der Berliner

... unless the Bartley injury is more severe? Or maybe we start looking for a Coistenaggio :-)

I do hope we get that work permit for McKay today, would sure be a good lift after last night.

Dunno whether it was about the temperature (said to be roundabout 30 degress Celsius), but I said at HT to our folk over at the German board that we do indeed look somewhat lacklustre, just as if we could not find out of 2nd or 3rd gear at best. People you would have thought taking the game to them sprayed passes and flanks about that reminded you of a pre-season bout. Davis in particular was out of sorts.

With regards to the positives, Goian and Bocanegra looked decent enough, a major plus being that they appear to be no-nonsense folk who do the simple stuff and do it efficiently. Broadfoot was at his solid best - which is, with all due respect, a good SPL standard, but not much more - and was more impressive that our midfielders in going forward. Was actually astonished to see him more involved in our attacks than the far more pacy (but much less experienced (UEFA competitions that is)) Wallace. Ortiz was also involved, much less than he could be though, I'd assume. But I hope that he switches to his preferred right flank once we secure McKay. Jela worked his socks off, but with no support from midfield (Davis, Naismith and Edu being all over the place) fought a lost cause. It improved after HT, since Lafferty (once he got going) picked up the passes from the back and laid them off to Jela - a recipe for next week. Lafferty's height was probably the reason why he was preferred to the fitter Healy.

McGregor ... was left badly exposed for the two goals, both down to poor defending and lost attention ... on the left wing.

Can't even remember the McCann incident. Did it cost us a game back then?

Can't think been more annoyed of a Rangers player ever before. And that is counting back to 1983, mind you ...

Whittaker better score 10+ goals this season to make amends for this and I AM not dissatisfied that he gets some time on the sidelines to think about the situation.

IMHO, people like Bocanegra and McKay are very fit players and can play for some years. We'd never have given Bocanegra a 3-year deal if we weren't convinced that they couldn't handle it.

On a sidenote, it looks to me that McCoist's World Cup scouting finally bears some fruits. Let's hope we get McKay too tomorrow and all we need is another lethal striker.

EDIT ... that said, since the wing positions are all covered now, we may see Naismith and Lafferty providing assistance to Jela up front on a permanent basis.

I'm one of those few ...

Is anyone else pissed off by the fact that people seem to have lost their names and are replaced by some presumably twitter reference with a meaningless @?

 

Old farts loyal!

Just wait till they have these hieroglyphs on the back of their shirts!

Oh, and WELCOME to the Gers, Alejandro!

... but only after we've secured at least one midfield signing.

And here was me thinking Benalouane was a Cesena player. So essentially we are after one of two St. Etienne players, if not both. Since we got all the money still in the coffers, we should offer them 1m for one of them and they take their pick :-)

markbenstead Mark Benstead

Did you know #celtic can field 3 teams without having to prop use kids? #rangers struggle to get 2 - who's to blame?

A few players of those "barely two team" Rangers aside, these lads won three titles in a row. So what is having "three teams" handy worth if they fail to win the main price? Who's to blame?

Dundee United went through their run through the 'UEFA Cup Fina' - season using 14 players. Who's to congratulate?

Looks like St. Etienne don't want to sell Bocanegra either, says STV.

AS Saint-Etienne say they would not entertain any offers from Rangers for defender Carlos Bocanegra.

 

Contrary to reports on Tuesday, STV has learned the Ibrox club have not been in touch with the French side over the player.

You do wonder who whips up these rumours? Timothy on a Operation Tango trail?

Of course, we still have Lafferty, Healy, Beattie, and Hemmings on our books. Don't know what the story is with BEattie, but you wonder why we do not play Healy more often in a 4-4-2 line-up. Then again, there were not that many opportunities to do that just yet.

No word about Rhys Murphy and Lopez so far, I gather?

IMHO, all we need is some pacey centre half. Haven't seen the pace of Perry, nor do I remember Wilson. I do know that Benalouane has got some. As well as experience with technically gifted strikers in France and Italy. He'd be my first choice.

Tom Miller's co-commentator mentioned that Perry suffered some difficult injury to one of his legs and could not really use it for a longer spell. Hence it lacked muscle and they initially feared he'd done it again in that tackle on Saturday.

Oh these exciting hours before a deadline ...

First come, first serve. We made our interest known and asked whether he was available and at what price. Nothing more, nothing less. No-one knew that it would drag on and I assume our docs only got his medical status once we were allowed to talk to him.

Yep, Benalouane might be that option* - if we were actually interested. As for the article, another one of the "spread panic" variety. Nothing is known about Bartley's injury, but they make it a crisis. Weir was AFIAK ready for yesterday, but we were covered and so he got more time to recover. Whittaker I did not miss, Papac would always be a good option to have. Who knows what will transpire over the next few days.

*We do need one central defender with a bit of pace.

@ GovanAllan ... try to use the Edit Reply option. No need to "reply" thrice to the same post ;-)

Regarding Bedoya. No-one said the Swedes lied. We have had so many conflicting reports, not least during these last few days, that one is bound to suspect that wrong information is being relayed, and probably on purpose. As GA rightly pointed out though, there seems to be a culture of "blaming Rangers first" on the rise, no matter the circumstances at hand. IMHO, this needs to stop ere it grows roots. I have no doubt whatsoever that we try our best (as in BEST) to get new players. Not always with the hoped-for results, but that is football transfers to you. It is not all about Rangers.

Regarding that Feyenoord winger, Ally apparently denied any interest in a Sunday paper (acc. to FF).

Another bid of �£230k for Bedoya is rejected.

 

Another sad day in the transfer dealings of RFC.

IMHO just a new "paint us bad" story. I simply will not believe that we bid less than the 400k we offered before - whatever the Swedes are saying.

Methinks it is not the 850 per week (which rises to 4k if he plays) is the problem, but the 5-years involved. You would not want to play on the same conditions as a "18-year old first team pretender" at the age of 23 (Whittaker, Thomson, Davis, Edu, Lafferty et al are not much older, you know). Hardly anyone knows the details here and as long as he has a contract, we hold all the cards. If we get Bedoya and McKay in, possibly someone else too, we may speak again.

Just out of interest, have any figures come out about arrests or even "offences" against this new unwritten law after the recent IRA-okes by our hooped neighbours?

The real point remains that unless there is no "fixed" list of songs that can be aired without problem, it will be at the whim of the police and their match day commander to judge something inapproriate.

Bedoya is signed up for January nonetheless. McKay has essentially signed, work permit permitting. The Wilson thing is on the agenda since an eternity. I wonder why no other EPL team want to snatch him up ...

Regarding Juhasz it is up to you whom to believe. SSN say we gave up on him, yet the Evening Times has a different tune. Still some water to run down the Clyde till we will have heard the last of this ...

Well, I read the bit of news in the local press and it says McCoist "might be interested". My initial response was, McCoist also might be interested in Fabregas, or Nasri, Rooney and Nani. We already have two 30+ strikers on our books, both I deem to be more lethal in front of goal than L�¶venkrands.

ANyways, we'll have Lopez and Rhys Murphy on trial over the weekend, maybe something comes out of that.

So what did the Rangers do in the past to anger the Italian ... ? (Heck, we agreed not to babble along in this transfer rumour thread!)

... yet we've had essentially at the same time up to 3m set aside for Juhasz, 2m for Cuellar, 2m+ for Goodwillie, and nearly 2m for Verhoek, on top of the above. We also resigned our backbone of 3IAR.

Maybe people will think this is all shadow talk and shadow money, but I for one have no reason to doubt our chairman just yet.