DMAA

One of the strangest signings we’ve ever made. It’ll be a great trivia question in a few years time.

Good for them to get some first experience under Jonatan Johansson and it's a real test for Dallas who is older than Rudden and needs to show he can score goals at senior level too. By all accounts he's been banging them in for the academy teams. https://rangers.co.uk/news/headlines/loans-for-mccrorie-dallas/

Morelos up to his dirty old tricks again. Proud of O'Donnell for not rising to it.

That doesn't mean it isn't a disadvantage to start the season and after the winter break with 3 of the first 4 away games being away. I raised this at the beginning of the season but everyone thought it was irrelevant because at that time people still thought we were invinceable. The first few games at the beginning of the season and after the winter break are huge. You've got new players playing together in a new system and you want to create a fear factor while you still have a clean slate. 3 away games in our first 4 both times has made it very difficult for us to ease new players into our system and get their fitness levels up before sterner tests whilst Celtic have had 3 home games in their first 4 games both times.

Agree with that. I had high hopes but McAuley looks past it, a good backup but not good enough to start. And agree with the long balls. When we played them it seemed to give us a chance to pen them in and win possession back in very good positions. We didn't have to play long ball early on but it got to a stage where it was needed because as @Rousseau pointed out something wasn't right about our movement and shape further back and to be fair Kilmarnock were marking up very well and were aggressive when anyone took the ball.

It offers scant comfort right now but there seem to be plenty "number 10s" coming through the acadamy for a change. Josh McPake in particular looks brilliant. Kai Kennedy looks very promising too.

I think it's too early to write Katic off. His dad is apparently unwell and is a big part of the reason he hasn't been playing. Gerrard will make sure Worrall learns from that mistakes and if he moves the ball on quicker in future the rest of his game is pretty good.

Tavernier puts chances on a plate for our strikers all the time, as the assits stats show. His cross which Morelos hand balled in was sublime last night, it was a shame it was just a yard ahead of him. He is also brilliant at linking up with the midfield. For me, Tavernier is title winning quality and Candeias isn't despite being a good player to have.

I honestly don't think CB is a strong enough position for us to have 3 on the park, especially considering we haven't had our best ones available all the time. I think we're stronger with Jack, Davis and Arfield retaining their places and sticking with 2 CBs. And I agree with Frankie that we're very unlikely to ditch the new system after one failure after presumably a number of weeks of working on it. I honestly think the game would have been so different if it wasn't for Worrall's blunder because it turned the game on it's head.

I think both of them improve us. Despite lots of chances last night Defoe was the only one who scored. Kent had the whole goal to aim from from 10 yards out and about 5 seconds to steady himself and still hit it straight at a Kilmarnock player. Defoe is a predator and I think he'll be great with Morelos. Davis's quality on the ball was instantly noticeable last night despite probably being unfit. Agree 100% a creative midfielder would be brilliant but we don't seem to have any target. Not so much as a whisper about anyone apart from the Everton boy who has gone elsewhere. Kent was in the no 10 role last night and he causes problems with his pace and running and creates space for others in doing so but he doesn't have the really important abilities you want in that position at all; great first touch and techinque, passing, link up play, long shots and finishing. I'd be tempted to allow Arfield to play there because in contrast to Kent he is very good at most of those things, not least finishing.

I'm not actually saying he's isn't our best all round defender. He wasn't in a few games and that had me a bit worried at the time. He's defintely the best on the ball.

I criticised Goldson's defensive ability after a couple of games where he made big errors but there's no question he is easily our best CB on the ball. After last night's showing I think most are hoping we can see a Goldson-Katic partnership asap.

The strange thing was when we were in the ascendency early in the game I thought we had great spells of intricate triangle passing which was creating openings and causing Kilmarnock major problems. It looked like we didn't need the wings because we were getting through them in the middle. However all it took was possession being cheaply given away a few times (by Kent I'm afraid) to take the wind out of our sails and give them some confidence and suddenly we couldn't get the ball out of the defence. At that point we played a few long balls which actually almost got us back in control of the game in their half because Killie's defence had Rangers players all around them. For some reason we reverted to passing at the back which eventually led to Worrall's mistake.

Absolutely. Gerrard was badly let down last night by those mistakes.

Agree up till the bit about Davis and Defoe. I think they could have just been removed earlier. Defoe is being slated but he was doing very well when we were playing well. And nothing came in his direction for ages after that.

Gerrard 'There was a temptation to keep the same team (that beat Celtic) but then if we lost having done that the accusation would have been that we were predictable given they had so much time to work on it,' said Gerrard. 'People will look at the formation and personnel and blame me, which they can, that's no problem. 'But if we don't give Kilmarnock two gifts tonight we win the game and people would be saying well done for changing the system. 'That's football.'

I don’t think we need to throw the baby out with the bath water. It was working very well until the game was turned on it’s head and the momentum swung away from us. We had lots of opportunities to score, unlikely almost every away game this season, and should have had more goals.

I agree he shouldn’t be shooting but he’s actually quite good as a box to box player. Kent’s shooting wasn’t any better tonight again.

I was frustrated at times that he dropped too deep but he was far more comfortable on the ball than McCrorie is. He had some great spells of intricate passing with Arfield and Jack that created openings in the first half.

Worrall is getting pelters but I honestly think McAuley will be caught for pace more often than Worrall does something like that. I was a fan at first but he has to be the slowest player we’ve ever had.

You’re just misunderstanding what I mean. They are sucker punch goals that haven’t come from sustained pressure or buildup play. And they’ve scored almost with every shot. McGregor has only made 1 save in the whole game. But it should have been 2.

I agree. The league isn’t over. If it wasn’t for Worrall’s blunder we’d have won comfortably. Morelos was 2 inches away from making it 2 nil and the chances were still coming. We slowed down and the centre backs were reluctant to play it long and it invited pressure and mistakes.

We were far more creative and should have had them out of sight. We came close to scoring number times. They got goals from nowhere and capitalised by keeping things simple and not taking risks. Fair play to them but we are clearly a far better team than them.

St Johnstone have the best away record in the league so it’s not that certain

Worrall’s blunder shot us in the foot and a freak goal like that always throws you off. Same again with Jones, goal from absolutely nowhere and from then on it’s really hard to get back into it. The way people on here are talking is as if Kilmarnock were slicing us open and creating loads of chances. They had two lucky breaks, scored 2 from 3 shots on target.