JohnMc

Even an out of form Rangers should scud this St Johnstone side. They're abject and in terrible form. So are St Johnstone...

Thanks. Agree about Cantwell and Lawrence, even Wright to an extent. Rice and Devine as well as King and possibly Cole McKinnon will probably come in too then.

Is Dowell a long term injury? Only 4 midfielders catches the eye. Can we add young players to this, I seem to remember that was allowed although I might have made that up.

The second a director goes on the record either backing or criticising Beale the story will magnify enormously. Currently there is no story, it's largely discontented fans on forums or social media sounding off. Every PR person worth anything will advise the directors to say nothing, whatever their thoughts are. With no game this weekend there are no press conferences scheduled anyway, so any kind of statement, on or off the record, will simply give oxygen to something that will probably fizzle out naturally in the coming days. Whatever failings our directors might have, they surely understand that. I'd say the lack of comment or briefing suggests they don't want to publicly back Beale, which suggests they're not happy with our start either and know that unless there's a big improvement in the coming games there is only one way this ends. Clearly they've decided to give Beale more time, results will decide how long that is. Personally I'd make the hard decision now, (or 5 days ago) but I can see why they've decided to wait a bit longer. That might yet prove to be the correct decision, we'll see.

While the board have the benefit of seeing what's going on behind the scenes and speaking with the management team and players and so seeing a fuller picture than we do, they're also well aware of supporter sentiment plus are watching the same performances we are. I've no inside information but I'd be astonished if directors haven't discussed it, even informally. They know Beale is under pressure, Beale knows he's under pressure. I doubt anything will happen in the coming days, but I do think he's only a couple more poor performances away from the board deciding this can't go on. Beale doesn't have credit in the bank, it would be hard for any board to simply ignore supporter sentiment for an extended period. If Rangers can somehow find form and start winning with some style then Beale will be fine, the challenge the board have is whether they think that scenario is likely.

Gerrard was shown patience, even in the face of a number of disappointing results, because most of the support could see progress. We could see what Rangers were trying to do, we could see improvement on and off the pitch. We'd a style of play most of us enjoyed watching, we'd signings that improved the starting 11 and so after a disappointing result, while there were moans and annoyance, the majority of our support backed Gerrard because we could see what he was building and felt it would come right. The difference now is I can't see what he's trying to build. I don't know what style of play we're nurturing and so far only our keeper looks like a new signing that's improved our starting 11. Whatever faults GvB might have had Colak, Tillman and Lawrence all started their careers well, even Davies looked like a good addition early on. Supporters can be quick to judge and we're prone to extremes of emotion. But, we're not blind at the same time. Our pre season matches were concerning, our defeat to Kilmarnock was a worry, our victories in the league have been welcome, but not without nervousness. We did well against an out of form Servete, then were played off the park, twice, by PSV, a side we bested 12 months ago, then turned in a very poor performance, at home, against as weak a Celtic side as we've faced in 3 seasons. Seriously, can you point to something that mitigates Beale, something that points to better times to come?

The Kevin Muscat link is interesting. I've heard and read quite a few dismiss him fairly quickly. One criticism seems to be that 'we'd be copying them'. If it works, who cares? That aside there is some truth in that he's an Australian who has managed in Melbourne and is now managing Yokohama in Japan, very similar to the current manager of Spurs. He won the league with Melbourne and has now won it in Japan. Muscat has also been an assistant coach for the Australian national side, under the management of the current Spurs coach. So there are clearly parallels. Muscat also had an unsuccessful spell managing in Belgium for a side I'd never heard of. It seems clear that the standard of Japanese domestic football is higher than in Scotland. When you add in the huge cultural differences he must be experiencing then I think it's fair to praise what Muscat has achieved there. He's not some rookie, he's managed 3 club sides, winning the league with 2 of them. Another thing is Yokohama are part owned by the City Group, who own a plethora of clubs around the world, most famously Man City. I personally hate what they're doing to football, I'd outlaw multi club ownership and sports washing, but I'm not in charge so it is what it is. My personal animosity apart, City do seem to know what they're doing. Having billions at your disposable certainly helps you build a good infrastructure, and it seems they not only look for players, but also coaches too. Either way they seem to rate Muscat. His time at Rangers didn't ingratiate him to most of our support. He was a limited player at best, with a reputation for thuggery, he passed through fairly quickly without making much of an impression on me. Being a limited player has no bearing on whether you might be a good coach of course. So in his credit column he does have some experience of the club and the league. I've no clue if the link with Muscat is real or not, but it's not a ridiculous link. I suspect he's within our budget, as an Australian he'd have little trouble settling here, he knows the club and what's expected and he might view us as a good next step in his career.

I was speaking with friends earlier about the Amazon documentary on Manchester City that came out a couple of years ago. I watched it as I curious to know more about Guardiola. I'd expected lots of talk about overlapping, inverted false 9s and venn diagrams of spacial awareness and xG. In actual fact you discovered that 'Pep' is actually a bundle enthusiasm and energy who, when speaking with players, spends most of his time psyching them up and getting the side wound up to go out and play. It was a slightly more sophisticated version of 'get stuck right into them from the first whistle, lads'. Now I'm sure there's a lot of false 9s and inverted overlaps and all that stuff going on in training but the sheer simplicity of what Guardiola does was a surprise but afterwards I realised that's what all successful managers do, they fill their players with belief and desire. It's a room of young men full of testosterone, there's no need to make it complicated. I've been thinking about it this week. I wonder if we underestimated how important Gerrard's simple communication was. Everyone said Beale was the brain, and that might be so, but when Gerrard said "let's go" on his unveiling as our manager we all responded positively. Gerrard is passion and desire, as a player someone other players admired and listened too. Beale seems a much more considered and thoughtful person, but does he instil passion in our players? I suspect Gerrard's final words in the dressing room carried more weight than Beale's do now. The great Brian Clough, who won titles with Derby and Nottingham Forest as well as two European Cups had a well documented poor spell at Leeds Utd in between those two jobs. What's often overlooked in his time at Leeds is his long time assistant, Peter Taylor, didn't go to Leeds with him. Clough's 'magic' didn't work at Leeds. He didn't win over the dressing room and he left after only a few months. At Forest he was once again joined by Taylor and the rest is history. Clough famously rarely visited the training ground, he'd watch training but never took part. His thinking was if his players heard his voice too much they would stop hearing what he said. Yet for all his genius, without Taylor, Clough's style didn't work. When him and Taylor fell out and Taylor left Forest they went into a terminal decline that ended with relegation. Having watched us this season, not just Wednesday and yesterday, I worry we've given Peter Taylor our manager's job. Our performances have lacked cohesion and style, i've no idea what formation and type of football we're meant to be playing. Yesterday we seemed to be playing a long ball to the big lad up front, I've not seen that tactic for over 20 years, I certainly didn't expect to see it yesterday. We had a speed merchant in decent form on one wing and never gave him the ball. They'd two rookie centre halves and we never thought of putting Matondo through the middle to see if that might make them drop deeper and create more space for our midfield who were being overrun for most of the first half. When we did make changes we took off the two forwards who both scored, albeit chalked off, and left on the one who looks short of fitness, sharpness and possibly confidence to the disbelief of almost the entire support. I'm not one who turns on managers easily. A search of my posts will show I was in favour of persevering with GvB until close to the very end. I was very disappointed when Le Guen left, I felt he should have been backed. But I lost faith in Pedro after the second Old Firm hammering, months before the Progres fiasco. Unfortunately I've lost faith in Beale. I could just about accept the new players struggling to settle and adapt. But both Cantwell and Raskin are shadows of the players we saw last season, what's happened to them? I know it's early in the season, but I feel I've watched this film before and I know how it ends. It's just a question of when and for all concerned it should be sooner rather than later.

I'm surprised at the confidence some are showing. Having watched us this season it's not something I currently share.

It's almost certainly true, I believe him. I mean during his time at their club it was owned by Fergus McCann and then Dermot Desmond and both are known to be subservient to authority and would have shied away from confrontation with referees or the Scottish League. He also played under Tommy Burns and Martin O'Neill and both would have told 'Stubbsy' to put it behind him and concentrate on the match, the ref's decision is final. Plus this is regularly mentioned in the many paranoid Masonic collusion books, talks and films that seem to come out every year. His team mates at the time are forever speaking about it on radio too. Plus it's not like he's an irrelevant walloper struggling to find any kind of gainful employment. Let me be the first to call for the return of all medal and trophies we've won, I can't sleep now knowing about this injustice.

I agree to an extent. It's certainly not the first time I've watched us be humbled in Europe and I doubt it'll be the last. It was our European performances that kept criticism of Gerrard at bay as he tried to figure out how to overhaul Celtic. We could see what he was trying to do. Then, when Celtic changed manager we were ready to take advantage. I've no clue what we were trying to do last night. Other than release Matondo and use his pace on the left wing, something we failed to do with any consistency, I don't know what our game plan was. Our fullbacks were once again forced to defend deep, like they were in the first leg, somehow we failed to anticipate this. Their wide men had the freedom of the park. So when I say I don't know where this leaves us I mean in terms of a playing style and obvious tactics. Yip, if we get a result on Sunday most will forget this match quickly, and I agree the league is this season's priority. But to do both of those we need to play so much better than we did last night. That's my concern.

While it's the defence that will take most of the criticism our midfield and attack were horrific for long periods last night. This season we've lost the art of retaining possession. We just give it up after around 3 passes, it's like watching Rangers from pre-Gerrard days. I remember so well the goal against Benfica when we passed the ball from almost our own goal line, quick, accurate passing to Rangers players who knew where their team mates were and were moving to make the angles and options for the pass. This season that's gone, completely. Our midfield and attack offer no options to our defenders so we either go long where our attack are unable win a ball in the air or hold it up, or we do attempt a pass into midfield and it breaks down. You'll get away with that against Morton or Ross County but not PSV, or Celtic. Dessers continues to look like a guy who someone brings along to your weekly 5s who apparently used to play Junior but these days just talks a good game. With every passing week I miss Morelos more and more. Colak was limited but at least he could score. Cantwell is a shadow of the player of last season, Raskin and Cifuentes looked so far out of their depth last night it was almost cruel, neither an improvement on Davis and Kamara. Unfortunately I find myself wondering if it really was the players at fault, or does the blame lie with the manager. We were out thought and out fought last night. It was crystal clear after 20 minutes we were being overrun in midfield and yet we made no changes. Even at half time, when you expect a response we got the opposite. In the end players carry out the instructions given to them, so you have to question just what they were. PSV deserved their victory, but I don't share this belief they're a Champion's League level side. They'll be cannon fodder and don't be surprised to see them in the Europa after Christmas. We made them look good last night. I'm not sure where this leaves us. If it wasn't for our right back I don't know if we'd ever score, for some reason this side has regressed from May.

That's an interesting observation. I've been surprised at how slow Dessers and Danilo look, Lammers is tall but doesn't look quick either. Sima looks fast, I'll give you that one. Perhaps as they get fitter they'll be quick over the first few yards.

I take it there's no problem with us actually getting to Holland, with this flight disruption?

It can work in terms of increasing his value. If he can play a successful season in English League 1 for example that makes him more sellable for the club, particularly if the feeling is he's not going to make our first team. The same applies with Lowry. If he has a decent season with Hearts, we might still decide to sell him next summer, but he's got more value to us with 30 odd SPFL first team games under his belt. I think we also have a duty of care with young players. It's a short career, if they're not good enough for our first team then this at least allows them to begin building a career elsewhere. Lewis Mayo is a recent example. His loan spells allowed him to gain experience and he's now a regular with Killie. That's a decent standard for a player of his age, if he can keep progressing then a move to a bigger SPFL club or even an English Championship club is a possibility, I'd hope we have a sell-on percentage or similar in place with Kilmarnock.

I'm not sure it makes much difference to TV contracts. I take your point about atmosphere but the TV companies care about viewers, so in some ways no away fans probably suits them. The simple truth is every Rangers/Celtic match is on TV now, so supporters can see it. It's not like my formative days when if you wanted to watch it you had to attend. I feel sorry for the completist Rangers supporter who attends every match, but I can't see any argument for allowing Celtic support the entire Broomloan these days. If they have genuine safety concerns, and I'm not sure they do, then it's police Scotland they want to speak with.

He wasn't a fictional character, William 'Bill The Butcher' Poole was an actual person and a New York gang leader. It was Daniel Day Lewis's image they used from the Scorcese film, but to be fair they'd be hard pushed to find a photo of the real guy, and if they had we'd have spent 5 pages of this thread wondering who the hell was the guy on the UB banner.

I'd never heard of the St Bartholomew's Day massacre until now. Liberté, égalité, fraternité indeed.

Richard Winton is a Dundee Utd fan, he's been a jobbing journo in Scotland for a while. He was deputy at the Herald I think, but then everyone gets that gig eventually.

I don't think he's a fan, is he? I mean I'm sure he wants us to win currently, but I doubt he'd much interest in us prior to this.

William Poole (Bill The Butcher) was of course killed by his actual Irish immigrant adversary in real life and also his fictional one in the Gangs Of New York film. Daniel Day Lewis is of Anglo-Irish background, his grandfather was a Church of Ireland minister who had pretensions to aristocracy apparently. I didn't see the game so I've only seen pictures of the display. It's visually spectacular, there's a ton of work goes into creating something like that, it's really very impressive. I won't pretend to understand ultra culture, I'm too old now. For obvious reasons he wouldn't have been my first choice of character for the banner, but then I don't think it's aimed at me. I'm not sure why they have that Andy Capp type character either. Is that open razors on the banner? Many young men seem drawn top these type of characters, the popularity of Peeky Blinders is another example of the romanticising of violent thuggery society seems to enjoy. The 'nativi' thing the Milan fans use a slightly more political point, regarding 'natives' and immigrants. I'd be pretty uncomfortable if the Union Bears went down that road.

I've seen the goals only, WBD, so have only got what i've heard and read to go by. Thanks for your take on it.

Due to bad work planning I spent all but 6 minutes of last night's match in the car traversing the roads between Buchan and Glasgow with Radio Scotland Sportsound as my company. The pre-match stuff was fine, Steven Thomson, Neil McCan and Tom English weren't the worst, it was balanced and there was a decent interview with a Dutch journalist who gave some insights into PSV. They also interviewed a Rangers podcast guy, maybe This Is Ibrox(?), who was calm and articulate. Tom English threw him a couple of snide questions about fan media and being able to criticise players or the club, but it wasn't anything the guy shouldn't have expected, and frankly something I've thought about too. I then proceeded to listen to Rangers get hammered as wave after wave of PSV attack was launched and Rangers struggled to get possession. Liam McLeod described a game that doesn't seem to match the one my son, some friends and the posters on here watched. Dessers work rate and contribution is being complimented on here, while on the tranny he was isolated and ineffective. Cantwell was lucky to stay on the pitch apparently, something that's perplexed most of the bluenoses I've spoken to this morning. It was the crowd noise that told me we'd scored, the commentary was surprisingly muted at that point, Radio Scotland don't celebrate (Rangers?) goals like those Spanish or Brazilian commentators, that's for sure. Our defence were being overran on the radio, while here they're being complimented as our best players. It's a shame the commentator wasn't a bit more 'even', as the show was definitely trying to be.

In my formative days we'd get an entire end of Parkhead and some of the Main Stand. Those were great days, a right of passage for every match going Rangers supporter. Times change however. The police have more power now (to much I'd say), season tickets dominate now and of course every Old Firm is televised live now. Probably the biggest change though is the two clubs do not get on at board level anymore. Having attended the 3-0 home victory at the end of last season I can't say I missed them, even though we horsed them and it would have been fun to have some captive to mock. I'm comfortable with no away fans while the games are televised. It's not the same as going to the game, but so much has changed about football over the years this just feels like another thing.

It's pure conjecture on my part, I've no inside information or anything. I don't think football can or will continue in it's current form. The financial gulf between a handful of clubs and everyone else is growing. So either the bubble bursts, and there's no sign of that happening, or the structure changes. The changes to the Champion's League coming next season (I think?) are the start of a proper European League, and a sop to the clubs who looked at breaking away to form a Super League a year or so ago. The rich and powerful clubs want change and they usually get what they want in the end. It also wouldn't be a huge surprise if Saudi sides started looking for a bit of international club football. Look what happened in golf, they are wealthy enough to do almost anything. There's a turf war between UEFA and FIFA too. Perhaps a Saudi funded international club competition might get FIFA backing, as long as the right people are looked after. Whatever happens it's not sustainable for us to remain playing in Scotland. On the opening day of the season Celtic played Ross County. County's entire turnover is less than the Celtic manager's annual salary. How can they compete? It simply leads to negative football where clubs play for a draw at best and no one wants to watch that. We're not alone, around 10 leagues in Europe face similar issues and they all have a vote at UEFA and FIFA. A change to the league set up is inevitable I feel, and I think it'll come sooner rather than later.