Danny

There are plenty of success stories from our youth sections, just like there are many failures too. Nothing out of the ordinary. It's just that with a club like Rangers, you're expected to win every match you play. There are other clubs like this, Milan, Juve, Real, Barca, Utd, Chelsea - and if you look at their records in youth, only Barcelona have really used a lot of their young players. But as others have said - even they still spend shitloads of money on new players. This is not unique to Rangers. Aston Villa are not expected to win every match. So, my point stands.

I imagine it will be early next year before Naismith hits the kind of form he had in August/September/October. He'll be back probably for next season, but it will take him months to get up to speed. That said I might be wrong and he may hit the ground running. That would be very helpful.

With the smaller provincial clubs there's less pressure to win, so younger players get more chances and often take them with both hands, given they're not under the massive pressure to win every match. At Rangers it's different - we're expecting Fleck or Hutton to come in and get us back to winning ways, and there is absolutely no way of telling whether they'll thrive on this pressure, or crumble. If we were a smaller club then I'd be all for giving these fringe players good chances, but at Rangers the pressure is too great.

No offence but what does Walter Smith have to do with this?

You are reading too much into this! They're just describing his achievements.

I'll be genuinely stunned if we retain Jelavic. Frankly I'd rather he left because his heart is not in it any more and he clearly wants to realise his dream of the EPL. And it will give us a nice wad of cash.

I remember that final. It made some delusional Scottish pundits think we'd found the Scottish Rooney.

BH has provided a nice wee definition. It's basically the role Fleck is best at, but there's no place at Rangers for that kind of position. Buffel was one too but only featured once under Walter. It's not a role our management (or indeed Scottish management) employ at all. Kaka was one at Milan, Scholes in his earlier years was one at Man Utd.

Because it's too much of a risk. Our league chances are already starting to fall away, and Ally's thinking will be that putting in 2 relative 'youngsters' who haven't exactly proven themselves is far too much of a gamble and too much pressure on them.

Fleck looked reasonably bright in a friendly against Hamburg, but there's no place for a trequartista in this Rangers team. He is not a central midfielder because he doesn't have the discipline and passing required. I wouldn't deny Davis isn't exactly in form right now, but I can't see the evidence to put Fleck in. Truth is we need to invest in a good quality creative CM in January, which can only happen if we sell Jelavic.

Well the quotes are attributable to Craig Moore, so unless we're calling him a liar, there's substance in the story. Curious that this article quotes the 3 players I keep namechecking as our failures. Looks like someone reads this forum.

I heard us fucking the pope and the Vatican so I guess this legislation really is a load of shite.

See above

Bit pointless when only 2 or 3 of our current players in the first team are actually Scottish. Or did that little point pass you by

I'm not sure we should be looking at Aussie football as a role model for our own. With no disrespect to them, Aussie football is guff. Just because they train differently to us doesn't suddenly make them a lot better!

Can't disagree with much of what you said. But if we dropped Davis, who would play the creative CM role?

Ok, so clearly we have a lot of players in key roles who are currently in poor form, who are they? Davis is a prime candidate, hasn't produced anything since Naismith was injured. He was pivotal prior to that. Been awful for ages now. Wylde - isn't getting a lot of game time right now and isn't really doing much when he is. McGregor - isn't making his usual brilliant saves, completely suspect from cross balls and has made quite a few clangers this season. Last night was the first time I actually realised Celtic's keeper is playing better than ours - his saves at Udinese were superb. Whittaker - After an awful start to the season he improved, but has slipped back into mediocre form. Getting caught out of position a lot, and isn't producing the goods in attack that he used to. Jelavic - has still been scoring a good amount but his touch is gone, his body language isn't what it was last year and he just isn't playing with the panache he used to. The players who are ok or decent are: Goian - apart from the mare he had against St Mirren he's been in very good shape, and has been consistent since he arrived. Boca - been a very good signing - great positional sense, very intelligent reader of the game and is an attacking threat. Also uses the ball very well. Wallace - hasn't done much wrong since joining. Gets forward well, and supports defence when he can. Papac - been pretty consistent this season - probably the best he's played since joining. Aluko - tough one to call, he's being played on his weaker side, but he is lively and can beat men. Problem is teams like Celtic mark him with about 3 men. So we have maybe 5 key players out of form, and 5 key players doing well. Pity all bar one of the ones playing well are defenders.

McGregor has not shone this season - made quite a few clangers and hasn't made the same number of marquee saves he used to. His work from cross balls i=has been particularly poor.

Ah right, it's the referees' fault. Nothing to do with us, nothing at all.

Ally's made errors, and the team's playing badly. Coupled with the mitigating circumstances which have derailed this season and it's depressing to see how we've slid.

PS: Craig, why are we agreeing so much these days?

Jelavic has been poor all season bar getting the goals. He clearly wants to leave and I'm happy with that as long as we get a good fee which gets reinvested in the team in positions which badly need a bit of quality, like CM, RB, RW, and striker.

If only. It's depressing how bad we've become since losing him. There are other factors like losing Papac, Wallace and Wylde plus the interswapping defence, but Naismith is the biggy.

Oh he was mince tonight but his general form this season has been pretty good. I don't think too many would argue with that?

Problem is for the first 10-15 minutes we looked decent, but we evaporated and let Celtic into it. It's as if we followed Ally's instructions for a while then fell away, almost out of puff. Second half was the same. First 5-10 minutes we looked better then fell away again. It's like Ally gives the team talk, the instructions, we follow them for a while but then it disintegrates and we look clueless. I'm not admonishing Ally of all blame, Aluko should not be on the right albeit he was very bright inside the early period, and I couldn't understand Wylde also being played out of position on the right, but quite simply the majority of the side is badly out of form. Key players like Jelavic, McGregor, and significantly Davis are really out of sorts - Lafferty is in reasonable form but wasn't up to par tonight. Even Boca is starting to get a little inconsistent - some great positioning and ball use but occasionally makes a hash of a tackle and gets booked. I don't know what's going to turn this around, perhaps the sale of Jelavic and we use the money to buy some fresh blood for key positions, such as right wing. But I'm clueless myself as to a total solution to fix it.