DMAA

Another game that will be fascinating to watch and will shine a light again on how we are progressing. Ufa on paper appear to have a very decent English Championship level squad. A couple of their starting players had short spells there, one successful and one very unsuccessful (Paurevic at Huddersfield, double goalscorer vs Progres). On paper we should definitely take them, let's hope Gerrard and his team can deliver the goods again.

Don't know if anyone else listens to the Record Rangers pod but Scott McDermott says he knows Ross McCormack well and although there's been no contact he'd likely be keen on the move. Villa will probably accept a small part of his wages being paid. I'm not keen given his comments re Celtic, but on an objective level Gerrard might view it as worth a punt given there would be no risk with a loan and it's a cheap way of getting quality cover for both no9 and no10. Not to mention a homegrown player for the Europe.

Oh well looks like it’s finally happening. Any skepticism or criticism of Lafferty ends there for me, time to get behind him and welcome him back

Very good LB in my opinion. Almost certainly overpaid but if we can’t sell him then it’s far better for Rangers that he earns his wage and contributes. It’s a great place to be to have someone like Wallace playing on a Sunday after Barisic playing on the Thursday.

To be fair to him that’s because he doesn’t want to lose his job ?

I haven’t noticed Tom being biased the times I’ve heard him but he’s defending his own here. The myriad of examples of anti-Rangers reporting can’t be explained away as “mistakes”. It’s simple things like reporting that all 3 Maribor goals were illegal, the Killie disallowed goal “may” have crossed the line, and the lambasting of Morelos after the red he was cleared of with McKenna’s role ignored, and then the outcry when the red was overturned. McLaughlin reporting that McLean was “caught late” for their penalty award last season when every other match report made clear that it was the wrong decision with replays showing it was Morelos who knocked the ball away and not McLean. It’s absolutely constant.

I tend to agree with this. Lafferty is decent value for now but he’s another signing with no sell on value. He’s just turning 31 and reaching the stage of his career where injuries will start to creep in. Nothing would guarantee that more than signing for Rangers.

It’s the deadline day, we always make signings on deadline day

I haven’t seen the guy in full matches but he scored loads of fantastic goals at Kilmarnock. He had a number of which were contenders for goal of the season, the one against Celtic as good a goal as you’ll see.

Hopefully it's put them off a bit. Judging by the fact they appear to have rested half their team at the weekend they must be treating progression in Europe as a top priority. Hopefully we'll have a repeat performance of a fortnight ago, even though we won't have Coulibaly ??

Incredible signing for Partick Thistle. It will be very interesting to see how he gets on. Wouldn't be surprised if we were linked with him in a year's time after he's ripped it up in the Championship. https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/local/partick-thistle-sign-striker-souleymane-coulibaly/ar-BBMe1sZ

Building our coefficient back up this season would be a huge boost for the club going forward. That’s part of the reason I don’t mind playing Ufa.

I don't see the Jordan Jones attraction. Very good pace and decent at dribbling. He doesn't look near the level we want to be at all. Arfield actually made it easy for him to get past for his assist at the weekend. And Killie want £1m like every other club when we come for one of their players. We need to spend our money more wisely than that.

I advocated the quality over quantity approach so I can’t complain but we are frightfully thin given the likely European campaign. However there’s no doubt we’ll make additions and could it be that some players would only sign for us if we made the groups, and therefore we’ll have to wait till the 31st to see a few additions? If it’s a matter of waiting till then to make better quality signings I would definitely do it.

One thing that is guaranteed is that when a bad result does inevitably come the press will put it down to Gerrard's "inexperience". When Rodgers gets knocked out out of UCL by a club with a fraction of the income and spending of Celtic it's the board's fault.

Can you imagine debating whether we'd like our Europa League opponents to forfeit or not under Pedro?

Having looked at the numbers this is unlikely to impact our plans. By my count we would have to make 3 more non-Scottish signings before homegrown rules impacted us at all because we only have 14 senior non-Scots in the squad.

It’s just dawned on me that there’s one good reason why McCormack might happen, UEFA homegrown rules. Im no expert but apparently you need 8 Scots in the 25 man squad with at least 4 being homegrown. We’re seriously short of fit senior players in that department.

Good news for both parties. He'll see his contract out there so it's just a matter of getting his wage covered (hopefully) for the duration of his contact. Tried his best for us, but unfortunately he'll be remembered as an example of one of Warburton's "pal from a previous club" signings.

Fantastic news. That makes him no.2 at left back ahead of 20 year old Borna Sosa who Stuttgart signed from Dinamo Zagreb. Pivaric is 30 in a few months time too so could be we're going to have Croatia's best left back in our squad soon ?

It would be a bonus to avoid the pre-Celtic trip, but the gate receipts, co-efficient points and further morale boost from beating Ufa could all be major benefits to the club. Certainly the gate receipts are significant and the club is still in a position where income of that kind is huge.

He's shown disrespect to the club by openly talking about being a Celtic fan and going to as many Celtic games as he could during his 10 year spell at Rangers. No

I guess Gerrard should have seen enough of him to make this call now, I hope he’s judged good enough. It would be yet another morale boost to Rangers to have an 18 year old breaking into the team.

You'd assume so at his age but I actually haven’t seen evidence of this. He came on against Shkupi and changed the game. We weren't getting a second goal without him. Contrast that to Sadiq who looks raw after about 15 seconds on the pitch. I'm excited to see how Middleton performs in the league. I think he'll flourish in this team and will make us a more dangerous side than we are without him.

Assuming Murphy is missing a good number of games which looks likely, should we be signing someone in Murphy's position or should we let Middleton step up? Currently we have Kent and Candeias with Arfield a more defensive option on either side. Lafferty, if signed, could play there too although I don't think it would be his best position. I'd love to see Middleton capitalise on Murphy's injury and prove his ability at the top level because I think he's got it! I've been a bit disappointed he hasn't been given a run out. Real pace and an eye for goal too.