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I realised last night what Rangers have been working on during the winter break. We've changed our shape in the final third. Previously, when Kent or Aribo picked the ball up, we relied on Tav or Barisic overlapping to allow the slipped pass to them or Kent/Aribo cutting inside. That was once effective, but Kent in particular is being closed down by two players while another covers his runs he did when he dribbled past them. This meant Kent only had the pass to Barisic, and it was similar on the other side. I suppose that's why we saw such an increase in the number of crosses from Barisic before the break. Now what we appear to be doing is asking the two midfielders (on either side of Davis) to move into those inside channels. I think this is a good idea and will help to break down teams that constantly sit in against us (like Hibs, Aberdeen, etc), but it's such a big change to the system that I wonder if it would have been better down during the summer when we have more of an opportunity to play games and embed it. It seems we gambled on introducing it and the gamble didn't pay off. The big problem we had in the Hearts game particularly is that their midfield outran us and outmuscled us, meaning that our two midfielders (Kamara and Arfield) were unable to cover the ground they needed to. I can't see this approach working against Celtic either, but it should be effective against most other teams. On reflection I'm thinking that this is why we have slowed down in the transition. It's almost like we deliberately slow it down to allow Aribo and Arfield (as it was last night) the time to make those runs forward. As I said, it's a nice idea but it's going to have two consequences for us. Firstly, our style is affected a lot by it and isn't nearly as fluid or as exciting to watch. Secondly, all it takes is a hard working and rough team like Hearts, Livi or Killie and we will struggle to command the midfield like we need to. I will pay closer attention to this over the next few games to see if we can become more flexible and effective with it. Obviously the management team believe this will be a risk worth taking, but they would have hoped that we'd get through the first few games after the break while we practised it. I guess it's unfortunate timing that Hearts changed manager and their style. It's also unfortunate timing that Jack and Tav got injured too. Sometimes in football, the difference between winning and losing is so marginal. Anyway, I love the tactical side of the game and I thought I'd share what I'm seeing. And while I'm on the subject of what I'm seeing, I've never seen a player like Hagi before. I've never seen a player who uses both feet so interchangeably. Can anyone else think of another like him? I can't.

Is that you Kevin? ?

Not sure why. He is a man of, er, unimpeachable character, no?

This isn't a new thing. It's been like that since we came back up to the SPL. If the club ARE doing anything behind the scenes, which I seriously doubt, it clearly isn't working. The referees are taking the piss. We saw that with the Goldson booking on Saturday and the WWE move on Alfie tonight. This dignified silence approach isn't working. It's costing us points and it's costing us trophies. The club MUST start publicly calling out referees. It's the only way that's going to work.

I love it. Proud to have The Donald on board. ???️‍

Genuine question, does anyone think Rangers PR department and Traynor in particular are doing a good job? I've some insight into how PR 'works' and fully accept that it's a bit like an iceberg in that you can see 20% of it but the other 80% you can't. But the Morelos interview translation is a farce, I've no idea who carried out the translation but this wasn't some mistranslation of a colloquialism, this was someone adding stuff Morelos simply didn't say. Who would do that, and why? Rangers must have sanctioned Morelos to do this interview, they must have known what the line of questioning was going to be and had a good idea what Morelos was going to say in reply. So I assume someone from Rangers was involved and sanctioned this. Morelos has been largely kept from the media, other than Rangers TV he's been conspicuous by his absence from the tabloids and broadcast media so I'm struggling to believe this wasn't agreed at a fairly high level at the club beforehand. Following the Morelos car story it's really not a great few days for us, and Morelos, who is entirely blameless is all of this, continues to be at the eye of a bad PR storm. Michael Stewart isn't daft, he's cultivated his 'shock-jock' straight talking, not afraid to upset people persona pretty well which is why he's in demand from broadcasters. Believe it or not people will listen to him, controversy brings listeners/viewers, far more than insight or considered opinion does. Them's the times we live in, folks. Stewart has a problem because he ignored his producer, who I suspect was shouting in his ear the other night not to slander Jim Traynor or the Daily Record or anyone else for that matter, and Stewart ignored them and carried on with his diatribe. That's actually a problem at the BBC, even in the sport's department ignoring the producer see's you being taken off air for a period of time. I'd be very surprised if anyone sues anyone else. Stewart will get a gig somewhere else, he'll continue to develop himself as the poor-man's Scottish fitba Rush Limbaugh instead of offering genuine insight into teams and players, he'll start quarrels and kick those he feels will further his persona. Scottish football is crying out for an authoritative voice, someone with genuine insights and understanding and who is capable of explaining the intricacies of the beautiful game to us ignorant fans. That person could have been Stewart, but it won't be. Realising his potential has always been a problem for Micheal Stewart.

We should have had 3 or 4 goals in the 2nd half.

Hagi for me. He got lumps kicked out of him from the kick off but rose above it, constantly showed for the ball and took his finish well. Excited to see how the lad develops

I love your enthusiasm, but weren't we doing that before? The formation we play, that should have been happening. Although, we have complained in the past about those midfielders playing too deep. They should be deep at first to ensure ball transition through the thirds, but when we reach the final third, those wide midfielders need to occupy the half-space. I thought it was more of a 4-2-3-1 in the second half (I didn't see much of the first half), with Aribo moving forward, Davis and Arfield sitting, wingers playing wider, or Kent at least. The issue for me is the attacking positional structure; the positions, or zones on the park, that the players have to occupy. Guardiola has a rule that no more than two players should be on the same line, vertically. For example, if Kent is in the left half space (channel), then whoever plays behind him, say Jack, can't be on the same line; he must move diagonally or wide. This opens passing options and makes it more difficult to defend. For me, too many players keep playing in the same space. I thought last night we had good coverage: Tavernier wide right, Hagi in the right half-space, Aribo in the left half-space, and Kent wide left. Davis sat deep, alongside Arfield, but with Arfield having more license to get forward. Barasic was clever: when Kent was wide, he would come inside a little, and then overlap when Kent came inside. That's the movement and occupation of space that we need.

A bit happier with that performance last night. First half was rather disjointed but we did well to grab a deserved equaliser after missing a couple of decent chances. Second half we completely dominated without creating anything clear cut though Aribo should have scored at least once. However, credit to the players for reacting well to going behind and showing character when it looked like the points might slip away again. I thought Goldson was again terrific - a real leader on the park - but Edmundson complimented him well and the wing backs also came onto a game. Ahead of that Davis was poor first half but better second and the same can be said for Morelos. Hagi was our stand out player though and what a finish for the winner! We need more from others though: Arfield and Kent both worked hard enough but didn't really show any quality in dangerous areas and Aribo again was fairly ineffective despite finding some good positions. Final point is that we need to get more support to Alfie ins the box and get players beyond the ball: far too often in recent weeks the ball goes too slowly from one side to the other meaning the opposition have time to get organised and crowd out our players. Meanwhile, instead of Kent, Arfield and others being ahead of the ball and, inside the box, we're all in a line and to easy to defend against. That did improve after half-time and we did move the ball a bit quicker as well.

In all seriousness, the amount of people in the UK with serious gambling problems is beyond belief (I see it on a daily basis due to my job) and I'm sure we've all witnessed, first hand, the problems caused by alcohol. Golf may be very boring but boredom is rarely hazardous. Trump may be an objectionable politician but he's a democratically elected foreign head of state - and there are far worse unelected foreign heads of state who hardly anyone in the UK ever get worked up about. There's plenty of shady Russian and Arabic money tied up in the EPL. Football is a business (unfortunately). Gambling and alcohol cause far more damage in Scottish/UK communities than Donald Trump does. Aim your anger where it might make a difference.

I don't know what "behind the scenes" even means. I've seen that alluded to several times but there's really only dealing with it or not dealing with it. I couldn't give a shit about how they go about it, only whether or not they achieve results and right now it's beyond obvious that those running the club are achieving the square root of fuck all. The rest is just piss and wind.

They can't afford not! we have no room for any more dropped points so they will need to be at it if they want to seriously challenge for the title.

I agree, however unlike the one pictured in the OP, ours did not have a badge during that period

Some of the play in the 2nd half was up there with December. Let's hope the team are going to continue with that level of urgency.

Number 1 I can see them Shearer, Caldow ,Grieg, McKinnon and Baxter the forward line was t to bad either with Henderson McMillan, Millar Brand and Wilson.

Every golf club I've ever been in contained people who make Donald Trump seem like a liberal feminist. A good walk spoiled.

That makes as much sense as any other theory I've heard. Traynor is a sport's journalist, not a PR professional. Many journalists make the change from one to the other, but simply knowing the media landscape isn't the same as understanding how PR works.

I'm biased too @craig but I actually think I would be perfect for the job.

I can't believe that there's anyone who thinks that. My view has always been that Traynor helped King take over the club and He's kept on Traynor through loyalty and/or because he'll perform PR tasks for King himself (in a Murrayesque way), but not for what he does for the club

Sky has taken responsibility for the Morelos interview farce. However, there's no doubt IMO that someone at RFC was asleep at the wheel as well. Stewart is a moron but he's a popular one amongst Scottish broadcast media.

Once again Celtic have seized the initiative and now control the narrative in the press. Despite evidence that their fans were racially abusing Morelos, they've now managed to get Sky to make a public apology which then implies it didn't happen. At the same time Griffiths is in the press saying that these silly charges are ruining football. This is from the man who stamped on a player and didn't actually get a charge for it. The brass neck of that organisation is incredible, but it's working. We can say what we want about how they go about their business. It may be despicable, underhand and bordering on corrupt, but they're getting away with it. It is making a big difference to the points in this championship and yet still our club remains silent. I am beyond sick and tired of the refereeing performances. I think we all are. I always defended the club's approach of a combination of dignified silence and behind closed doors challenges. ITS NOT WORKING! In fact, the referees are now not only above reproach but they now appear to be flaunting it. Some of the treatment of our players is disgusting and yet there's nothing we seem willing to do about it. These last few games have pushed a patient man to the point of despair. Openly criticising referees and challenging this in the press cannot do us any more harm than we are already experiencing, so I wish we'd start it now. This board really is not performing and I'm sick of it. It seems we have madmen in charge, afterall they do say that madness is doing the same thing over and over again while expecting a different result. Nothing is changing for the better, in fact I think it's getting much worse.

The reaction to this is likely to be highly amusing.

I wanted another couple at the end

Rangers as a club are more guilty than the refs supervisors & SFA/SPFL continue to allow this to happen!.

9 for me. Loved that strip.

The 'Jury' ie Republican Senators declined to hear witnesses. What kind of trial is that?

He already plays in the middle but he has never looked comfortable there. He doesn't have the skillset. He wants too many touches and wants to dribble all the time, if there's no space to dribble he'll just pass the ball back where it came from or lose it. He's ball turnover stats are very high. A player who is natural centrally has good vision and passing ability which enables him to move the ball quickly and pass through teams. I still think Kent's most natural position is the right wing, where he can focus on hitting the byline. Leave the intricate stuff to those who have that skillset.

Heads Up. BBC Radio Scotland are broadcasting their weekly media review at the moment, it will last a further half hour. As usual, the drivers on the show are DrStu' and Eamonn O'Neill. They have spent five minutes on Derek McKay's resignation over sending 270 text messages to a 16 year old schoolboy. Congratulations to the Sun for the scoop;however, DrStu' wants a timeline on the story ie how long have they sat on it and have the police been contacted? After the one O'Clock news, the topics one would expect would be Trump's State of the Nation, the continuing Coronavirus story, the proposed emergency law to stymie early release of suspected terrorists, political journos boycotting a PM briefing, ................ etc? No, they will be discussing Michael Stewart and Alfredo Morelos! DrStu' is bristling.

Madden was waiting for Morelos to react to the wrestling throw. This would have allowed him to issue a yellow card to Stevenson, and, of course, a red to Alfredo. That our Colombian striker failed to respond (and was ushered away by another player) rather queered Madden's pitch. Hence his lack of action. Corruption or madness? It's beyond run of the mill incompetence.

Goldson for me. Set up the winner plus played well throughout, with some great passes.

For what it’s worth, I agree with you too.

I woke up in a jolly good mood. Late goals (in either half) are always fun and there's a guaranteed spring in my step after we beat the Leith tramps. ?

Agreed 100% BD.

Unbelievable. Still not there but edged me a fraction closer to the conspiracy camp. Does anyone doubt Alfie would have been booked if the situation were reversed? All credit to Alfie for walking away.

Because Rangers allow it!

Agree, but he did have a great game, class player and class finish