lawrence. Not what Clement will do, though.

You look at the level of refereeing on the pitch and note that those on the panel are essentially of the same level as said referees, there is little doubt about the outcome of these things. Alas, European refs are not much better, Thursday saw two rather blatant fouls on Dessers not given, apparently not even reviewed AFAIK. BTW, has the Compliance Officer made redundant, or is he/she in hibernation till Kerrydale Street needs him/her again?

There was that one moment in the second half which my monitor will remember for some time (because I was going mildly hysterical). Dessers received the ball in their half, had two guys on him, yet all our fellow attackers went backwards to the halfway line rather than supporting him.

So not only did we dismantle the Swedish table toppers, but made this our first ever win in Sweden in Europe, and beat Swedish opposition in Europe for the first time too. Nice.

Could have been 7-0, should have been 5-0 ... who would have predicted this? In the here and now, some feat. Hats off to the lads, safe journey home!

They stick to their tasks and everything is fine. Cerny a bit too shy with tracking back for my liking, unlucky in front of goals. I just hope those missed chances don't come back to haunt us ...

Bare-bone strike-force ... really frustrating. If something happens to Dessers, we'll have Lovelace left. Whatever happened to Igamane ...