DMAA

Yes I do blame the manager. I just meant McAuley was at fault.

McAuley has to take blame for the second goal. He is so slow and gave Jones all the time and space in the world to shoot. Jones up against McAuley was always a worry and when you see how slow he is you have to wonder what Katic has to do to get a start. Missed Goldson tonight.

Jack down. Brophy has deliberately stuck his boots into his leg and he’s only got a yellow. Clear cut red card.

Another shocking pass from Kent. Not good enough.

Poor decision making at the back. They’re wasting time passing formaide to side when every time they hit it long it’s causing major problems. The link up play between Jack, Arfield and Davis has been brilliant. Defoe and Morelos are both linking up well too. It’s just about getting the ball to them! Kent is all about urgency and pace but his passing has been shocking as usual, giving the ball away repeatedly.

Burke has had a very good season. 6 assists.

Broadfoot has had a sudden onset of violent diarrhoea after seeing our lineup

It’s the diamond!! ?

I'm tired of comments like this about Morelos from the opposition all. the. time ? storm in a teacup every time

Match fitness is what we don't know and the reason why Defoe and Davis probably won't start, at least not both of them. Home games are totally different from away games and attitude and determination are all well and good but these are the players who have repeatedly failed away from home in the 4-3-3. Not a one-off, it's been consistent. Only 4 wins and 15 goals from 10 away games so far. St Johnstone managed 7 wins from 10. And in the games I watched it seemed that our lineups were just too defensive and didn't have enough attacking ability. No penetration because the players playing just didn't have the ability. I think change is essential and I hope we'll see it. If the new boys aren't fit then I hope Gerrard and his tactical gurus have used the break to crack what's gone wrong away from home and we don't see a repeat of what we saw in the first half of the season.

I agree he'll probably ease Davis and Defoe in. But I for one am sick of showing SPFL sides too much respect. I don't think the old firm starting 11 should be untouchable because it's not the only game they've played this season. We all love Candeias but he's not title winning quality in the final third. We've seen that repeatedly. And although the diamond is definitely a risk at this stage, replacing Candeias with Defoe makes us far more threatening and replacing McCrorie with Davis makes us far more creative. We don't need as many defensively minded players in our starting line-up as we've been playing. Every time we've done it away from home we've seen attack after attack break down due to lack of ability in that area. Whatever the line-up tonight I'm hoping we will see (at least at some point) Defoe giving their defenders a nightmare with his movement and Davis playing some defence splitting passes and creating space for our wide men with the quick quality cross-field passes that we haven't seen enough of. If we do go with the diamond and Kent is at the head of it he needs to prove he's got end product or for me Arfield should take that position and McCrorie reclaim his spot as the anchor man with Jack pushed on.

Yeh the flip side is that it’s an opportunity to get psychologically ahead of Celtic because we’ve already got 3 really difficult games out of the way and got full points whilst they still have those grounds to go to. That’s the goal.

As others have pointed out in the next 4 games we have Kilmarnock, Livingston and Aberdeen away whilst Celtic are hosting most of the bottom 6 at home. There’s a real risk of a gap opening up unless we perform the way a serious Rangers title challenging team should.

Well we’ve caught Kilmarnock at the perfect time, Stewart who has carried them this season is away and they haven’t had a chance to replace him yet and Jones has a huge cloud hanging over him. Any shred of an excuse has been removed and nothing less than 3 points will suffice.

McAuley is frightfully slow, that’s my only concern on the counter with the quick Brophy and Jones. Katic looked good against Helsinki, good to see his goalscoring threat too.

I have to admit I'm not sure about plastic pitches being that dangerous. Don't our players train on plastic pitches (as well as grass) pretty much every day? We have an indoor synthetic pitch at Auchenhowie. The point about synthetic pitches being used at elite level is a different question. Synthetic pitches will never provide the experience of grass pitches. But if they were that dangerous we wouldn't all be training on them, never mind the fact that the vast majority of youth football is played on plastic these days.

We've seen a lot of that in the games we've struggled in this season, balls being lumped towards a crowded out Morelos. I think we need to be able to comfortably switch between 1 up front and 2 because only a fool believes one size fits all in football.

Yeh I listened to it and he was very clear that he wasn't going anywhere in January. I think I don't rate Morelos as highly as most on here so I'd take £12m or so for him but not in January unless they had a replacement lined up. Yes it's tempting to look at what other players have gone for but it's not the way the market works. If our scouting department are doing their job they should be able to put the money we'll eventually get for Morelos to very good work.

That’s a bit confusing. Everyone has a price but anyone preparing a bid is wasting their time? It’s maybe a way of saying he’s not for sale unless you pay silly money. Only they know what their replacement options are and January isn’t an easy time to find them.

I'm not going to engage in this discussion until no deal is off the table.

The point I think Craig Mulholland made and I am making is that you want our players playing in a team who play the same style of football we play. And that being a style of football which actually gets the players on the ball and looking to break teams down. That way the experience and skills they gain are transferable to the 1st team at Rangers. It must be frustrating for the academy guys drilling a style of football into their players, only to watch them stuggle to get the ball passed to their feet when they go out on loan.

Stevie's since confirmed they didn't go to Denmark, the location is unknown. Olsen looks too pricey for us tbh but a bit gutted. Signing young prospects is what will pull us back above Celtic mid to long term.

Should caveat that I only saw RTV's highlights but I was impressed with the way HJK played and I wonder if the club are thinking of starting up an official or unofficial feeder club link with them. I think it was Craig Mulholland who said recently that our kids aren't getting the playing experience they need in the lower Scottish divisions because of the style of football and I'm sure he mentioned the possibility of playing in Scandinavia where they play much more on the deck. I watched some highlights of the kid we're linked with Skov Olsen and again you could see straight away that the sides in Denmark play a similar game to us playing primarily on the ground. It seems it would be very prudent for the the club to strike up a relationship or two with some Scandinavian clubs like Helsinki in order to get a first option on their young talent as well as getting our own guys better exprience than they'll get at Stenhousemuir getting clattered challenging for high balls all the time.

I've said it time and time again, he's such an important player due to his goalscoring ability. Very similar to Naismith in that he's such a natural finisher but scores from midfield.

This is a hugely exciting link. However I’m going to choose not to believe it until there’s more on it to avoid getting my hopes up.