stewarty

I like the look of that team, Pete. Would like to see Forrester come back and start putting in a performance or two off the bench to pressure for a start. Dodoo too, as I think his pace and touch could work really well for us if we can get him firing. Also hope McKay is rested completely. The lad needs a break.

That doesn't sound like we have kissed and made up. that sounds like: keep yourself ticking over fitness wise, but you wont be playing and you can fuck off in January.

I can PM admin with my source, if necessary.

Agreed. I had heard that unlike other players at his age group, Dembele had only signed a one year contract rather than the 3-year contract that was standard at that age. Aside from the fact I wasn't aware players at that age signed contracts per se, I'm sure its more of a training agreement, it certainly looks like the lad has eyes on moving away from Celtic at the very least. Apparently the lad absolutely loved going away with England and had a great time last week.

If he keeps performing at the same level I'd suggest circa £15m at the end of the season. Maybe more if they've got a few clubs interested.

So are Celtic saying they would spend more money doing more to tackle issues within their support if only they didn't keep on getting those pesky UEFA fines?

I mind seeing Kris Commons out shopping at the Fort. Do you know what I did? Nothing. Left him to get on with his day. Controversial, I know.

pathetic... fair play to Kenny just walking away. If he'd said anything else it would have been used against him...

What's the motivation in regurgitating this news at this point in time? Colour me suspicious.

And that's before I get started on his team selections... It also really irked me the way he treated Barrie Mckay in the summer. When the lad needed a rest, he took him away for training and away trips, then not even playing him apart from 1 sub appearance was it? Utterly pathetic. He's now suffering this season from not having a break.

The galling thing is that its so obvious that the team doesn't function. Players don't know their jobs, they don't know how to play their positions and they're all over the place. The odd time when things click, we were able to create chances v Lithuania and (more rarely) Slovakia - that served to show the team had potential to get 6 points. All this points to a manager who is not getting the best out of his players. Time to go, I really can't be arsed with his chippy attitude any more. It was barely tolerable even before now.

You can't just re-referee games. I can just see in a year or two's time that with strict liability, Mcglennan has to re-watch every game to pick up every song and hand out fines, then review every refereeing decision to decide if the ref got it right.

Indeed. Although my reading of those charts was Kranjcar being told his starting/marking positions for set pieces and different phases of play. Given how quickly they were flipping through them, its more than likely a reminder of what was expected.

I wondered why the forum was down earlier. I thought it was Christmas!

Agree should be couple up. Holt quickly showing why he was first pick last season - always pops up and makes runs.

I think McCann is right in the sense that powerful and quick attacks could well expose our defensive frailties. To combat this I think we need to dominate possession and avoid losing the ball in central areas where we might be countered quickly (we've seen us lose goals v Motherwell and Kilmarnock in exactly these scenarios), as this creates the circumstances that Griffiths thrives in. In other words, plan A needs to work!

I'd fancy that Waggy might have a release clause.

Agreed re the pitch. Though I think also fitness played a part in the second half where the possession play tired Killie out in addition to their red card.

The worry for me was the physical nature of Kilmarnock's play. From their point of view, an obvious ploy as it helped them combat our possession play. The refereeing has been consistently inconsistent and woeful, so any protection from hammer-thrower tactics is likely to be patchy. A formula that other teams will copy?

Kilmarnock 0 - 4 Rangers Miller FGS

A colleague was bemoaning the Scottish attitude of "anything we get from that game is a bonus" (say against a big team, e.g. the Germany fixtures in the last campaign). Just look at the way Ireland went to Germany and Poland to get results that got them a play off place. It was exactly because they backed themselves to get the result that it happened. Luck would have played a part, as it always does, but we have to go out and believe we can get 12-13 points from those fixtures or pessimistic view of 5-6 points is sadly pretty likely.

Happy to be corrected - I was in the Copland so didn't get the best perspective on the lead up to the goal. Not had a chance to see any replays.

Looking at the first 5 fixtures: Malta - A Lithuania - H Slovakia - A England - A Slovenia - H Slovakia will be hard to break down, and will pose us problems defensively. A resurgent England under Big Sam will also be tough. But to me we need a minimum of 10-11 points from those fixtures if we are to stand a chance of qualification. A good outcome would be four wins and a draw. Suspect we'll be looking at about 8 or 9 though, and we'll be staring through the "glorious failure" looking glass once again.

Yes its noticeable he's tightened up his game and isn't so attacking. That said, he was out of position for the goal conceded on Saturday and was unable to get back to prevent the cross that resulted in the goal. I think this is a weakness teams will look to exploit

Welcome aboard TBT!