JohnMc

It was, but I've seen them not given. I suggest you watch the match Craig before pulling me up on it.

It's got everything to do with tonight's result dB, keep up.

Thank you, I was beginning to think everyone on Gersnet had taken leave of their senses. How anyone can be blaming the referee for tonight's result is beyond me. We're one nil up in the 89th minute and the ref awards us a penalty. Aye, it's the ref's fault we drew.

You know guys the referee conspiracy theory would hold a lot more water if we hadn't been awarded a penalty in the 89th minute whilst 1-0 up.

Respectfully Boabie, you specifically asked for decisions that have gone against Celtic, so you're right I am missing what you're trying to say. Everyone agrees the refereeing standard is simply not good enough, there's no argument there. But how does starving St Johnstone of away supporters twice a season change that and how does telling our support they can't watch our side change that? All clubs are already struggling financially, Scottish football is in a terrible state currently. The compliance officer system is a nonsense and needs overhauled. To do that we need to engage with other clubs, not piss them off. I mean it's simple human nature Boabie, if I want you to support me on something are you more likely to do it if I'm friendly to you or if I threaten you?

What's my head in the sand about Coop? I've not called anyone paranoid. Do you think Steven McLean is deliberately biased against Rangers or just not a very good referee?

I agree, McLean was terrible on Sunday and citing (thanks for the spelling lesson!!) Alves is bizarre. But how will boycotting other clubs make any difference to that. We need other clubs to put pressure on the authorities to improve the standard of refereeing and to change the brutalist style of football in Scotland. I don't know about you but threats tend not to work so well with Scots in my experience.

Well the penalty Hibs got on Saturday was a terrible decision and their fullback got his jaw broken in the Scottish Cup Final and the player responsible wasn't punished. That's just off the top of my head, they are the only matches I've seen them play recently that didn't also involve us. I've no problem with us complaining about Alves being singled out, it's a complete joke. But to then call for boycotts of matches seems like a massive jump in logic to me.

Serious question; do any of the posters on here think Steven McLean purposely decided to ignore poor tackles and dangerous play because he wanted Rangers to lose on Sunday? Are there posters on here that think Steven McLean is deliberately anti-Rangers? For what it's worth I don't. We need to be careful here. It's not Hearts, or St Johnstone's or Ross County's fault that Scottish referees are poor and quite how boycotting their grounds improves that situation is currently lost on me. I've also yet to read or hear any of the media supporting the ref on Sunday, everyone I've heard has criticised the refereeing performance, particularly the assault on Cardosa. Every supporter I've spoken too since Sunday, even Celtic supporters, agreed it was a terrible decision. I find myself in agreement with Tannochside Bear again. If we want to affect change at the SFA and the SPFL we need to box clever and we need to find allies. Craig, don't judge the world by social media, most people aren't rabid hatred driven moon howlers. I've actually been surprised at the attitude of many supporters I've met recently, most are bored with the 'punish Rangers' narrative still being pushed and are quite happy to 'move on'. The siting of Alves from Sunday is baffling only in that he's the only one. None of us can complain he's been sited, he deserves to be, just why hasn't Bowman been too. I can only assume the booking Moult got on Sunday was for the kick during the Alves incident and so it's been deemed to have been dealt with. But lashing out at every other club in the league is not going to make any difference to this decision or similar ones in the future. One thing we've learned about Scottish football recently is it's propensity for self-harm. If anyone thinks us boycotting going to Kilmarnock matches is going to somehow lead to changes in how referees and compliance officers work I'd say they've not been paying attention recently.

Centre halves get broken noses StuGers, it's not right but it's always happened and will continue to happen. The ex-Man Utd defender Vidic was in the papers at the weekend and told how he'd had his nose broken half a dozen times. Stephen Caldwell had his nose broken by Duncan Ferguson in a reserve match and they were mates with each other. I'm struggling to think of a centre-half who hasn't had their nose broken, or cheekbone or lost their front teeth at some point. It's not just us either. We might not like to hear that but it's the truth. That Celtic full back had his jaw broken in the Scottish cup final and the player who did it stayed on the park and if the penalty that Hibs got on Saturday had been given to Motherwell yesterday we'd have been rightly furious. Football is a physical sport, sometime too physical, but we can either learn to deal with it or we can get used to losing.

Kevin Thomson did a series of interviews recently and he spoke about joining Rangers. The interviewer (an ex-Celtic player I'd never heard of) asked him if he noticed a big difference in the training from his time at Hibs, no, he replied, the Rangers squad I joined wasn't great, PLG had just left and recently appointed Walter Smith was rebuilding. Thomson explained that when playing Celtic Smith instructed his players to turn the game into a fight, a battle. Celtic had better players and if Rangers went toe-to-toe with them football wise Celtic would win, but turn the match into a battle and Rangers would. Thomson said that's what Rangers did. There's a famous clip of Thomson putting a thunderous tackle onto Robbie Keane then throwing him to the ground as he begins to remonstrate. Rangers bullied Celtic into submission. I was reminded of this watching yesterday's match. We actually looked quite good for the first half hour or so. Composed, knocking the ball about and controlling the match, but for all that we didn't create many actual chances and our final ball was poor. But once Motherwell remembered they were in a cup semi-final we'd no answer. They wanted to win more, they'd a greater desire and most damning for me they finished the stronger side when they should have been on ropes hanging on for a result. We chucked it with 15 minutes still to go. That's particularly galling as the Motherwell defence contained more than one bomb-scare in it. I don't remember seeing a more anonymous performance from a Rangers player than from Pena yesterday. Surely Holt, or even Hardie, or dare I say it Miller, would have contributed more to the match? Windass at least was involved in the match for spells, albeit he was poor. Singling players out is unfair though as there's a collective lack of leaders and winners in the side. No team should chuck it with 15 to go in a cup semi-final, particularly no Rangers side. The experienced players, the Dorrans, the Jacks and the Alves need to take responsibility for that. The ref did have a poor match, but so did the ref in the semi-final the day before. If we blame the ref for yesterday's result we're never going to address the problem. Scottish football is physical, too physical, it has been for years. However that's the league we play in and those are the types of sides we need to beat. So buy players and use tactics accordingly. Because rest assured every other player and manager in our league watched that game yesterday and saw a Rangers side that doesn't like a battle and will chuck it when the going gets tough and so will use those exact tactics against us.

Was it? I hadn't heard that. I'm not one of the 'ban all papers' brigade. I've no doubt that today's story came directly from Miller or one of his associates. It's true in so much as it's his version of what's happened. PC might have a different version. I've actually really tried to be less negative about PC in recent weeks, but it's not easy you know!

No it doesn't. This isn't about his ability as a player it's about the respect he commands from his fellow pros. It's about how he deals with his team-mates, how he trains, behaves and conducts himself. It's the same in any walk of life, the best player isn't always the most respected. Fod, Tav, Dorrans and Jack have been first choice picks. Fod has done well, Tav looks no better or worse than last season, Jack's done okay but he not the unqualified success some seem to think he is. Dorrans, for me, has been disappointing, I think he's a better player than we've seen and is largely out of position playing deep. Hodson plays one in five, Alnwick not even that and John has barely played one match. Windass is, at best, inconsistent and McCrorie has played one and a bit games. Hardie isn't getting a sniff and Wallace seems to keep picking up niggley injuries. I don't think managing is just about picking players for the team, it's about getting the best out of them. PC isn't doing that with most of those players. Okay, we'll compare notes again in a few months time. Management is getting the best out of the resources he has. How's that working out then? He can send half of them to the under-20s as long as he keeps winning matches, if he's not then he's got a problem.

Listen, I agree, all PC needs to do is string a run of victories together and all of this is forgotten, it's that simple. The British players thing occurred to me a few weeks back but was brought into the open during the week when it was reported that he'd criticised the British players for not welcoming him enough. It certainly looks like someone close to Miller spoke to the Record, if not the player himself, and telling stories out of class doesn't win anyone any friends among the support. But I'm careful of not confusing the messenger with the message.

No, but the Chief Engineer might and he'd do well to listen to him. I think you're dead wrong about Mourinho and Conte too, they absolutely care a lot what their players think, you can't win anything without players on your side and buying into your methods. To be fair to Caixinha I think he also cares what the players think hence he called the meeting, as Frankie said up thread the banishing of Miller is surely unlikely to be because he disagreed with PC's methods and more likely about something else. Like most supporter's I think Miller's time as a player is up but we should step back from the personalities involved for a moment and look at the issue. When our most experienced player and a player who still commands a lot of respect from his fellow professionals and one looked up too by most of the players at Ibrox, falls out with the manager questions need to be asked. No manager should just get blind support. Caixinha has struggled to manage British players, and unless we're planning on moving to Mexico or Portugal in the next few months that's a problem when you're playing in Scotland. Hill and Crooks released, McKay, Waghorn, Keiren and Garner sold, O'Halloran, Dodoo, Halliday and Forrester shipped out on loan and now a falling out with Dorran and major rift with Miller with rumours of a strained relationship with Wallace. I understand why many will feel Miller's banishment is no loss and that the club needs new continental ideas and that British players are overpaid, lazy ingrates deserving of little but scorn. But in my opinion the manager of Rangers needs to be able to get the best out of British players, who will almost certainly make up the bulk of the squad. The form of Garner, Waghorn and O'Halloran further shows that properly managed all three were capable of far more than we saw.

It clearly has some substance. I'm only speculating but if Miller has voiced concerns over the managers training and tactics perhaps the manager should be taking note of them instead of punishing him like a child. Whether he's past it or not he's still a player with 69 caps who has played in four league winning sides as well as half a dozen cups, he'll have some insight into what a winning club looks like. In some ways it's a shame it's Miller because he's almost as polarising as Caixinha with the support.

Yeah, but there's dropping him from the side for poor form and there's making him train with the under 20s. They send very different messages.

There was something about Parlane that epitomised cool. He'd slightly longer hair and always seemed younger than the other players even when he wasn't. You felt he could have had a part in Starsky and Hutch managing a trendy night club.

What do you mean by "that doesn't mean he's right"? Right about what, do you know what the alleged fall out is about because I don't? No matter who is 'right' it's a dicey strategy to banish him to the under-20s, that's a very public humiliation for a popular and experienced pro, the other players will have a view on that.

They did. Murray spoke with PLG and asked him if he was sure dropping and selling the club captain and best player was what he thought was best to do. PLG said yes and Murray told him that was fine he'd back him. Ferguson was stripped of the captaincy, dropped and told he could leave the club. It was the end of December and the transfer window was only just opening. In the end PLG decided to walk before it came to anything, he realised he'd lost the dressing room and a lot of the club's support.

Putting aside any doubts I harbour over Caixinha's ability falling out with the most experienced player and arguably the most influential player at the club is a dangerous move. Miller isn't known for undermining managers or flouting off in the huff, indeed most managers who work with him seem to really respect him even when supporters are struggling to see what he brings to a side. As I said a day or two ago there's stuff always happens behind the scenes we don't hear about, there's stuff happening just now. A public falling out with Miler will either make or break PC's reign. But when your senior players are unhappy with your management style any manager has problems that only convincing results can fix.

The board backed the manager last time too, but the players and many of the fans didn't.

The directors and those behind the scenes will have a much more informed opinion on this than us. We see results and performances. They'll see everything, the work being done on the training pitch, the attitude and demeanour of the players, the contact with other staff, the general mood about the place, the changes he's made, the promises being kept and the targets being reached plus there are always things going on that fans never hear about that will affect the squad and the manager. Has Pedro settled, has his wife, his staff and their families? What about the players, who is carrying an injury, struggling to train, not adapting to the culture, sulking at not getting a game, building up huge gambling debts and so on. Ally McCoist gets stick from some supporters now, but I recall a friend of mine who works for Rangers talking about McCoist when we first went into Administration. The time he took with the 'staff', the trouble he went too for them, the understanding he showed for people on normal salaries facing real hardship if they lost their jobs. Most of them would have done anything for Ally after that and he'd their total respect. The point I'm making is those ultimately responsible for hiring and firing Pedro will see the big picture, which might look much better, or much worse, than the one we see.

Within 30 minutes of arriving in Brisbane I was offered a job just because I was Scottish. The guy offering it was from Blairgowrie, and he'd two lassies from Oban and another from Kirkintilloch already working with him. I got a couple of jobs when I lived in Australia because I was Scottish, we're just as cliquey as everyone else.

I agree with you that Northern European players usually find the UK an easier cultural adjustment than Latin players. That being said Kanchelskis recent autobiography claimed there was a big split in our dressing room between the Dutch and non-Dutch players during his time at Rangers. Every dressing room has cliques, when things aren't going well these become more noticeable. It's inevitable that the Portuguese players will gravitate to each other; shared language, culture and 'strangers in a strange land' experiences will bring them together. The Spanish speakers will inevitably do the same. But then so will the young guys and in some dressing rooms the black players are a clique too. You see this in all work places and football clubs are no different. This is easy fixed, we just need to start winning.