Forrester felled

[der Berliner 3,246]

2 hours ago, craig said:

A valid point.  Was always a case of not blaming the manager or the players as there were 22 players on the pitch, a ref cheating etc (to be fair, this one is pretty close to being a valid complaint, certainly after last season).

I see SBS still picks his points as it suits him best and you open your visor only a wee bit more. The players we had could only give what they had ... and yes, that was oftentimes not what people would expect of a Rangers player. But expectations need to be leveled with reality and there comes the crux of the matter. I'll leave it at that.

 

Darthter ... 4-3-3 is a fine system if you have a target man in the middle like Mandzukic. None of the strikers we had were of that ilk though. Likewise - and I thought that to be obvious - most Scottish teams know how to best get points off better teams, i.e. build solid defence lines and a midfield aimed to support that, bar the odd quick winger and striker to hit you on the counter. Such tactics against a 4-3-3 means that the attacking team's front three are easily isolated and if the second row - of which at least one player should possess a creative quality that we utterly lacked (bar the few glimpses we got from Kranjcar) - does not add more weight in the attacking half, you are left with what we saw last season and the season before last. Your "front 6" running all over the place, the main striker always being dragged out of position (how often did Morelos stayed central these last two games, BTW?) and almost no visible cohesion. The fullbacks trying to give us some weight in the attacking half, but thus leaving the two CHs exposed to counter attacks. In turn, as it happened countless times, you have at least one or two of the midfielders looking over their shoulders or trying to cover the CHs, instead of being offensive. Add the lack of a true and good DM (neither Rossiter, McCrorie and Jack were available for longer spells) and you see the problem Gerrard has addressed with his signings thus far. We will probably see a solid back-3 against most Scottish teams, one DM and the rest will be aimed at dominating the opposition in their half, with two strikers keeping the opposing defenders busy and stretched at all times.

[compo 6,137]

If any player is not up to the task get rid of  them it's a known fact of life you can't make honey out of cats shite 

[craig 5,195]

Open my visor ?  No, whatever that means.  What SBS said had truth to it.  You DID absolve managers and players of blame.  Just because you don’t like what he said doesn’t make it any less true.

 

i do agree that SG will likely deploy a back 3 if he gets this other CB.  A back 3 in Scotland makes sense to me, particularly at Ibrox where we will see opponents with 10 behind the ball.

[der Berliner 3,246]

18 minutes ago, craig said:

Open my visor ?  No, whatever that means.  What SBS said had truth to it.  You DID absolve managers and players of blame.  Just because you don’t like what he said doesn’t make it any less true.

 

i do agree that SG will likely deploy a back 3 if he gets this other CB.  A back 3 in Scotland makes sense to me, particularly at Ibrox where we will see opponents with 10 behind the ball.

 

Not entirely though ... and you supporting that argument "opened your own visor only a little." I.e. you didn't see the actual point in my argument, then and now.

 

I view football games and their outcome as a mixture of various factors. If people exclude these factors from their observation in a manner like: "he's just a poor footballer who cannot even finish his breakfast", I'll voice my objection. Same when people heap an expectation upon players who are simply unable to fulfill them from the off. Likewise, and it is obviously easy to say now that one knew it from the off, certain managers seemingly failed the club with their approach, tactics, choice of players. (And we know by no means that the same might no happen to SG.*) That might well be true, but - no matter how often people voice that opinion - it simply ain't only a manager's fault when things go to the wall ... even though Murty (IMHO) proved to be the exception to the rule. Players play a big part too, not least those who are injured. The manager will have to take responsibility first though ... which oftentimes equates for many that he's to blame.  But we've been through this a few times.

 

 

*While we are at it ... imagine for a nano-second that SG might fail in 6 months time and decides to quit. He'll take about 4 to 6 people with him, cutting off all the coaching and partly medical folk in one go. Replacing those in one won't be fun.

[pete 2,499]

5 hours ago, craig said:

Wouldn't surprise - he was banging them in for Ipswich last season and made the Championship team of the season I believe..... personally think we should have persevered with Waghorn…. replacing him with Garner (that's who replaced him wasn't it ??) was a mistake.

 

Waghorn is also a better finisher than Morelos, more natural.

I was disappointed we released Waghorn. I think missing those chances against the Tims cost him his stay with us.

[Unicorn 206]

I don’t think Waghorn was ever really the same player for us after his bad injury at Rugby Park.

 

I agree with the above, we should have persevered.

[Rousseau 9,370]

Waghorn was never a great finisher, but he was a good forward.

 

We should've kept him before Garner et al, but I recall many were pleased that he'd left. 

 

I hate how we undervalue our players -- some think Windass is worth under £1m, which is ludicrous; even if you don't like him, like Waghorn, doesn't mean he's worthless.

 

How much did we get for Waghorn? 

[Dave M609 100]

Waghorn was frustrating, he had a manager at Ipswich that managed to get the best out of him. Maybe it was the uncertainty with us, maybe we never had good man managers, for all of Warburton's good ideas he was pretty spineless, I can't imagine many folk going against mick McCarthy.

I think it might have been about 700k/800k we sold him for.

tbh i thought he was a pretty average player, nice left foot on him, but to slow and his decision making (like a lot of our players recently) left a lot to be desired, i don't think he was mentally cut out for rangers either, again as above maybe a better man manager would have got the best out of him.

[Uilleam 5,429]

Meanwhile, according to The Shun: 

 

Ex-Celtic and Hibs striker Anthony Stokes joins freed Rangers ace Harry Forrester at Iranian club Tractor Sazi

 

What could possibly go wrong?