T-1000

As a bit of light relief I think the first five of Vass's pics of the training today would be worthy of a caption contest.

Oh good, we will be able to field a defence of five goalkeepers. Presume, Wes and/or Jak must be going.

Unfortunately, possibly on the ball as well.

John, you will need to change your avatar though I have to say I always considered Bill as more of the Victor Meldrew type. ?

I agree with the above and think that the relationship between the players is something that needs a lot work on the training ground. There were one or two spells in the match where we appeared cohesive and offered a lot of threat but unfortunately, these occasions were too limited.

I did not think any of the two of them filled me with confidence in the Helsinki game though Katic looked a bit more comfortable than Worrall. I also expect McAulay to play plus one of the other two.

it would appear that being provocative does pay dividends.

Is the inference here that it might have been his son who was driving?

Rangers 2 Celtic 2 FGS: Morelos

Agreed, but other teams might also have improved with bringing in loan signings and their use of plastic pitches.

I think it should not be underestimated how difficult it can be to create goal scoring chances when the opposition have nine/ten players behind the ball and the penalty box is congested. It requires a good understanding between the players, a good awareness of space and for the players to have good technical ability. Rousseau mentions Man City which is a good example but they have Aguero, DeBruyne, Sterling, Jesus and especially Silva. We do not have comparable players and this makes it even more difficult for us to create chances against a packed defence. We, thus resort to crossing the ball into the box from the wings with a consequent low success rate of conversion into goals. this is not helped at times by the quality of crossing especially from the right hand side. As an aside I think we saw in previous games that when Kent is on his game how he can create chances for himself and space for others. I had hopes that Ejaria might fulfil the role of playmaker but unfortunately those hopes have been dashed.

Looking at past galleries of the players training Ejaria looks a touch isolated and never seems to be laughing and joking with the other players. I am not sure who would be his buddies at Rangers, possibly Kent at a pinch. It would therefore not surprise me if the issue for him as a young player was not being that settled at Rangers or in Glasgow.

McCrorie rather than Wes as back-up goalkeeper. Does Wes have an injury or looking to move on?

I know, but why take him to Austria. It seems rather pointless if he will not be selected.

Agreed, I could not see Ejaria in the galleries but thought that after Sunday Gerrard had just decided he would be dropped for this game or perhaps he is carrying an injury. Lee Wallace appeared to be in the galleries which I thought was rather surprising.

I would go for McGregor.

With Katic, Barisic and Wallace being given some game time today I thought Rossiter might also have been in the lineup especially since he was not even on the bench on Sunday. At one of his press conferences SG seemed to mention Rossiter as an afterthought which is a bit worrying as we thought his injury problems were behind him and that he was ready to kick-on.

I agree with you on this but having deemed the second yellow card against Candeias was justified and having recently charged Steve Clarke for comments, the SFA so as not to be seen to be favouring Rangers might have felt obliged to cite SG and Rangers. It is also possible that Kilmarnock raised the issue with the SFA. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

I agree with this but also think Katic looked a bit nervy and lacking in confidence.

A agree with you to some extent re Kent. By his direct approach he draws players in and that should allow more space for other players. But as you suggest he does try to overdo it when he should be looking for a smart pass. Being able to do the latter, however does also depend on other players being in a position where they can receive a pass which allows them the possibility of a shot on goal or a pass across the box. With respect to Middleton he looks a promising player but from what I have seen his greatest asset is his directness and pace. Unfortunately, in packed defences his pace becomes less useable because there is no space to run into. I also think that defenders now know that he looks to hit the ball behind them and beat them pace and have adjusted accordingly. He needs to vary his game and his crossfield pass in the last minute against Spartak shows he has the ability to do that. We have to hope he continues to develop and have realistic expectations about what we expect from him.

I thought all three of you made a valuable contribution and suggest you ignore trite comments.

It was a good delivery into a very crowded part of the area and therefore I suspect McGregor might have had a problem trying to go for the ball. A more dominant goalkeeper might have come, flattening players on the way but McGregor is not that sort of keeper.

Did you seen Goldson complain? There is always lots of pushing and shoving at corners, sometimes it is picked up by referees and at other times it is not. Unfortunately, in this case it was either not spotted by the referee or else he believed Ferguson made a clean jump.

I seem to recall that Ferguson had a bit of a run on the ball and so could attack it which probably gave him some advantage over Goldson.

Rangers 2 Hearts 1 FGS: Morelos