der Berliner

I would hope we just agree on disagreeing. ✊

Well, these line-ups look rather fanciful and not how I (and quite a few others) saw them play in these games. Well, perhaps they did, for the odd minute.

These pics look rather interesting, having Hagi up there as a left sided striker ... or in the middle behind Sakala and Matondo. Who created that?

Pendikspor? Never heard of them ... probably because they have only been promoted this year. There sure is better in store for Wright, as well as safer and higher wages.

To cite myself: Well, as I said, I checked the stats, and these players have played in as many games and got the same minutes ... Maybe you can tell who is second fiddle from those stats, I'd be hesitant. Question remains, why he would turn tail on Dutch / CL football or Feyenoord let him go when he gets so much game time and scores goals there. But we shall see.

Well, as I said, I checked the stats, and these players have played in as many games and got the same minutes. Danilo (48 games) played different roles as opposed the Gimenez (45 games) though. They only have loanee Banni back as third choice striker. Is he going to jump ahead of the queue when he arrives here? Of course, perhaps we see 4-4-2 again 😱

Had a look at Feyenoord's team and his stats (48 games last season). They have but 3 strikers including him, play CL footy, have a better league that plays at a higher standard. He will receive a decent wage as well. All the nostalgia aside, why would he come to Scotland?

😆 whatever makes you happy or eases your mind.

Must have missed that right sighted attackers / wingers are now centre-forwards too ... and the guys at TM also failed to see that diamond thing. But anyways.

Truth be told ... we don't know whether Beale "fancied" Colak or not. He only returned from injury when MB took over and got back to full fitness late on. One might argue whether even at 75 % he was more fit than Morelos looked. As for the set up ... what did MB different to Gio et al? One striker up top remained the order of the day, and Colak was bought to do exactly that. In fact, IMHO, he pressed the opposition defence far better than Morelos. MB did throw on Sakala as a right sided attacker, which gave the whole front line a much needed lift. Anyway, we may actually continue with that one-striker set up, but might (!) have acquired / reared players now who can fulfill that role.

Ridvan looked okay, we have Devine and now Balogun as "back-up". Good thing is, some of our new crop of midfielders does track back a lot too, easing any defensive problems, if any.

Let's hope these new guys will hit the ground running, remember the doubts about Lammers when we signed him? Loosing two strikers at once who know how to deal it out to Scottish teams is hopefully not come to haunt us, even though Sakala ain't gone just yet. Not sure whether Beale did not fancy Colak, he was not really fully fit when MB came in and this one-striker trash didn't help. But at least he was a solid man and had a healthy scoring record. Sakala's just Sakala. Bags of enthusiasm, always direct and never let a chance to hit the ball slip by him. Sure not the perfect player, but that's why he was / is at Rangers and not in the EPL, BL, France, Spain, or Italy. Maybe I have become used to far too much mediocre quality in years gone by (with regards to the standard we should attract), but I like Sakala. If these 4m are needed to finance the re-build and all sides are happy with that, so be it.

Name three ... well, two of my choices were effectively "failures" rather than "duds" in terms of return compared to fee involved, namely Rozenthal and Salenko. Obviously, both also suffered from injury and having quality players around them who hit better form and thus played more often too. The one guy who really f@cked it up was Carlos Pena, who IMHO showed signs of his quality in the few minutes that he did play. A few others IMHO simply suffered from our truly woeful tactical approach in so many games these last ten years or so, but that would lead too far. Likewise, dozens of mediocre players never hit the heights that you would expect from a Rangers team, but came when a club in need called them. That all said, given the signings we made these last six months or so, I'd rather look to the future and the season ahead, who promises to be one of the finest in years - if these players step up and fulfill the expectations.

I would assume he meant that Sterling will be our right-sided (4th choice) centre-half in a back three.

That was ... quick. Der Berliner is back 👍😎

I doubt that there is any interest in Balogun. Letting him go last summer back-fired heavily on us, now he's had a season with a bad QPR side, although hardly being injured, played just 20odd games. At 35, he'd be a back-up emergency type of player, coach-teaching the kids some defensive tricks, but nothing more. Bags of experience at all levels though, similar to Davis. Daily gossip round-up: Rangers, who have lost Leon King to injury, are in talks with fellow centre-back Leon Balogun over a one-year contract to bring the 35-year-old back to Ibrox following his release by Queens Park Rangers. (The Scottish Sun) Feyenoord are expecting a second bid to be tabled by Rangers for Brazilian striker Danilo after an initial offer of £3.5m for the 24-year-old was rejected. (Football Scotland) Rangers may be made to wait on a potential windfall from Bayern Munich's sale of former loanee Malik Tillman - with head coach Thomas Tuchel reportedly giving the 21-year-old midfielder a second chance with the German champions. (Daily Record) Watford are in talks to sign 23-year-old Aris winger Luis Palma, who had been targeted by Rangers early in the summer transfer window, for an initial loan fee of £850,000 with the deal becoming permanent for £4.5m next year. (Daily Mail) Rangers midfielder Ben Williamson is expected to join Partick Thistle on loan when the 21-year-old returns from his parent club's training camp in Germany. (The Scottish Sun)

NB: I have reformatted (if that's a word) the OP a little.

Transfermarkt uses "market value" solely to compare similar players. They never claim nor can they evaluate the real value of a player to the selling and buying club. Hence, people can move as freebies, yet have a market value of x million pound. The EPL market is truly insane though, if that is what you meant.

They were making fun of the Chinese acrobat team at the Olympics, looking like 12-year old girls when they were supposed to be 18+ or the like. The above guy, on the other hand, doesn't exactly look like a 15-year old.

You gave them the idea now ... 😱

That was a 1m move in 1990. Would have to dig deep to when the EBT cases started, but no matter, you wouldn't get someone from Monaco of that quality nowadays for that sum - which was the point. 165 games, 87 goals, including some interesting ones against Leeds and Marseille et al ... we may argue about whether this deal was good financially. Likewise, you wouldn't say that NIAR was not good financially because of EBTs et al.

Back in the day, this was serious money though.

Not bothering to check it, but I am pretty certain that we signed Hateley at the age of 30. Not to mention Caniggia ...

Let's hope Dessers hits the ground running. Cifuentes is a CM, so no reason to stop hunting him.

Usually, it is a reversal of the games of the season before. Aberdeen aside, we faced all these teams away first last season. thus, you can envisage that we will meet all these teams bar Aberdeen away from home near/post split.