Big Jaws

I felt I had little choice in watching the game if I wanted to have any type of perspective at all Pete. Besides I come from an era where good play or tactics by anyone other than those who shall not be named in games at Ibrox was met by at least a ripple of applause as opposed to a barrage of expletives these days. A time where we'd acknowledge the skill of 'x' player while briefly commenting on how his opposite number in a blue shirt was unable to contain him or conversely how he had him in his pocket. The conversations about such players on the buses and in bars after the game usually resulted in the same conclusive question... Why is he not a Rangers player? So yeah the will for my team to win is extremely strong but I have no issues watching or accepting good play/skill against us. I tell you what is starting to grate on my nerves though. This repeating 'We'll learn from it' mantra that DW, MW or anyone associated with the club are reciting after every defeat or poor display. When its players saying it then it really is just a nonsense platitude. Of course there is a difference between the Scottish Championship, the SPFL and any Euro competition in terms of skill levels, tactics and competitiveness. However the only two people that the sound-bite 'We'll learn from it' apply to are MW and DW as they realise who is good enough and who isn't. Players should be learning and adapting during the game not after it? I'm not saying debriefing and analysis after a game is of no value here but essentially it is the same game no matter what competition you are playing in. If a player/s cant or wont learn and adapt during the game itself then he and the team have found their level. Of course we in the stands recognise endeavour as can be seen in our response to Joe Garner who I think will adapt to being a decent goal scorer in the SPFL but not till next season. However a manager/coach should understand what is transpiring in front of him and should be adjusting his players positions and tactics as the game develops to nullify or counter any threat his team are experiencing instead of relying on post match analysis and 'We'll learn from it' comments alone.

I've watched the second half now and within the first ten mins its clear that Leipzig have figured out where our weaknesses are. To be fair our three centres have done as much as they could have in terms of clearing their lines, Senderos looked fine to me also, but in saying that Leipzig have had all the play slicing through the field at will. If not for Gilks, who's been excellent, we'd have been down a few more already. As it has been all season our front six have more or less done nothing defensively staying in an attacking formation while we try to defend an oppositions pressing game. As much as I like Halliday Leipzig have realised he has absolutely no idea where he is on the pitch and that he plays like an attacking midfielder when he's supposed to be DFM. Sometimes he's as much as 40 yards in front of his defence or even out wide on either flank when we are being pressed. He's not supposed to be that out ball he's supposed to be in a defensive/countering position to receive and change play. Their number six Rani Khedira, who's not half as good as his brother, shows exactly how to play that role. Leipzig have used his lack of tactical awareness to their advantage constantly attacking the area he should be in and then switching or moving the ball to the wide areas. On more than one occasion Hyndman ended up being where Halliday should have been. The poor passing spread through the team as the game wore on be it tiredness or just simply an inability to put their foot on the ball and calm the game down. Third goal Holt loses possession in their half, Halliday is too far forward and as a result is unable to be anywhere near the ball to affect it leaving the defence wide open as they counter with four against three. Forth goal McKay loses the ball their two defensive midfield players again break through the centre of the pitch switching the ball out to the wide and again our centres are left having to track back as quickly as they can to try cut out the cross. Summary of the second half Leipzig spotted the weakness and attack the space Halliday is supposed to be defending. Passing continues to deteriorate. Hyndman looks like he could have some promise. Waghorn for all his bulk is easily bullied off the ball by an 18 year old prospect. Thoroughly beaten by a quicker, stronger more tactically aware side than we are.

I never seen the game live but reading the comments I expected it was an absolute demolishing so when I clicked on the link above for the full game I expected the worst. I've only watched the first 45 minutes of the first half. In fairness to all of the posters in this thread the second half might be where it all goes to hell so I'm not counting my chickens so to speak. I can only comment on what I have seen so far. The first half from my perspective has been fairly even competitively. It should be noted that Leipzig do however look, at the moment, about a yard quicker and a slightly stronger than us. I have noted that we are not playing with any type of centre forward and only one real out ball down the left channel be it either McKay or Windass. Which save for one or two occasions Leipzig have covered well by tightening the space between their wide right forward, right mid field and right back forcing whoever is on the ball in that position to either cut inside where they have adequate cover or be forced further wide. A couple of occasions McKay has broken their defence and on one occasion, not the goal incident, Windass was ruled offside while taking off from the centre line a decision from the officials that has left me baffled. If you're standing foot is on the half way line then you cant be offside. Conversely on our right hand side we have absolutely nothing. Tavernier is having yet another poor game, inside him Holt is a little lightweight for this level of competitiveness, although he has had one or two nice touches, being closed down which is forcing the ball backwards to either Kiernan, Halliday or due to his slight frame losing possession. Halliday is equally as ineffective as Tav is and is both slow in gaining control of the ball and also lightweight in any challenge which is never a good combination for the position he is supposed to be playing. Keirnan so far has looked surprisingly comfortable on the ball as has Wilson on the other side in spite of the fact that neither man is blessed with any pace, poise or elegance at all. On the whole though our defence has coped reasonably well with what Leipzig have had to throw at us while they've been in periods of sustained possession. The score on the other hand is 2-0 to Leipzig which is disappointing given how I've seen the game develop but aside from maybe two or three good counter attacks, which they scored from twice, I have seen very little from them that would suggest we are out of our depth in this game. So far we're not that far off them and in all fairness if we sorted out the three positions I've identified might see us retain possession and control the game more (of course I know what the score ends up but I'm looking at it from the perspective of what I would think at the time, which is we should never be two goals down here). With that said I'm not sure what MW is looking to achieve with this line up and formation as it is very lopsided due to there being nothing on offer from our right flank that could be useful going forward. I'm not sure if he intended to use two wing backs to come narrow and break out into the space on the flanks to then cut the ball back to two attacking midfielders breaking through their lines or not but as yet aside from McKay we've not done any of that and these AM's breaking through have been none existent which goes some way to explaining our lack of chances. Barring Torals goal which was chopped off for Windass again being offside. Its difficult to say whether Windass is offside or not because of the camera angle. I expect MW will tweek the formation a little in the second half. Neither Hold nor Windass are using the oppositions formation on the pitch smart enough for me and because of that we need someone in the Garner position who can either hold the ball up or draw their centres out of their comfort zones, in between their lines, towards the ball. This ball retention is crucial and because of the lack of it we are losing possession of the ball high up the pitch through Tavernier, Halliday and Holt which has cost us twice so far. Windass has showed a couple of times but has been frustratingly quiet and Toral has popped up a couple of times but as yet no one seems to be on his wavelength or have sussed out how he is going to use the ball and as yet are making him look quite ordinary, his work on the ball struggling to find anyone where they should be for him when he has it. So far we're two goals down and shouldn't be they are not that far in front of us other than pace in the wide areas, a yard quicker and stronger in the challenge. At the moment its all about these fine margins and as far as I'm concerned this is what I would expect from a BDL side. I'm interested to see how MW changes any of this and how we tire as the game goes on in the second half.

We seem to be straying into the realms of whatabootery on some of these threads lately and to be quite honest with you its something I'm not particularly keen on especially in this forum which I consider is generally above that. Personally I don't watch 'Only an excuse' because it stopped being funny around the same time as Ricky Fulton retired his act. For the record Johnny Watson is a Rangers man and his writing partner Phil Differ is a Celtic man. They are both socialists with absolutely no tolerance of religion at all. By that I do not mean religious bigotry, religious intolerance or sectarianism but 'Religion' itself. Neither of them have any time for it what so ever which incidentally neither do I. What the Celtic support did that day was clearly sectarian but that doesn't mean that it is a comedians sole responsibility to expose the sectarianism. There is no way in hell that they could have got the true nature of that incident past the beaks at Pacific Quay and they knew that all too well. However in saying that rather than just ignore it they went much further, granted its unusually subtle but its still relevant, by suggesting the only perpetrator the FORCE could find was an inanimate object in the shape of a blow up doll. Taking a swipe at the 'establishment' like that actually hits them all. That to me is a much smarter move!

Everyone who's not a Rangers supporter always talk about him as just a target man. As far as I'm concerned that does him an injustice cause big Mark could play a bit and at times that left peg of his was a like wand. His goal in the battle of Britian and the cross for Ally to get the winner are just a couple of examples of what we seen week in week out after he had settle properly.

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The media continue the blame game narcissist bollocks we're all used to. The post match analysis is ripping Toure apart for the first goal. Granted he could have done better by putting the ball out but Stindl still had to beat another defender and the keeper. He did that by nutmegging both of them. Hilarious!

Erst mach' dein' Sach dann trink' und lach!

A decent well fought performance at a difficult venue away to ICT. When I seen Kiernans name on the team sheet tonight I have to admit my heart sank a little. Honest to Christ I have no idea what the gaffer sees in him. He seems to think he's Alan McLaren and like Alan likes his grub a wee bit too much and struggles with his weight pre-season but thats where the similarities end for Alan was a class act, as far as positional, tactical hard tackling and silky footballing skills are concerned, in fact I can still hear Baggio shouting 'let me oot!' fae inside Alans pocket particularly that game against Italy at Ibrox. Kiernan on the other hand has none of that. Hill made one mistake tonight in giving the ball away but he and anyone else who plays along side him are hamstrung with this cart horse. I was quite worried about this game tonight because I think ICT are a hard team to beat but apart from the occasional defensive calamity at crosses from yer man they were restricted to high balls from wide area's in the last 10 minutes of the match. I'm quite happy that we seen out a game with a 1-0 win because that sort of thing has been our Achilles heel since Warburton took over.

Sorry could you refresh my memory of what game/s that this happened in because I simply cant remember a single occasion where I thought... oh this could be dicey when Gilks was in goal. In fact I'd even go as far as to say at no time when he has been in goal have I ever had a thought that he didn't have the situation calmly under control. Wes played against Motherwell and Stranraer in the LC. Gilks has played in the other 4 and apart from the Burnley game hasn't let a single shot/cross go past him. As far as I'm concerned he may not be as good a shot stopper as Wes but he definitely commands his box better and that to me makes him the better keeper. I wouldn't hesitate to play him.

Tried to post this last night but my internet went down so apologies for it being late. There is truth in what you are saying Mack. Yes Greig was manager, the team were ageing, Jock Wallace took over and then finally Souness from 86'. However for the enquirer its a complicated story that doesn't quite fit into nice neat decade size packages. Rangers won the league in 74-75 which we hadn't managed to achieve in 11 years even with players many bears regard as legends. A main factor that shaped the late 70's early 80's was that in Jan 1971, 66 people lost their lives on staircase 13 of the old East terracing. The Club researched stadia extensively while it also cut the Ibrox capacity. The first phase of redevelopment began in 1978 with the demolition of the East terracing and took 3 years to complete the project. That's 3 years out of the 5 that John Greig was manager. During that time crowds dwindled for two reasons one was the further reduction of capacity as the terraces and stands were demolished and rebuilt and inconsistent form from an ageing team. The rebuilding project had an initial cost estimate of £6mil which eventually totalled £10mil. I'm convinced this hampered both Greig and Wallace when he returned. By 1986 with finances returning to a normal levels Souness was appointed player manager. He won the league in his first season and again in 88-89 season which began a run of 9 consecutive titles. 74-75 Rangers 75-76 Rangers 76-77 Celtic 77-78 Rangers 78-79 Celtic 79-80 Aberdeen 80-81 Celtic 81-82 Celtic 82-83 Dundee United 83-84 Aberdeen 84-85 Aberdeen 85-86 Celtic 86-87 Rangers 87-88 Celtic 88-89 Rangers 96-97 Rangers *9 As to how did we feel and do we have any good/bad memory's? There are many but here is one. In 78-79 season which I regard as the same era you are enquiring about, after 5 games domestically of which we hadn't won any and only scored two goals in the process we were tied with the great Juventus in the European Cup. We returned from Turin with a 1-0 defeat. Juventus had 9 of the Italian squad from the 78' world cup with players like Zoff, Gentile, Tardelli, Cabrini, Bettega and Causio etc no one held out any hope of getting anything from the return leg. However that night things just seemed to click into place and we comprehensibly dismantled them with something like 70% possession. We didn't just beat them we totally ripped them apart in every position beating them 2-0 on the night 2-1 on aggregate and as far as I'm concerned that rates as one of the finest Rangers performances I've ever seen. From my perspective we knew there were major changes taking place in and around Rangers/Ibrox and that in time both the team and stadium would begin to match up.

Some selective recollections of crowd participation here from Mr Wright. He is right about the seemingly pro-Rangers press though as at the time they (his team) might have played some nice football but couldn't buy a win or league title against us. They were fortunate in my and the press of the times opinion to disrupt Rangers 10 in a row the year before he signed but it wasn't until O'Neil arrived a year or two later that they started to make any type of in roads. Theres a fair bit of 'spitting the dummie oot' in that extract but it is also a bit of mischief making by a now compliant pro-celtic press. Its aww about the sporting integrity innit bruv?

Its more than likely that's exactly what it was that was being discussed... I dont know if anyone else seen Jurgen Klopp on MNF who's team last year shared a similar fragility to ours from set pieces and counter attack losing numerous goals. The difference between the two could be argued that they have better players but even Herr Kloop himself discussed it in terms of positional awareness in and around the 6 yard box and pressing the second ball... no sense in me yaking on about it watch the full piece for yourselves if you have time and patience. http://www.footballorgin.com/epl-skyports-monday-night-football-mnf-jurgen-klopp/

You're absolutely right lads it was Pittodrie What I was actually trying to say with that was that I was sitting in CF1 the Tuesday night at Ibrox when they did big Butchers leg and that was loud but no where near as loud or foreboding as the Simpson tackle. Every single person in the stadium knew it was a bad one... some how my editing skills, from the ramble I had written in 'word', contrived to mess with me. I'm putting it down to having too many open pages at the one time. Ha ha ha.

I was sitting in CF 1 when the tackle went in and it was as bad a sound as I've heard in any game and that took some doing because up till that point those honours were held in memory from the previous year when Big Terry got his leg done by them.

I was responding to being patronised which incidentally I'm quite entitled to do JFK. Again though I wont be responding to your above 'when did you stop beating your wife' fallacy as that would be an absurd and would bare no fruit so I will accept its inclusion as a misunderstanding. Craig offered no explanation other than the sub text of 'because we're the Rangers and I believe we're good enough' to justify his claim that we're not in any danger. The facts of the matter are that we're 4 points off bottom, 7 points off the league leaders at the top of the table. The winners finished 15 points clear last year and are already opening up a gap. Granted we're 3 points off 2nd place too, that is true, but apart from Partick Thistle and ICT (possibly) we've got 2 other really difficult games coming up against teams who are above us in the league before we've even reached the end the first round of games. After that we go into the second round of games, the weather gets heavier the ball moves differently in the cold and wet and I think we'll struggle in this robust/physical league with this team. Our players seem to be made of glass with injuries here there and everywhere. I haven't called for anyone to lose their jobs or be moved on. All I've said is there will need to be improvements or we will find ourselves in the Zone. Will you be content with the progress if we go into the winter break in 7th or 8th place? I suspect you wont be and neither will I or any other bear but if they cant iron out the kinks then that's where we'll be and I feel although we're a good enough team to escape the drop I don't think it will be an easy ride. I'm saying 'wishing' is for children and we cant simply have been unlucky to only win 5 of the last 17 matches. In this respect being unlucky is an alternative description in sport for inadequate. It needs to be addressed by our team or the above scenario is a very real proposition.

True some posts I agree with some I don't but I'm very rarely emotional about them. The reference to Durrant was a fairly low blow from you there JFK and I'm sure anyone else who was at the game and heard the noise it made when the tackle went in will tell you it wasn't funny and I certainly wasn't laughing.

Obviously neither you nor Craig seen the humour in the post. I even signposted it with a grinning emoji. Still you cant please all the people all the time.

Wow just wow... its not necessarily a proverb though it is a thought terminating cliche'! So enough with the implied ignorance Craig. I'll try my best not to have unclean or unorthodox views or thoughts in future. In fact you could write me out a Gersnet handbook that I can refer to when posting here so that I don't upset anyone's feelings.

I don't know what school of philosophy you've come from but False has never equated to True in ANY branch I've studied. With that said you're perfectly entitled to your opinion and if it is in disagreement with mine I'm OK with that.

No we wont Craig because on no level do I agree with you here. We'll just disagree.

I think its a valid concern rather than scaremongering. We've got an unbeaten home record Craig with 1 win and 2 draws with 3 goals for and 2 against so I guess that's something. Away from home we've won 1, Drawn 1 and lost 2 with 5 goals for and 9 against. Kilmarnock, Hamilton and Dundee are sitting on 6 points. Kilmarnock being in the relegation zone due to goal diff in 11th place. In between them and us is ICT with 8 points. Those three teams only need 1 win as it stands to put us in the relegation zone. We've got bottom of the league Partick Thistle next week, Killy v Aberdeen, Accies v ICT and Dundee v Celtic. So by this time next week if we don't beat Partick at home and other results go the way of Killy and Accies, I cant see Dundee taking anything from Celtic, we will be skirting that Zone mate and still have ICT, Hearts and St Johnstone to play. Granted its just the first meeting of each team in a long season but it doesn't make pleasant reading from where I'm sitting.

We'll need to get it sorted out quickly Craig or we'll be in a relegation battle never mind challenging for top six... at the bottom of the league right now Accies are leading ST Johnstone 1-0.

I'm no pessimist either. The CH's might not be to your taste but this pairing haven't put a foot wrong in the last 3 games the goals against us didn't come from any position they were covering today. So if you are a glass half full guy you should be saying that. The issues we have is that the players in key attacking positions are not taking responsibility. Todays example only once did our outside left take on the defender and look what happened there. There was an almighty scramble on the line. Once in a game is not good enough and the same goes for the other side of the park. Instead what happens is the ball is recycled back towards the half way line where it hurts no one. Thats not how the system is supposed to work and thats why we're not creating many chances. EDIT: I see in your other post you werent necessarily singling out the CH's its just that you think we need better.

It wasn't the two CH's fault today they played pretty well. Tav was the issue for the first goal not covering round behind Wilson who lost the header. We've got more problems than simply looking at the CH's.