Big Jaws

Apart from the referee and stand side linesman who were shocking with their decisions. Never a penalty and the rebound scored from Cox who was inside the box before the penalty was taken and shouldn't have counted all missed by the officials. Then there are the two right sided Rangers defenders who contrived to put us under pressure at every opportunity in the second half. Our midfield went to sleep in the second half standing off their players and hardly contested a forward ball from them. We were extremely sloppy in there and never gave our front two any service at all. Yes we won the game and are through but we wont get away with that sort of performance against our next opponents and our B team should be switched on at all time if they are trying to make the first team.

Between Thompson, McCauley and Flannagan it was a toss up to see who could fu<k it up the most.

The difference for me today was Katic attacking the ball, cutting out any attempts to slip it through, carrying it forwards up to and across the half way line when needed and the speed at which McCrorie moves the ball in an attacking sense. Worral still looked iffy from my perspective although he did make some clearing headers. It shows when they moved Menga from being on Katic over to Worral because big Nik had him in his back pocket. We could have scored a few more goals but 0-3 away at Livi I'll take that all day long.

They [Kilmarnock] are a counter attacking team. They did what it says on the tin.

They didnt get goals from nowhere. Brophy earned his goal by pressing up on Worrall and making him fuck it up. If that was Alfie we'd be singing his praises and adding another million to his price tag. Jones took up position just inside Tav between him and the pensioner, the ball is played over the top of our midfield into that space Jones picks it up runs at him knowing he's no pace takes it a couple of yards inside and bang its off into the bottom left hand corner. You simply cant give a player like Jones that amount of space or time on the ball in and around the box cause he will punish you. No mate none of their goals were either lucky or from nothing they two lads worked hard to make the space and earn the right to shoot at goal.

Its a problem when they are targeting buses with kids, women and pensioners on. We know they've got previous for that. Its not about them fighting man on man cause they don't and when they do get caught up in that type of scenario they generally pick up second prizes and union flag cushions.

From that Stevie G seems to be getting pretty hacked off at those players on the left who've been injured.

I thought their player Dahlström bossed the game for long periods. McRorie (GK) probably out a bit too quick for their second.

Walked off OK. Maybe just a wee tweak on his knee.

Looks to be built a bit like Bobby Russel. if he's half the player he'll be a cracker.

3-2 Rangers Candeias

2-2 apparently long ball over the top Mcauley caught out for pace.

2-1 Rangers Katic header from a corner.

Complete change of personnel for Rangers starting the 2nd half. McRorie Barasic, Katic, MCauly, Houston. Middleton, Coulibally, McRorie, Kelly, Candieas Lafferty

I'm not sure what it is we're playing sometimes it looks like a 4-4-2 diamond and at others a 4-3-3. I know its a friendly and he's gone with the centre back pairing to get minutes in legs but you can really see the weakness in both Flanagan and Worralls game. Flanagan for me seems to lack awareness of where he is on the pitch couple with his lack of pace shows why he's not been getting game time. Worrall on the other hand has had a couple of decent tackles but either tends to get drawn towards the ball or gets too tight to his man needs to work on his concentration. Jack and Arfield in the middle of the park have been pretty decent. Davis range of passing has been good to see. Kent has looked busy at times but final ball hasn't been there. If we're going to play with Defoe in that position I'd like to see us get him in more, his runs have been excellent, as the service to him has been lacking.

He's there but perhaps he's doing light training separately because of his injury. Very end of the video 1:31 mins on you can see him walking off.

Now you're just being a tart Stevie.

We absolutely battered them 1-0 today absolutely outstanding!! Get in!

We haven't given them a minutes peace, we've shut down their playmakers and cut out any passes forward the only Celtic player who has looked decent is naeneck Forrest. We've been absolutely outstanding in that first 45 minutes and should be 2-0 up but I'll take our 1-0 for now. When Celtic are wasting time 10 minutes into the game tells its own story. More of the same in the second half Rangers get intae this shower of shite and shut this game out.

Its not negativity its fair comment based on our results statistics and analysis of the season so far. Aug - 8/12 Sept - 6/12 Oct - 7/9 Nov - 9/9 Dec - so far 12/21 with one to play We've dropped points home and away consistently each month except for November and we also lost 1-0 to Aberdeen in consecutive matches firstly in the League Cup and then at home in the league. Of the teams I'd expect to be in and around the top five our record is as it stands - loss away to Celtic, draw away to Aberdeen, loss away to Aberdeen (LC), loss home to Aberdeen, draw away to Hibs and draw at home to Hibs. Factor in the other away and home draws you start to see a pattern. Its not negativity to discuss the teams inability to win against the top 4/5 teams in the league its a fact.

I'm normally a glass half full person but I'm absolutely scunnered with this team at the moment. Yesterday was not a result that can be excused it was yet another poor performance in a long list over seasons of poor performances. Hibs regardless of their result against Celtic are not, in spite of the managers comments after the match, a good team. Their team last year was much better with balance in midfield and an attacking threat as opposed to this version of them and we should have beaten them easily in both games. You lads can talk about formations, and tinkering with them, all day long as far as I'm concerned but IMO it wont solve or fix any issues with this team. The talk is that we've been extremely inconsistent in the league, which to a certain extent is true, but I would go a step further and say that our issue stems from players that are simply not of the required quality/level to play for a Rangers team with aspirations of league challenges and European League contests that has us in the position we find ourselves in. Also when you look at it without blue tinted specs, we got there, our EL matches we'rent much better either with only 1 win in 6 matches in amongst 3 draws and 2 defeats. The only part of the team that seems to have performed with any consistency of note is our defence and in spite of constant tinkering and changing of personnel too has been fairly decent in not shipping many goals domestically. However from mid to front we have been absolutely dreadful with only really two players contributing to our goals tally this season in James Tavernier and Alfredo Morelos. IMO no one else gets pass marks as an attacking threat. Tav, our right FULLBACK, has been on a poor run of form recently and appears to be running on empty leaving Alfie, starved of decent service, to pretty much do it all on his own. I'm not including Jack, McCrorie, Rossiter or Coulibally in this as they have been fairly consistent defensively but Candeias, Middleton, Kent, Ejaria, Arfield, Grezda and Lafferty have all IMO been extremely poor and in truth haven't contributed very much in the grand scheme of things. A look at all of their stats for goals and assists against minutes played does not make for pleasant reading. Personally I would argue that its not just a creative midfielder that's needed or even just a number 10 either but a complete overhaul of our attacking play and personnel, other than Morelos, that needs completely revamped as we don't have the personnel for any formation you lads come up with.

We've dominated and controlled that first half the only time Hibs have done anything is when we've been sloppy with our passing. They've been stuffy in midfield and late in the tackle leaving something on our players. We'll be lucky to have any players left to face Celtic on Saturday at this rate as both McCrorie and Goldson looking unlikely to come out for the second half.

I know right? I thought the rollerskates comment was a real low point. ? Colin is undoubtedly wrong. I mean John McLane is just a weary traveller trying to get home to his family on Christmas Eve when he finds himself at the worst office party ever. It even has a pregnant woman needing somewhere to rest. And the clincher for me is his wife's name is Holly!

I'm confident we'll beat Hibs on Wednesday. I think we'll be 1 point behind going into the Old Firm game. Celtic will be tough to beat but will be without a couple of key players in Lustig and Rogic and I think they'll play the same as they did when they went down to 10 men in the 2-3 game with a low block. Provided we don't try the long ball and deep crosses into the box I think we'll beat them but beating them doesn't win us the league the league isn't won there and theres a lot of football to be played in the 3-4 months of next year.

We're 1 point off the top sitting in second place. If we can beat Hibs on Wednesday going into the game 1 point behind on the 29th we'll see how they deal with that challenge. We've not been this close to the top of the league for a long time going into this match. I don't think you can count the 2-3 game last year as any type of comparison as that team IMO were not title challengers. We've not been without our faults but we're a new team in the making and the experience of a tight challenge will be good for us this year. Celtic are the current champions and I think we will beat them provided we're up for it. As for title challenge anything can happen between now and the end of the season.