DMAA

Sutton has tweeted that “Stevie G may have some news...” tonight 

Sad as it is, it's the right decision. There's absolutely no way a Rangers manager should ever keep his job after losing 4-0 and 5-0 to Celtic in a fortnight.

Let's hope the assistants came through unscathed and they still have the respect of the team.

He came agonisingly close to a good result at Ibrox. Morelos’s miss was absolutely bizarre. Celtic had one chance and they took it and then parked the bus. When a team parks the bus the man disadvantage doesn’t make as big a difference. Could have been so different if events had gone differently that day. 

Reports are that he quit, but we’ll see. Who on earth can step up now? The academy have performed really well in the games programme, is Craig Mulholland our best qualified candidate inside the club? I can’t see Gerrard risking his reputation on these last 3 games. If he takes the job I think he’ll watch but keep his hands clean. 

Interesting article on Gerard’s management style. 

https://www.footballwhispers.com/blog/gerrard-bring-rangers

2 hours ago, Rousseau said:

Yes, it'll be impossible to replicate Barca football. 

 

RB Salzburg have reached the Semi-final of the Europa playing great football; it's based on pace, energy and being direct. They can play possession football, but it's not their first strategy. It's all about being quick on transitions. It's pragmatic in its own way, but still modern. 

 

I do think we need our own style, which is traditionally tough defensively, while being pacey and powerful going forward. But, I think there's a way of implementing that within a modern approach. 

 

Salzburg have based it on pure energy, but within a modern framework of transition football, intelligent spacing and player positioning etc. 

Agreed. The Salzburg style sounds like a good middle ground. It’s an over-emphasis on possession especially that I think doesn’t work for us. Salzburg sound to me

like a great example of how to run a club, I’ve noticed the way they have been picking up young prospects from all over. 

1 minute ago, les186 said:

Maybe Gerrard is bringing his piggy bank with him. 

I’m pretty sure negotiations with Gerrard are going to break down when King finally plucks up the courage to ask him if he’d be interested in “an exciting investment opportunity”. 

11 minutes ago, Rousseau said:

Pragmatism, yes, but you can still have that pragmatism in a modern guise

I prefer the sound of that. We can't repeat the mistake of looking for keepers and defenders "who can pass". On our budget that means you're half decent on the ball but mediocre at defending.

I think it's achieveable for us to try and emulate a squad more similar to the Walter's team in 2008 or Martin O Neill's in 2003 who both massively over-achieved in Europe. Brenda's sides are good in Scotland but woeful in Europe because they can't defend.

It's very hard to emulate Barcelona's style and be any good on our budget, but it's not that hard to build a team that's strong and physical whilst still having pace and dynamism going forward.

5 hours ago, Rousseau said:

Now that I think about it, we should've been looking at a top quality assistant to appoint as our manager; someone that's involved with a top manager

That's a good point. There must be plenty of assistant's out there who are more than ready to become a no 1. It's a way of getting value without sacrificing experience.

5 hours ago, Rousseau said:

that brings new, modern ideas

I'm still unsure what this actually means. I thought Warburton was the epitome of this. What defines being a "modern" manager? It seems to me it's more about playing a possession based style than anything else. I think on our budget it's far easier to be competitive with Celtic and in Europe with a more traditional system with more emphasis on the physical side of the game.

1 hour ago, Walterbear said:

I imagine Gerrard would command authority by his presence alone

Only at the beginning. If things were to go badly he would lose the respect of the dressing room quickly because of his lack of experience.

Yesterday's drubbing could work in the club's favour for next season.

From the board's point of view, they're now in a position where they really need to commit to spending good money for next season to appease the fans.

From an incoming manager's point of view, it's still not an attracive job but the club has hit rock bottom and a new manager has an ideal opportunity to overhaul the squad and be credited with a turnaround now.

9 minutes ago, Darthter said:

While investment is vitally important, without a good solid foundation I would bet the majority of cash will get wasted.  We have already brought in players who should be strolling the SPFL, yet are toiling to do the basics.

Get a solid foundation in place - consistent & reliable.....they you can use the investment properly.

Exactly. In terms of generating revenue we need a run in Europe but a big part of generating revenue going forward needs to be selling players. The investment for that needs to be in scouting and the club claim that has been done so we'll see. But we need to be picking up highly rated teenagers from all over the world every season, developing them and selling them on.

Celtic moaned all the way through their European embarassment about how they didn't have the finance to compete and the pundits played along as they embarrassed Scotland again with thrashing after thrashing.

The fact is Celtic's total revenue last season was about 16% of Bayern's and 18% of PSGs.

Our revenue last season was about 17.7% of Celtic's.

It's all about the money. Significant investment for next season would be great, but we need a sustainable solution. We need a run in Europe next season badly.

9 minutes ago, Darthter said:

While Murty's formation was predictable....did Ceptic make any ground breaking changes to their formation??? 

Celtic destroyed us in the semi, sticking with their formation was exactly what they needed to do because it worked.

We're the ones who needed to seriously re-assess how we set up and make some serious changes, and use the element of surprise to our advantage.

13 hours ago, RANGERRAB said:

Murty's 4-2-3-1 was predictable today

This is what I was labouring on here before the game, we had to change formation after the 4-0 and give Celtic something to think about. Going out with the same formation with no noticeable tactical changes was absolutely unforgiveable. Above all yesterday was a tactical catasophre.

I'm not one of the ones calling for a complete clearout. Assuming we somehow find £10m to spend, I still think we're 3/4 big signings and a good manager away from running them close next season.

• Two tall and strong quality centre backs.
• We seem to be seriously lacking a midfielder who can tackle! (if Jordan Rossiter could stay fit for 5 minutes...)
• A top quality skillful flair player to take over from Windass would be another priority for me (James McArthur is apparently staying with Palace)

12 minutes ago, Rousseau said:

I don't know enough about Vignal to comment.

 

Anyone know?

https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/gregory-vignal-lifts-lid-rangers-12182136

37 minutes ago, Rousseau said:

All this news is based on the shortening of the odds, isn't it?

It seems to be initially but since there have been whispers here and there that there’s something to it. Tony Cascarino has said “he’s been told that he’s very excited about it”. 

Also I’m sceptical about the report that McAllister won’t be he number 2, he was asked directly about and said he “had nothing to say about that just now”. Would have been easier to just say it wasn’t true move on. 

Regarding the 4 years, it depends on personal fitness and what wage he’s on. If he’s on a top wage then it sounds irresponsible.

However it largely depends on how fit he is, Davis has managed to keep a starting place at Southampton to 33. Given Arfield’s track record of playing almost every game of the season almost every year i’m not worried about him playing here into his thirties. 

1 hour ago, buster. said:

don't think the game was deliberately lost.

No not that blatant but it didn’t need to be. The incentive to win was removed and it’s impossible for that not to affect performance and it was no shock that it did, it was the most predictable result of the season. 

3 minutes ago, Rousseau said:

MOH's pace is frightening, but his decision-making is awful. It needs to be taken away from him, like Stirling at Man City. Stirling was poor initially, as he just ran without any end product; in comes Guardiola, giving him a specific job to do. 

 

MOH could be useful up front. Morelos, Windass and MOH pressing, and breaking, would cause any team trouble. 

I'm a huge fan of fast players and I think we've under-utilised them over the years. And as you say it's all about creating a system where their strengths are made very prominent in the game and their weaknesses mitigated. Man City are brilliant at getting the most out of Sterling's pace with the balls in behind. Spurs were great at getting the most of Aaron Lennon's pace too. And Neil Lennon has made Martin Boyle look very good in that Hibs team, whereas he would look bang average for us.

6 minutes ago, buster. said:

I watched a good part of all the three domestic defeats of Celtic this season and in all three, when asked 'a difficult question', they seemed to simply not be properly at the races and nor did they at any point look like finding their mojo.

Despite all the pundits waxing lyrical about Hibs last weekend, none of them seemed to mention that Celtic had every incentive to lose the game.

It's a scandal that the SFA put Celtic in a position where they had a very strong incentive to lose to Hibs one week and win against Rangers the next, giving Hibs a huge advantage in the fight for 2nd. This is a far bigger scandal than the fact alone that they allowed the title to be won in an old firm match.

1 hour ago, TheUKCrazyhorse said:

You want the element of surprise - start O'Halloran instead of Windass

I actually think O'Hallaron is a great player to have on a bench because he will always offer something very different to what you have. and offers a genuine threat in his pace which Herrera/Miller don't really have.

However bizarrely after getting on the pitch last week he's not even in the provisional squad this time!

48 minutes ago, Darthter said:

While a change may throw Ceptics plans out slightly, I think it would have a more negative effect on us

Well the benefit of a surprise change in formation is that we've had a week (or at least a few days) being drilled in this formation whilst they've had zero preparation. The advantage of the diamond over a 3-5-2 is that we've played it a few times already too.

13 minutes ago, Rousseau said:

Maybe. 

 

In those set-ups we'd be going without Murphy and Candeias; I can't see that. 

 

I think we could press very aggressively in a 4-1-2-1-2, with Windass, Morelos and Cummings. However, we gave them the flanks in the Semi, which didn't work out too well.

All true. I do quite like the idea of a diamond due to how vulnerable they would be to pressing given they aren't playing with full backs. I wouldn't like to sacrifice Murphy but could play the Windass role quite comfortably. You'd want Docherty and Dorrans (or Holt for energy) behind and McCorie holding midfield. I think that's a pretty solid team.

1 hour ago, Rousseau said:

It'll be the same set-up as normal (4-2-3-1)

I suspect you're right, but I have to wonder how wise that is after losing 4-0 with it.

The element of surprise is huge in football and a change in formation can work a treat. Celtic will be preparing to play us in 4-2-3-1 and will be very comfortable with how they plan to play against it.

If we come out in a 3-5-2 or a 4-1-2-1-2, the sacrifice of a player who'd normally start would likely be more than cancelled out by the advantage gained by the surprise. An example of this is perhaps the shock 3-0 win over Aberdeen when Murty first whipped out the diamond.