JohnMc

You're confident? What are you confident about, that we'll win or that we won't lose by another record margin?

Apologies in advance for scaring the younger generation away from the club by not pretending Pena is Messi. That pretty much was our first choice 11 that started on Friday, possibly Kranjcar might have started instead of Windass but that apart that's our current first choice side. Here are my concerns currently. There's a lack of guile in the side. Morelos, Windass and Dorans can beat a man or produce a bit of magic, but no one else can. Candeias can get a cross in but he's not going to dribble past a full back so teams can double up on him and his threat is negated. Kranjcar can produce something but I've still got concerns over his fitness. There's a lack of fight. Both mentally and physically. There's no point moaning about refs, we need to deal with the hand we've currently got. Teams see us as a side that can be intimidated physically and I think they might be right. Until we can not only match that but, when required, put down a 'don't mess' marker on the pitch, we're going to see more sides try this. I'm concerned about fitness levels. We start matches at a great tempo but you can almost set your watch at us slacking off at around 20 minutes and our second half performances, Dundee aside, always see the opposition side on top for large spells. This, I assume, isn't tactical, so is it fitness or concentration? Whatever it is it's going to contribute to more dropped points throughout the season. Strength in depth. Our bench is weak. For example where are goals going to come from if Morelos misses a few games? Miller will contribute some but he looks like he needs a break currently and Herrera doesn't look like a 20 goals a season player. We've cover in centre midfield but not wide. Lose either Candeias or Windass and we're playing inexperienced teenagers or a more experienced player out of position. At full back Declan John, on one appearance, didn't look like a significant improvement on Hodson, he might prove to be better than Wallace and Tav given time, but his career to date doesn't suggest that. We're not lucky. It's a great intangible but every side needs it and we don't seem to have it. We're not getting any 'good' luck, the deflection off Alves could have gone anywhere, and there's been a number of things that have gone against us in the last 6 months that could have been different. Morelos looks better every week, his strength and power are a joy to watch and he's got a real eye for goal. He got some rough treatment against Thistle and he'll get more in the coming weeks, it'll be interesting to see how his temperament holds up, he looks like he can handle himself, but he's young and inexperienced and hopefully someone at the club is working with him on that. Scottish defenders now know him and how he plays, they'll be probing him for weaknesses as he's our player to watch. For all that Thistle are, I think, a better side than Ross County or Dundee. They've got a decent manager and an experienced side with goals in it. Them being in the top six again this season wouldn't be a big surprise to me despite their start. Last point on Friday night. Some of our support are going to get the club into trouble again with some of their songs. Particularly if we do start to improve on the park expect the focus for many to switch to our behaviour off it and with the Billy Boys and particularly When I Was Young getting a regular airing now it is only a matter of time before those who hate us make hay with it. It's beyond stupid and if anyone has any influence over those who lead the singing a quiet word will save us a lot of grief and scrutiny in the future.

With a lot of sexism it's largely down to the gender of the person making the comment and why the person is being criticised. There's an assumption, perhaps wrongly, that poster colinstein is male, as such making any reference to her gender is noticeable and unnecessary. In end what gender she is makes no difference to her ability to do her job, either well or badly, so making reference to it in an insult carries isn't relevant. We can over analyse these things and in the end any person working in the public eye will need to grow a thick skin pretty quickly. But it is noticeable that a lot of the insults thrown Kuenssberg's way are gender specific. That aside she must be the least Glaswegian sounding Glaswegian of all time. She makes Sheena Easton sound like Mary Doll. Edit - Oh, and great post by 26th Of Foot.

I'm looking forward to this, my first away match for a while and my first visit to Firhill for a very long time. The last time I watched a match there it was a Rugby League international between Scotland and New Zealand Maori. I used to go to Firhill often as a boy, I was raised in the north east of the city and had a lot of Thistle supporting mates growing up so the short trip to Maryhill was one I made frequently when I was still at school. Ironically Thistle got themselves in some financial bother in the early to mid 80s. They were in serious danger of going out of business, shortly after it became public knowledge a crowd of us from school when to several home matches in a row to give them some money, despite most of us being bluenoses and not having much money, we didn't want to see our friend's club go under and, of course, we were all football fans too. If only I'd known then what I know now. Great preview Pete, thanks. I agree that Thistle's league position is misleading, this will be more of a test than last weekend.

That Hibs statement is great, I laughed out loud when I read it. Lawwell is clearly posturing, Chris McLaughlin and a number of others have so bought into the Ranges Tax Case/Sevco are evil/SFA conspiracy narrative, frankly because it already fits their world view, they're genuinely struggling to accept that the majority of sane people are tired of this. They'll never tire of it, it's why they get up in the morning. This compliance officer thing for the granting of a licence to play European football will surely become their Alamo. They're too invested in all this, they need some sort of 'result' so I expect to see huge pressure being applied to create something punitive or damning for Rangers. The club should continue building bridges with other clubs, in the end we'll never satisfy those twisted through hatred, but most people aren't like that. They can see this for what it is and they don't want any part of it. For once the club's silence was perfect.

I find it hard to get excited about this. From my cynical stand point I think Lawwell is making noise for effect, he must already know he doesn't have support of the other teams in Scotland, and that the SFA don't intend to create another investigation. In which case this is all about playing to the gallery, that fairly large section of his club's own support so warped by hatred. This way he keeps the unhinged sevcopaths onboard while nothing actually happens. It's a dangerous game and one I'd hoped the people at the top of our game might be above playing, but I shouldn't be that surprised they aren't. Ironically I'd love to know how the SFA and the SPFL are going to ensure nothing like what happened to Rangers can ever happen again. We should all be demanding lessons are learned and rules are put in place, but I remain sceptical clubs will ever agree to that.

This thread has taken an unexpected turn. Regarding Davies, he did an interview with the BBC recently that is gathering dust in a filing cabinet as it's deemed not broadcastable. Even BBC Scotland have certain standards when it comes to slander. I'm no expert but Davies displays a number of traits associated with illness, I hope he's okay and perhaps seeks professional help. As for bull fighting as someone who attended the San Fermin festival in Pamplona a few years ago I'm not really in a position to criticise anyone's support for bull fighting. I'm not sure bull fighting is significantly more cruel than fishing to be honest, albeit cows are relatively more sentient than mackerel or trout.

Getting a fucken grip of yourself. McCoist is our club's record overall scorer, our top league scorer, our top league cup scorer and our top European scorer and has represented our club more times than any other human being except two. He's in our hall of fame, he's in the Scottish football hall of fame and he's in the the Scottish sport hall of fame. He represented his country 69 times and scored 19 goals. Whatever his shortcomings as a manager he helped hold our club together during some very difficult times. It's harder to think of someone more fitting of the term 'legend'. But hey, you turn the other way in the street if you want.

So is everyone just lining up to have a kick at Ally for daring to speak the truth or do you actually disagree with what he said? Because if anyone doesn't think Celtic are light years ahead of us, both on and off the park, I'd be very surprised.

I don't think he's far better, he might be a bit better but we'll see. I think Halliday came in for a lot of stick last season because he didn't hide. I'd like to see him in a side with a proper defence behind him and a ball playing midfielder alongside him and that didn't happen last season. Very few of our players looked good last season, it doesn't mean they were bad players though. It's difficult to compare players, I accept that. Our 433 under Warburton doesn't lend itself to exact comparison to this season. But of the players we've brought in I think McKay is the better wide midfielder/winger/wide forward than anyone else currently at the club. O'Halloran was being played wide and even for St Johnstone likes to cut in from wide areas. Whether we play 442, 4411 or 433 we're weaker on the flanks this season.

So is the consensus that we've got a stronger squad now the 'window' is closed than at the end of last season? There's been no change at keeper. In defence I think most people see Alves as a better player then we've had for a few years at centre-half. I'm not sure about Cardoso yet, time will tell. We've also added Declan John as much needed full back cover. A lot was expected of him as a young player but his career has gone backwards, since breaking into the Cardiff side as a teenager. He spent some of last season at the dizzy depths of Chesterfield, a name to send shudders through bluenoses of a certain vintage. We lost Kiernan who I actually thought was okay and just needed to be in a side who bothered to actually defend. We've also lost Crooks although I wasn't sure if he even was a defender. On balance our defence has better depth and a stronger first choice back four. Midfield is harder to judge I think. The big buy was Pena but no one can judge him yet as we've barely seen him. Early reports are concerning but a period of adjustment and settling into life here was inevitable. But so far he's not strengthened the side, but he might yet. Personally I'm not convinced Jack is better than Halliday and having a better defence behind him should help whoever plays as a deep lying centre midfielder. Dorrans is better than Halliday I think and if Rossiter can stay fit our central midfield is stronger. Our wide areas are definitely weaker. McKay, O'Hallaron and Forrester are away from the club as is Dodoo who could play wide as well. Replaced by Cadieas, Dalcio and Nemane, none of the three of them are better than McKay. Dalcio has struggled to get into the side and Nemane is a young player who might not see much 1st team football this season. Putting Windass or Krancjar out wide is not the answer. For me our midfield remains unbalanced and I'm not sure we're stronger here overall. Upfront is the hardest to judge for me. Young Morelos has started really well and if he can keep that up he'll have been an amazing bit of business. But he's a young player and inevitably he'll have a drop in form at some point. I'm also a little concerned that he's had no 'pre-season' having joined us half way through the Finnish season, next May is a long time to play without a break. Herrera is a more straightforward target man, whether he's better than Garner time will tell. Garner struggled due to the type of football we played, he'd be much better suited to our current style ironically. Other than that we've lost Dodoo who was enigmatic and O'halleron who struggled last season yet has turned into Gerd Muller now he's back at St Johnstone. Again we're relying on Kenny Miller too much, hopefully young Hardie might make a breakthrough this season. We've lost Waghorn who always worked hard but didn't score enough for me, again someone who'd benefit playing alongside someone like Morelos. Our forward options are small, a couple of injuries and you wonder where the goals are coming from. I'm not yet convinced we're stronger up front. Overall, a stronger defence and central midfield, but weaker in wide areas and shallow upfront. If I'm being honest I think we're still a long way behind Celtic and I think Aberdeen have a stronger first choice 11.

I heard that about Halliday as well. It's a strange thing to say publicly and it's very naive. MOH has started the season very well, if we're still struggling to score in a months time and MOH is still knocking them in for St Johnstone PC simply piles pressure on himself. A far more diplomatic response would have been my advice. MOH will have friends in the current Rangers squad, they won't like to read their manager slaughtering their mate. I say this as I'm reading a book just now by a former player who talks about the respect Alex Ferguson had from all his players and it was largely because he never spoke to the media about them, everything stayed in the dressing room.

Hang about Craig, "Rangers fans know", what the hell does that mean? And if anything underlines his feeling of not being appreciated it's some of the bullshit that's been written about him since he left. McKay was the most skilful and creative player, and the most saleable asset, we had, yet he was offered a new contract that was less than other players in the squad. Go figure. I've some insight into Barrie McKay and I can tell you his first choice was to remain at Rangers, but he knew his worth and he knew what others at the club were getting paid. There's a strain of Scottish football supporter who thinks if a player doesn't make hard tackles, win headers and chase lost causes he's not trying. Bizarre. I know we're not supposed to criticise the almighty Pedro, what with that wonderful pedigree he's got, his amazing start to management at Rangers and his inspired summer buys. Still, with all those really good wide players the club has just now I'm sure Pedro knows best.

According to McKay himself his first choice was to stay at Rangers.

Can't wait to read that.

Advocaat followed up our 6-2 loss at Parkhead (to a Celtic side with a brand new manager) with a 5-1 defeat of Celtic at Ibrox when we next played them. If Pedro's side do that he'll have my full backing. I've avoided any criticism of PC since the league campaign started, I aired my concerns over him very clearly before that. We're 3 games in, a win, a loss and a draw is fairly inauspicious start but I'm willing to wait and see what the coming weeks bring. He's managed us in 13 league matches and we've won 7. In Jock Wallace's last season in charge of Rangers we won 6 of our first 13 league matches, but in his 14th we beat Celtic 3-0 at home. He was still fired that season despite everything he'd done for us as a manager before that. In the end if the board really believe in Pedro they'll need to give him 18 months, in that time he'll need to win at least one domestic cup and show clear signs of on pitch improvement to be given longer. I don't think a side can be built in a few months. Wallace got a couple of seasons to build his side. I'd cut my losses as I think his appointment was a mistake but if those closer to the club, who see him at work everyday and can see what he's doing first hand think differently then that's all that matters.

Does Pedro have final say on players signed for development squads? I assume he has final say on first team squad players but beyond that? His job title is 'manager' but I'm not sure if his duties are solely around the first team and whilst I'm sure he takes a big interest in development and age group squads perhaps he's only responsible for the first team squad.

Is he English? At 19 he'll need patience from our support, 19 year old wingers tend to be inconsistent. We need a wide player and if Walker is joining in January or next summer then it makes sense. Be interesting to see what he's like.

It's simple, we just need to win the league, we've done it 54 times before, we can do it.

So that's where Kyle Hutton is these days. Surely at some point Hardie needs to get a run in the 1st team? He's either good enough or he's not but there's only one way to tell, but he keeps scoring goals at whatever level he's playing so far. Related to this competition I was watching some of these interviews Si Ferry has being doing. He's just done with Kris Boyd and it's actually pretty good. Boyd speaks surprisingly well and clearly fancies a career in broadcasting in the future. One thing Boyd spoke about that I though was interesting was the demise of reserve team football in Scotland. In Boyd's opinion this was a huge loss and he credited being able to play with, and against, adult professionals in reserve football as one of the things that allowed him to progress as a young player. He felt quite strongly that only by playing in competitive matches with seasoned professionals can young players learn and develop. It was interesting as I've not heard many players express this recently. It's a decent interview apart from that. He speaks about coming through at Kilmarnock and signing for Rangers, then the PLG time and Walter returning.

Does anyone think Doncaster and co would have met them without seeking permission or guidance from Celtic first? So either Celtic want the supporter's group to keep the issue live and in the public realm but at arm's length from the club, or else the club want nothing to do with it and asked Doncaster and co to meet with their idiot wing in the hope of bringing the issue to a close. Whatever the reason it does read like as far as the SPFL are concerned the matter is closed, reluctantly or not. I expect the SFA can expect petitions and emails a plenty.

Three Colin? Four I think you mean.

It would be interesting, but probably impossible, to define a 'legend'. By most measures Barry ferguson is a club legend, yet I'd wager quite a few would be unhappy to describe him as that. Is Mo Johnston a legend? What about Gazza or Brian Laudrup? (Did you know Brian Laudrup was actually Austrian by birth? I didn't know that until very recently). You have to have done something exceptional to achieve legend status.

I remember being very excited when we bought Iain Ferguson from Dundee, he was seen as a real talent back then. He was a frustrating player, he'd real ability but it just didn't work out at Ibrox. He stood in front of me in the queue for the Odeon in Renfield St once, he was much smaller than I expected but that didn't seem to matter to the absolute stunner on his arm. Embarrassing to describe him as a legend in the context of Rangers but Dundee Utd and Motherwell fans might.

I worry that 'safe standing' is an oxymoron. Safe standing requires the club, the police and the local council to do their jobs, professionally, diligently and consistently. I have no faith in two if those organisations and some doubts on the third. Read the Hillsborough Report, the Leppings Lane was 'safe' as long as it was properly policed, it wasn't. You don't have to look far at Ibrox to see the consequences of what can happen when football supporters are at best taken for granted and at worst viewed as no better than cattle. I've heard the arguments, I know it works in Germany, but we're not living in Germany.