calscot

We need more glamour ties in the summer. The Chelsea and Ajax games last year were a great move. And it also brings in some extra cash - out of the fans pockets of course, but surely it's worth it?

Samaras made a big point about prefering to play for a team who look to win nothing as they "get the ball down and try to make chances", so I watched the Celtic tactics with interest. Most of their attacks were punctuated by a high ball forward. He obviously doesn't know his own team tactics. Perhaps he should request a transfer to Falkirk, who not only won't win anything as well, but actually do play the ball on the deck - and what team doesn't try to make chances? All I can say that if Rangers try less than Celtic to make chances then we're far better at taking them as we've scored more goals. Celtic seem to just be a bunch of triers. I don't think any manager sets out to entertain the crowd. He sets out to win. If he has the players to play a type of game that peases the crowd is a bonus and really more of a coincidence. The likes of Schumacher doesn't think about entertaining the crowd when he plans his race, he thinks about how to get round the track faster and the best place to overtake. If he can win the race from the front without overtaking or only overtaking in the pits, he will. WS uses what tools he has available in the most effective way he can think of. He's after doing an effective job results first and foremost which is why he's surprised at the reaction of fans of the team. If he could afford the type of players that Barcelona can and could use them to win by playing aethetic football, I'm sure he would do so. However they didn't produce fantastic football at Ibrox, and only had a couple of flashes in the Nou Camp against us. When you're the more skillful team, you have another team trying to stop you play, and that makes you less entertaining. For Rangers that happend almost every week. Unfortunately our budget is more like a top Championship team never mind a middling Premiership one. The fact that we're the only British team left in the UEFA cup speaks volumes. I recently watched a bit of a 0-0 Chelsea game and it was dire so even spending loads of money doesn't always result in a crowd pleasing performance.

Don't know what the fuss is about, if Walter wanted him in his team he'd be there. Obviously he hasn't shown his manager that he will enhance the match day squad, and we've done pretty well without him. A loan deal will get him match sharp and competitive again so makes sense. Why do so may people spend so much time and energy feeling sorry for players who don't get in the team? I'm more interested in team results and supporting whoever represents us on the pitch than worrying about some guy who gets paid at least 10 times as much as me.

I think they are the kind of shouts that the referee always seems to give when it's against you, and never when it's for you...

There is no chance he'll take over till at minimum Walter's contract has expired. It's still got two years to run. He's being groomed but the matter of when he takes over is moot. He could even go somewhere else first as full manager before coming back. The way it's going, I can see Smith signing another three year contract before thinking about whether to pack it in when he's 65 - if his results allow that is. I think he's enjoying too much and his spell with Sir Alex has shown him, if you enjoy it and you are successful you can keep on going as long as you like. He's tasted the retirement life and came back to football, he tasted the more easy going job of Scotland manager, but actually wanted more, and came back to Ibrox for what he professed was his dream job. I really can't see him leaving it any time soon, whether Ally wants the job or not.

Fair enough but it doesn't look good. It looks a bit patchworklike. Yes but I've always found it incredibly annoying, and much prefer an unrestricted view which I've had in good modern grounds. Trying to see round a stanchion at a bit of play, one way then the other, is a pain. Theres lots of newer stadiums where this isn't an issue, including Ibrox where the only time I had the problem was in the main stand before it was redeveloped. My first game was at the redeveloped Copeland Road stand about 1980, when I was about 10, and it sort of set a standard for me. I think Ibrox has a few but not many - and they are the last seats to be filled. Celtic park has tens of thousands of seats like this and few modern stadiums have that many. Older stadiums before cantilevering do of course. As a Rangers fan it may seem like I'm just having a snidy go at Celtic park but I would genuinely hate it if I had a stanchion in the way when I went to Ibrox. Last time I had it was at Craven Cottage and I didn't think much of their stadium. Celtic have done well to get such a huge gate level at such a cheap cost, but the quality sometimes shows. Winning the SPL twice in a row and getting to the last 16 in the CL twice hasn't mitigated that then? I think both sets of OF fans, need to stop expecting to see Barcelona type performances. I watched a bit of the much vaunted Premiership recently with a Portsmouth game and a Chelsea game. Both were dire. Not many teams in Europe play really attractive football and also win trophies. Arsenal are a good case in point. That sounds more expensive than Ibrox where I think it's about 20-22 quid for most tickets unless it's gone up. But it's still far cheaper than the EP. Trouble is that both clubs are trying to compete in Europe with teams who are getting a lot more media money - 50M to the likes of Spurs from TV, and these clubs from bigger countries also charge at least 50% more for a ticket. The OF need money from somewhere to compete and outside TV and sponsorship, they can only really get it from the fans. The more they charge, and still keep the high attendances, the more they can spend. It's paradoxical that fans will complain at the price of a ticket but then complain that the club are not spending. It's the same with tax, people complain they pay too much, but when asked to pay for something like prescriptions or some charity etc, say the government should pay for it. You can't have it both ways. I think they have to charge their own fans the same. However the best answer to that is to boycott those that charge too much as it's on telly anyway and it's not exactly helping your club financially. They'll soon get the message - although I suppose it depends on how much your team rely on the vociferousness of their fans to spur them on. Rangers showed against Leeds that you can win without any supporters in the stadium. No idea. Hope anyone who smokes is immediately kicked out. Irresponsible thing to do after Bradford.

Who's Scot?

I think we'll take on Webster as he's pretty cheap (150k?) and already at the club. He's still young and just rehabilitated after a bad injury. He could turn out to be the main partner for Cuellar.

Looks like a mobile to me...

PPS I realise that instinct makes you do and I'm not blaming Cuellar in the slightest. I'm just saying that when analysed my conclusion is that it's usually the wrong thing to do, even if it gets you a result. It's like not squaring the ball to your strike partner when you should when two on one with the keeper, but you score anyway. Ideally you should pass the ball and get the certain goal. You can praise the guy for scoring but still tell him to pass next time. If he does it again and misses he looks like a selfish idiot.

PS WRT my ball argument, have you ever seen Memento?

So, supposing I chucked you a metal ball and supposing your reaction was to catch it. If I now heated the ball in the oven to 200C, how long do you think it would it take you to lose the instinct to catch the ball and get yourself out of the way? Or would you just keep going to your natural instincts? This may sound trivial but shows how easily our natural instincts change with experience. Saved me last night. I stupidly accelerated and overtook a car on some white chevron lines after coming out of a roundabout, the bike slipped on the white paint and I had a tank slapper on my hands; however, as I've read Keith Code's book about this, I didn't try to fight it and it worked itself out. The last time something like this happened to me, years ago, I high-sided, and ended up with a broken elbow, a sublimated collar bone and a piece of junk for a bike. I still believe something can work out but still be totally the wrong decision. However, when it does, people are very difficult to teach otherwise. That's why hindsight should not be used here - it's a one off where the penalty was saved. That's not true, I only used hindsight as irony for those using hindsight to prove their case. Using hindsight it the decision lead to a bad result. Ironically people are using the argument that on hindsight it ALMOST lead to the right result. That's why it's a very poor argument, notwithstanding that one positive result does not make a decision correct. How's your betting these days, because your dead wrong. If we got a positive result, I'd be happy but I would still think that it was the wrong decision. There is a case recently of a boy that broke his sisters arm which meant that while in hospital they found she had bone cancer that would have gone undetected. On hindsight he saved her life, but it doesn't justify children going round breaking each other's bones. You do get positive results from bad situations. It isn't ok. I refer the honourable gentleman to the answer I gave earlier. Like I said before a positive outcome doesn't justify a bad decision. I would bet that about nine times out of ten, such a hand ball, causes a negative result. Unfortunately in our case it could cause two negative results. The red would possibly have been worth it to avoid defeat but as that wasn't guaranteed it's not a bargain you can make. It's a high risk gamble, and when it come to high risk gambling with their own money, most prefer not to. Just because your partner bets your house on the result of a fooball match and wins, does not mean it was a good decision to do so. That may sound extreme but your logic should survive extreme examples. Gambling and winning once makes you lucky, not good. The best gamblers play the percentage game and win in the long run. No again, I'm just say you can't say the end justified the means, because it didn't. My point is that you just shouldn't do it. Maybe it could be justified in the last five minutes of the last game of the season, but the timing and the manner of our play, meant that letting the goal in was the percentage play. Yes but a defender learns from experience as it tends to happen to them more than once - I think I have learned. I've also learned to keep my hands behind my back when marking in the penalty area as I was done for a penalty for my arms being "near" the attacker. I've also been done for a penalty for a striker heading the ball against my chest from point blank range and leaving a dirty ball mark on my shirt and a red mark on my skin. The cheating ref - from their team (as the proper ref didn't turn up), said my "arms were up". Hindsight can make you feel better if the outcome is good. Like putting a stupid bet on that comes off... It was just the first example which I seen live and thought, "you stupid idiot". It was the moment I realised that it is definitely the wrong thing to do - unless there's only a few minutes left. I would be less likely to handle now as I've been punished before. Cuellar is more experienced than me. I can't say I'd definitely not do it again although I feel the chances are slim and I haven't done it since. However, it's not my livelyhood and I'm not a pro. My instinct used to be to meet the ball passed to me with my foot going forward, but I've trained myself to pull my foot back to try kill the momentum - and sometimes I still have to think about it as I'm not as well trained as your average amateur. Cuellar will have trained himself to do it completely automatically so I'd assume he's retrained more of his football instincts much better than I have. Not handling the ball on the line should be one of them.

Much as I like Nacho, the Scottish team is for Scots IMHO.

If the rest the team would put in the same effort, application and passion as Nacho, we'd be in the CL semi rather than the UEFA. If Nacho himself was so inconsistent that he looks so good one minute and like a Sunday League player the next, he'd be playing for Spain, and probably Barcelona. I've never seen a player who so regularly goes from the sublime to the ridiculous and back again. Even last night some of his touches were awful but overall he was our best player on the park and that was his best finish for a long, long time and made up for his umpteen fresh air shots. Anyway the guy is becoming a legend, and deserves another season and a fair few more starts.

Webster hasn't yet played a first team game so has no chance of getting thrown into an OF derby. I agree that it'll be Dailly who's proving to be a shrewd signing. We even saved a substitution last night by putting him back there instead of Cuellar. The guy is the epitome of a utility player.

Looked like he had a shout, the Celtic player grabbed him, he couldn't move and eventually sat on his arse. Many referees would have given it had they seen it properly. Funny how they didn't do a replay, but I was recording it so did my own. It was a wide shot so the detail wasn't good but I bet they had a close up shot for a replay which they never used.

Now look at those two huge stanchions in the main stand.

You can see here: That if you start to move left the main stand stanchion starts to block the view of the far left corner of the pitch. Imagine you are in a seat next to it - you'd hardly be able to see the pitch at all.

Looking here: You can see the stanchions which actually restrict the view of about the last 20 rows. Pretty poor for a modern stadium. It's about a fifth of the stand. PS What's with the dark green seats - did they get them on the cheap or something?

I went once to a European game. It was pishing it down and as I was only as few rows back from the front of the stand behind the goal, it didn't take long to notice that the roof didn't extend over the foremost rows of seats. I got soaked and the thing that struck me is that when you're standing your legs don't get wet and with winter jacket you're usually ok; but sitting down, your legs get completely soaked and you end up freezing too. I didn't think it was allowed in the UK for that reason ie I thought all seats had to be covered. Another couple of things I noticed was that the stand opposite the main one has stanchions at the back which block the view from the last 5 or 10 rows. Then the huge stanchions from the main stand block the view for most of the adjacent corner seats of the newer stands and then a couple more block the view for most of the main stand. They must have at least 20k tickets with, "restricted view" on them. I think that's one of the reasons they aren't 5 star.

Totally disagree with you Craig. You CAN make a decision not to do this. You can coach it out of yourself. Most defenders have done it at some time or other and should have learned from it. You may still do it, but you will be far less likely. You sometimes see players hands go for the ball in other situations and then you see them reflexively pull it back. We can over-ride any instinct. If we couldn't, far more motorcycle racers would crash. Most crashes are caused by "survival instincts" where riders either try to steer out of a tank slapper or throttle off when they should keep the power on. They teach themselves to keep the throttle on and let the bike steer itself when they get into trouble. Keeping the throttle on and turning more is usually safer than braking in many situations - but it's not instinctive. The hindsight argument is incredibly poor. You cannot say a decision is correct because the outcome was ok. And ironically you're saying that "it would have been fine if..." The outcome was actually a bad one, which was highly attributed towards having 10 men. And we still don't know the repercussions for the next game. You don't get Stephen Hendry smacking the pack incase a red goes down and then thinking he did the right thing because one does. An intelligent player will play the percentages, and the percentages to me say you should let in the goal. Carlos is intelligent and I'll bet he wishes he hadn't handled. It's just his instincts took over in that fraction of a second. I seen Celtic lose to an average Xamax side because Tom Boyd played goalkeeper. They went 1-0 down and had no chance of getting back in the game with 10 men.

PPS What I'm trying to point out is that even if something luckily works out, it does not make it the right thing to do. I do think a lot of people are forgetting that.

PS Would you be saying the same thing had MacDonald put the spot kick away and then we lost a couple more goals? The point is you have to have one or other mindset BEFORE you make the save.

But that's hindsight isn't it? And we also have the hindsight that the 10 men scenario ultimately lost us the game. We still have to see the repercussions in the next game. I really think you have to weigh it up without using knowledge of the save - as Carlos didn't know that MacGregor would do so when he commit the offence. I think that 2-1 down with 11 men we could even have won the game. With 10, and a penalty, even a draw was a big uphill struggle. I'd also far prefer to have Cuellar in the next game. The guy was a class above before his sending off.

Choices for centre halves: Broadfoot, Webster, Papac, Dailly, Hemdani. Choices for full backs: Broadfoot, Whittaker, Papac, Smith. I would probably choose Whitaker, Dailly, Papac, Smith. However I think Weir should be available so: Whitaker, Dailly, Weir, Papac. Midfield of: Novo, Davis Hemdani Ferguson McCulloch Up front: Darcheville Goalkeeper: MacGregor if fit, else Alexander.