calscot

Keeping your shape can be very important in a team which is why a team of average players that are very well organised can beat a team of great individual players who aren't keeping their shape. As for Clement not getting into the team it asks a new question. If Fergie, Hemdani and Adam are playing so well, why didn't we dominate the game more against St Mirren? Where is it going wrong? We really need to boss the midfield far more and despite Barry looking like he's covering every blade of grass, Hemdani looking quietly effective, Adam playing well too, we just don't seem to be doing that - except against Livorno. Boyd is pretty good up front and Buffel has had a couple of good games and Novo has been playing well. I thought Dado looked a bit out of sorts but still managed to play some good stuff so I think he should maybe be the sub with Novo as the starter. But Scoring 6 goals in the last two games mean we're not too bad up front, but we've let 4 goals in. It's got to be said that the two penalties were awful decisions but we've been leaking goals all season and had a fair few let offs so the finger is pointing at the defence. I think Smith has had a good season and Hutton and Bardsley have been solid so the central defence and goalkeeper have to be the main suspects. We've been over the goalkeeping situation, and I can't remember the last time Letizi had a clean sheet whereas MacGregor had a few I think. On Sunday you couldn't blame Letizi for the first goal but although he guessed right in the penalty he let the ball squirm beneath his body. It was a poor penalty and he should have saved it. But it's the central defence that's been the biggest problem in my opinion. The papers have been printing statistics about goals coming from crosses and it seems to ring true and we definitely don't have a player who dominates the box in the air add that to a goalkeeper who's prone to aberrations (like missing crosses completely) and we're handing goals on a plate. Forget looking for strikers we need a top class centre half - and not a youngster either. I'm going to break the new law by saying we need someone in their late twenties/early thirties who's a seasoned internation and been there and done it all.

MacGregor just doesn't do himself any favours. On the one hand he's saying "play me or I'll leave" and then he's saying "give me a new contract". He's just called his own bluff. He needs to stop using the press to highlight his case if he wants to be taken seriously at Ibrox. Le Guen is a man who demands respect and MacGregor just isn't doing that.

If Novo could teach Buffel about graft and Buffel could teach Novo about ball control and then Boyd teach both of them about finishing, we'd have a hell of a lot of competition up front...

What's wrong with: ....................Letizi.............. Hutton...Svensson...Rod...Smith ..................Hemdani.............. .......Fergie.................Adam.... Novo.............................Buffel ...................Boyd.................. ????????????????????

I'm still not that impressed with Hemdani, he seems to the knack of not doing too much wrong, without doing that much to add to the effectiveness of our performance either. He's like a mediocre but consistent Bazza with no creativity.

This is still bad news as it doesn't reflect well on the manager's abilty to keep a grip of the situation. He seems to be losing the dressing room already, and not entirely surprising given some of his decisions. At this rate it will be a long time before he gets a settled dressing room and the team playing the way they should.

What we really miss is a manager who takes his head out of his arse long enough to get the team to play a high standard of football. We haven't had that since Advocaat suck his head there in his third season.

We don't miss Ricksen in the slightest. We do miss Goram, Stevens, Gough, Butcher, Numan, Laudrup, McCall, Albertz, Van Bronkhurst, McCoist and Hateley though. Pre-injury Durrant, De Boer and Mols can be added to that too and right now, Gattuso would be an excellent if impossible recall. We definitely don't miss a load of deadwood which we've finally managed to rid ourselves of.

Contract termination usually means offering less than is left on the contract so there are reasons Klos would not want that. I think the main reason is to do with his kids schooling which he wants them to finish their year. In the meantime he probably prefers to come in, train and play than do nothing especially as he was injured and as an employee will get full medical and physiotherapy support.

The figures are never meaningless, they affect what kind of qualifying groups we get, which is why we're a fourth seed with France, Italy and Ukraine in our group. Keep this up and we could scrape a second seeding giving us one less giant to kill.

Some of us wanted Strachan to replace Eck 18 months ago and you've got to hand it to him, he's doing a great job over the other side of the city. He had a shocking first game which ended their Euro interest very early and then proceeded to slowly improve. His team weren't great last year but he did enough to win the league at a canter which is what a new OF manager needs to do. They've improved immeasurably since last season and looked fantastic last night against a team that put Man U out last year. Benfica are at least as good as Porto, whom we beat but that was a backs to the wall win rather than with the style that Celtic have showed. This is the improvement we are looking for from Le Guen and it's ironic that Celtic have found someone to do it closer to home, while our messiah is struggling big time. PLG needs to show he's at least as good as Strachan or he'll lose all his kudos.

The trouble is that if that happens the season gets written off well before you even know there is going to be real progress. You don't even know if it is going to happen till it does.

We're always debating the formation whether we're doing well or badly, and whether we're playing Barcelona or Albion Rovers. If we had a team with players like Gough, Laudrup, De Boer, Numan, Van Bronkhurst, Goram and McCoist and winning every game in style, I'd still be wary of an away game against an Italian team who are three points from the top of Serie A.

I don't think the pedigree of the manager can be questioned as his CV is immaculate and I'm pretty sure that given enough time and funds, he'll produce a winning team. What is questionable is his ability to adapt quickly enough to the demands of a success hungry club like Rangers in a league he is unfamiliar with, so as not write off a whole season. That is what he is patently struggling with.

Perhaps that's why he's playing him instead of Boyd. To be honest I think Le Guen is probably building for the future which is why he's making strange decisions to us, because he doesn't seem to realise, he has to build for the future while getting the results right now at a club like Rangers. At Ibrox you can't afford to tinker and demoralise in-form players when you are lagging well behind Celtic. Le Guen has a very hard job, I think he would do well not to go round making it harder. It is far easier to be Rangers manager when the fans are generally on your side instead of making them your enemy. Just ask Eck.

For Livorno, with Clement, Sionko, Burke and Martin injured, Buffel, Adam and Sebo playing poorly, Papac cup tied and Letizi and Bardsley first choices that would look like to me like: ........................Letizi...................... Bardsley...Svensson...Rodriguez...Smith .......Ferguson...Hemdani...Rae............ ..............Novo...Boyd...Prso.............. Same team as I mentioned before but a slightly flattened formation.

I could be persuaded with a 4-3-3 especially with 3 genuine midfielders. Fergie, Hemdani and Clement/Rae could be good then ideally, Prso, Boyd and Burke up front with Sionko, Martin, Buffel, Novo and Sebo as subs and back up. It immediately reduces our injury crisis and gives the team a far more robust look about it with a stronger spine.

That's maybe a good shout for a home game against ICT but it's not defensive enough for an away game in Italy...

Does that mean he's coming here now?

It's a rehashing of an old story whose resurection probably was instigated by someone wanting to drum up some imaginary good news. Here's one scenario: ------------------- Bad defeat, DM due some flack, cue phoning one of his media cronies - "By the way, I was speaking with Gattuso and he still wants to play for us one again one day, I told him the door was always open." Phone call to Gattuso - "Would you ever want to play for Rangers again?" Rino - "Rangers and their fans are always in my heart, and it would be nice to play for them again one day, but I'm contracted to Milan and I'm concentrating on my career here." "Would you just want to come to Rangers when you are old, about to retire and so you can collect a big pension?" Rino - "If I ever play for Rangers again, I would like to still be playing well and have a good couple of years left in me. I wouldn't just come for a pension, money wouldn't be the reason." A bit of word twisting and spin later and out pops the story. La Gazzetta dello Sport picks up the story for the Italians - "Gattuso plans to leave for Rangers." Milan fans upset. Gattuso releases statement - "Calm yerselves, I'm not going anywhere, I was misquoted."

The annoying thing is that it looks like we'll have to make sweeping changes for a very important game. A team that plays like they did cannot expect to be the same one picked for the next game. I think Rae deserves a shout but I'd have liked him to have had a league game first. He can't play any worse than Adam and has an older head. Novo is about as dangerous as a pillow fight these days, but at least he'll put some effort in and possibly create a chance or two for someone else. Svensson has to play out of necessity and so could have done with a game on Saturday to get him up to speed. He couldn't have been much worse than Papac. Hutton has a shout over Bardsley as he was playing better than the Man U kid before being dropped for him. But I think favouritism will kick in again. (I was hoping that was something left in the past.) Buffel has to be dropped and at best played as a sub. Letizi should be dropped but PLG is too stubborn for that. Fergie and Prso need to give a bit more than they did on Saturday although the captain was one of the lesser offenders against ICT as was Smith. I would normally want to drop a player looking as knackered as Dado but we really need him for this game. Boyd must start, end of. Sebo dropped big time. __________________Letizi_______________ ___Bardsley___Svensson___J-Rod___Smith_ _____________Hemdani___Rae___________ _________________Ferguson____________ _________Novo_______________Prso_____ __________________Boyd______________ Not exactly inspiring for an away game against a what is presently a pretty good Italian side.

Don't like 3-5-2 and we were rubbish in Europe with it when WS changed to that system after our best European cup run ever while using a 4-4-2. All our best European performances that I have seen have been 4-4-2. In the SPL I think a 4-4-2 which can quickly turn into a 4-3-3 is the way to go.

I think Rino has a soft spot for Rangers and said what he did to please the fans, then the Milan fans heard about it and got upset so he's changed his story to please them now... You can't please all the people all the time...

But it does seem that your hair splitting is blinding you from the semantics of my point... Which is: There are a lot of promising youngsters in the youth teams, if they weren't promising they wouldn't be there. However from what I've heard, Fleck is a far more exciting prospect than your average under 16, head and shoulders above the rest. So to generically call him "promising" seemed a bit of an understatement which required some emphasis. So let's just say that he IS more than JUST "promising", he's "very, highly, supercalifragilistically promising." But still not broken through yet (although give the guy time, he IS only about 15).

Fleck is supposed to be much more than promising, he's supposed to be head and shoulders above his age group and one to really watch out for. He's so good I think he plays in the Rangers U19s rather than the U16s... But if 7 players are in the Scotland team, it looks like Murray Park is doing something right.