DMAA

Yeh I thought that was a mistake, I thought he blew the whistle too quickly when it looked like the defender had it covered, doesn’t make sense otherwise and you could see from tavernier’s reaction that the ref was apologetic

What a result and what a feeling! Absolutely huge and how good was it to see the players and fans like that at the end.

It must have been very poor cough up for Rangers Tv! The ultras coordinated to set off all their flares at the same time in order to stop us when we were all over them. The game totally changed as a result after being stopped. They better get punished badly for that because it doesn’t get any more unsporting than that.

Maybe I’m the only one but bar a couple of decisions I think this ref is the best we’ve had in Europe since we’ve been back. Yes he’s given a couple but there have been plenty he hasn’t given that other European refs would have given in a heartbeat, and he actually let the game flow too and kept his cards in his pocket.

I’ve generally been a fan of Ojo and he can provide a bit of end product but he really lacks fight.

Generally playing well I would say, Barisic has been really good. Playing like a man who knows there’s an old firm in a few days. Ojo the only disappointment for me, he’s been really poor. I think it’s time to give Jones a chance or bring on Kamara and push Aribo on. All in all I’m quite happy but we’re lacking quality in the final third again.

Pretty much exactly as expected, although Barisic getting the nod will surprise a few.

Just googled it, he used to pretend he was a Rangers blogger for the Daily Record. Hard to think of something that would prove your earlier point about them doing what they’re told any better.

He called himself a Hibs fan all the way through the podcasts

As you say each to their own, I can understand your view. Maybe once I've got some more miles on the clock I'll come to the same view. For now I listen because they almost always have Rangers leaning journalists on who are very balanced and provide good analysis. Last season it was actually hosted by a Hibs fans, Jonny McFarlane (now editor at footballscotland), who came across as being as pro Rangers as anyone. The way I look at it is at least they do provide good analysis of Rangers somewhere whilst the national broadcaster can barely bring themselves to spend a few minutes talking about even a big European win. I only listen in addition to the podcasts above so it's not a matter of replacing any.

On a more serious note, any anti-UEFA banners or chants would result in an automatic charge. It's not hard to envisage some of our fans doing something like that.

Yeh I think it's safe, my point was really that due to how stringent their rules are and the fact Fare don't have an issue reporting us it would be good for the club to get assurances on songs like these.

Very good preview. One thing you mentioned was whether the officials will be wiser to their gamesmanship. Surely it will be far less of an issue because you can be sure that Ibrox will be going ballistic with that kind of thing. Far more pressure on both the Legia players and the ref. Barisic and Flanagan is a really interesting one. I'd normally say Flanagan but tonight I think Barisic. Barisic isn't just a free kick specialist he's excellent at corners too and that could very well be the difference in a tight game. He's better going forward too and I wasn't impressed with Legia as an attacking threat anyway. I don't think we rest anyone for Sunday unfortunately. Celtic are in the same boat there though. All in all it is very exciting to be where we are. I did not expect us to get so close to making the groups this season and to get there would be a huge boost. To go out to this Legia team would be a really big disappointment though simply because they are clearly just not very good.

None of us would object to a fine but it's the likely severity of the punishment that is the problem here. A club should have the chance to warn the fans that they may be forced to play behind closed doors if a song is sung. Nobody expected that. Especially when the same song went unpunished last season.

One of the admins on FF says that Rangers were informed on the evening of the St Joseph's game we were being reported, but were not informed of the punishment until 5pm on the night of the Legia game, giving the club no time to warn fans. I'm not a conspiracy theorist but that is very bad form from UEFA.

I don't know how the timing works with these fines (they took ages to fine us from the St Josephs) but there is no way Celtic will get off with that.

Only thing I would say is that they normally have more Rangers friendly guys on like Scott McDermott who I don't think would ever post unbalanced stuff on Rangers.

By the reference to legacy media outlets do you mean you wouldn’t listen to Record Rangers? I actually think Record Rangers is a good listen and I find it interesting to hear guys who aren’t overt fans talk about us.

It is obvious that that is what what we are currently being fined for, it's just that UEFA's rules are so stringent about anything remotely political and Derry's Walls could be interpreted as political and possibly worse. I'm just thinking it would make sense for Rangers to get it in black and white from UEFA that we will never be fined for this list of songs rather than get stung again when FARE explain to UEFA that DW or similar is in breach of the rules too.

Are songs like Derry’s walls not possibly in breach of rules?

A good bit of this is wilful ignorance. Any Rangers fan who’s older than 20-25 should know that even the tune of TBB is banned in Europe yet you have massive threads on FF about how to change the words. I agree though that Rangers’ lawyers should go through our songbook one by one with someone at UEFA and post the blacklisted songs through all official channels so that there is less opportunity for ignorance. I’d be shocked if we got done for any grey area songs though, we’re loading their gun by singing about the pope and fen1ans.

The correct response to being targeted isn’t defiance it is compliance. If the idiots stop singing these songs we are in a position of strength and no longer susceptible to fines and stadium closures.

I checked this and Celtic got almost the exact same fine as St Johnstone that year (2014) for the same charge. They were fined less in 2016 which suggests Uefa changed the way they calculate some fines in those two years. But the Hapoel and the Linfield fines are the ones that this whole incident brings to my mind. How do you get a part stadium closure for singing a word which some people (not at the game) find offensive (others find a compliment) but get a tiny fine (a couple of days wages for most Celtic players) for doing as much as you can to directly incite visiting fans on the most sensitive matters possible (conflicts in their countries). It really does beggar belief.

This was my worry signing him, as long as it’s not that hammy!

The midfield is actually quite strong in that squad but the defence and striking department is very weak (Robertson and McBurnie aside), pretty shocking really.