Scott7

Understandable unless you’re John Greig. He used to come off the park at the final whistle, strip covered in mud but the man himself looking as if he could do another ninety still carrying the remainder.

There is no metric for its horribleness.

Unlikely. He’s done well enough so far but the importance of the title win last season perhaps puts enough of a gloss on his achievement to disguise the absence of any of the domestic cups on his sideboard. With the money at Newcastle’s disposal they must be looking for someone with longer experience and greater success. If the job is offered to Gerrard, should he take it? Failure anywhere would damage his main ambition to get the Liverpool job but you could argue that failure at Rangers is worse than failure at Newcastle. He should take the chance if it comes.

I like Wolves but the winner was a big deflection. Make you sick if you’re a Villan or if like compo and rousseau you predicted 2-2 draws.

I would have voted Roofe. He changed the goal threat when he came on but a sub can’t be motm unless he scores four in twenty minutes to overturn a three goal deficit. Having said that, the bloke I voted for didn’t play the full ninety.

Morelos is making an art of missing chances. My granny would have scored from Roofe’s pass and she wasn’t a good player. Alfie’s still pretty good at winning the clearance and holding the ball ‘til the support comes trotting up bringing the defence with them. It’s only when the defence is formed up and ready that anyone else starts looking for the pass which always has to be backwards to a static receiver.

Oh, yes. Unless you can defend like the Arsenal used to.

The Hearts’ goal had been coming for about twenty minutes. Rangers’ defenders need a tackling and clearance coach. The last part of every match has the team struggling to hold a lead. The Hearts’ goal wouldn’t have mattered if Rangers had scored from three chances in the same period - Roofe unlucky, Morelos wasteful.

I read a topic in another place about players who had played for both Rangers and Hearts, though, obviously, not at the same time. The list was quite long with Jardine, Macdonald and McCann prominent in most people’s memories. No one mentioned Eddie Rutherford outside left for Rangers in Iron Curtain title winning teams who went to Tynecastle, maybe reluctantly, in exchange for Colin Liddell who didn’t play all that many games and didn’t achieve very much. It seemed strange at the time. Maybe Mr Struth thought Colin was related to Billy Liddell the great Liverpool and Scotland left winger and hoped he had some of his immense talent. Do you mind on it, @compo? Were you bewildered like me?

I am anxious. But not as anxious as I was about Hibs which is strange because Hearts are better.

Double post. One list of nonsense is plenty.

Good to be back to normal and here are the normal inaccurate predictions. Watford 0-3 Liverpool Villa 1-2 Wolves Leicester 2-2 United City 3-0 Burnley Norwich 1-2 BHA So’ton 1-1 Leeds Brentford 2-2 Chelsea Everton 2-1 Hammers Mags 0-3 ‘Spurs Arsenal 2-1 Palace

Looks a bit like a semmit. The sort of thing Jock Shaw would wear under his real shirt.

A parcel of spalpeens in the nation.

That’s a pretty good Scotland XI. Cropley, at times, did resemble Cruyff.

Like Caldow, an instant success in the jersey. No settling in. No getting acclimatised. Just run onto the park and perform. Both had experience with Juniors. Caldow at Muirkirk and Scott at Linlithgow Rose, was it?

Cunning plan, compo. Stein knew where he was going and didn’t fancy Fallon as a ‘keeper so he was preparing the ground. Of course, the absolute peaks of Simpson’s career were his FA Cup medals with the Magpies. That and his clean sheet against Elgin City in a Scottish Cup tie.

Just a pity he wasn’t available for selection. Brilliant winger. Springbok-fast, good ball skills (football was only one of his many sports) great crosser and penalty taker supreme. A hard act to follow but Davy Wilson managed it.

I suppose Stein and to a lesser extent, Shankly in his early years, showed that transformation can happen without mega bucks. The Souness/Walter combination illustrates the cash injection brings success model. However it comes about, once the transformation occurs big money is needed to keep it going.

Jock Stein transformed a team of losing donkeys into what became a nightmare. In his first season he got Simpson on a free and bought Clark from Morton. Next season they won the ……. sorry I can’t go on. I have to take something to dull the memory.

We all (except maybe dB) grew up hearing from old guys who themselves had heard from even older guys about the great players of the past but we never saw them play because they were gone before we went to matches. Somehow the names are so wired into our brains we feel we must have seen them or at least I do. Meiklejohn, McPhail and Morton are the prime examples but here’s the team: Jerry Dawson; Bert Manderson and Billy McCandless; Jimmy Gordon, David Meiklejohn (C) and Neilly Gibson; Sandy Archibald, Jimmy Smith, R. C. Hamilton, Bob McPhail and Alan Morton. I didn’t pick Dougie Gray, one of the most famous names of all, because I didn’t want to split the fullback partnership. “Two Irish backs you can’t get past” according to the fragment of the old song. What names have penetrated your brains to the extent of delusion? I don’t expect contributions from the Accountants. Nothing penetrates their brains.

An interesting proposition and I would like to see the theory tested, not out of admiration for Bruce, just to find out if cash is the only difference between the general jobbers and the mystical gurus. Would you take him in a swop for Gerrard?

That’s Makems. One of life’s regrets - never saw a derby match at Roker Park.

Aye, but he’s slow people keep telling me. He was quick to see the gaps and quick enough to get through them. He’s a player.

On the old Rivals boards you could have good exchanges with fans of every club - even celtic - but not Aberdeen. I make an uneducated guess without evidence (nothing new there) that about 80% at least of Scottish football supporters vote SNP, if they vote at all. Nothing political or even historical about it, just Jimmy Hill an’ that.