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Increase to 14 teams, play each other twice for 26 games. Top 6 break off to play home and away to make 36, bottom 8 have their own home and away which has a trophy for the winners and also decides relegation, (at least 2 down) plus they get an extra couple of home games to make up for lack of OF visits. Post-split fixtures are pre-determined with position 1 playing position 6 in week 1 etc, so no possibility of outside influence as happens every year just now. It would be a tougher league when your last 10 games are all tough games, but at the very least it will be fair, with the same home and away fixtures for every side.

Jonathan Liew in today's Guardian. Pricks such as Michael Stewart would do well to read and consider. Furore around Glen Kamara shows how racists can keep getting away with abuse Jonathan Liew To get their personal violations recognised, victims of racism have to navigate an obstacle course of suspicion and bad faith Tue 23 Mar 2021 10.00 GMT https://www.theguardian.com/football/2021/mar/23/furore-around-glen-kamara-shows-how-racists-can-keep-getting-away-with-abuse You’re a footballer who has been racially abused by an opponent in the course of doing your job. So let’s talk tactics, scenarios, next steps. Yes, I know it happened only a few seconds ago. You’re angry, upset, confused. Above all there’s a football match still to be won, and you don’t want to lose your focus. But really, you need to get your head in the game. Because even in these raw early moments, one false move, one wrong choice, and your prospects of justice are sunk. Obviously you’ll want to lodge a formal complaint as soon as possible. But of course the referee didn’t hear anything, and the opponent has an angelic “Who, me?” expression on his face. Here’s your first task: you need to remember the exact words that were used. Was it “fucking monkey”, “black monkey” or just “monkey”? Yes, it’s gruesome, but it’s important. Get it wrong, admit the merest uncertainty, alter your story one iota, and in a few months’ time a smooth-talking lawyer will be flaying you to ribbons in front of an FA disciplinary panel. Next: make sure you flag the incident up at the time and gather witnesses, or you’ll be accused of making it up afterwards. And remember, you need to look just the right amount of angry: too angry and people will assume you’re motivated by rage, not angry enough and people will assume you’re a scheming, mendacious troublemaker. Once this gets out, you’ll need as thick a skin as you can muster. You’ll be forced to relive those few traumatic seconds again and again, through ever more jaundiced filters. Your reputation and your motives will be dragged through the mud. You will be abused again, this time in great anonymous torrents. And for all the support and encouragement you will also receive, the whole affair will leave an unpleasant aftertaste: a problem everyone wishes would simply go away. By the time of the hearing, the incident will begin to feel like a surreal abstraction: you, who were there, will have your recollections challenged by others who weren’t. The player who abused you will wheel out a succession of character witnesses to defend their honour. If he had said the thing, they will insist, that would make him a racist. But he isn’t a racist, and so he can’t have said it. Ultimately, you will be told, it’s your word against his, and so nothing more can be done. The reason for sketching this process out in such gristly, unpleasant detail is that there remains a significant body of opinion that is convinced people put themselves through all this for a laugh. This cropped up again recently, after the Rangers midfielder Glen Kamara accused Slavia Prague’s Ondrej Kudela of racially abusing him during their Europa League game on Thursday. Kudela has denied the accusation and Uefa will hear the case in due course. And yet already Kamara’s treatment is a reminder of the obstacle course that awaits all victims of racist abuse: gaslighting, obfuscation, counter-narrative, a system that seems to be rigged from top to bottom against the accuser in favour of the accused. I discovered this on a much smaller scale only a few years ago. Towards the end of the last Ashes tour, an English journalist racially abused me in the press box of the Sydney Cricket Ground. Or, more specifically, in a corridor near the press box: a detail I now realise was hardly accidental. As the older journalist flatly denied making the remark he had made about eight seconds earlier, there was a devilish glint in his eye: the stomach-turning realisation that I would never be able to prove otherwise. And in the end, he got away with it. Complaints were lodged. Grave, stony-faced summits were held. My version of events was scrutinised with a forensic laser focus. Did I have a grudge? Did I provoke him? Could I have heard something else? All he had to do, meanwhile, was deny everything. And – legally speaking – that was that. Game over. Multiply this by hundreds, thousands, and you realise why so many acts of personal violation – racism, harassment, sexual abuse – go unpunished. Kamara has received plenty of support, but also a good deal of scepticism and outright hostility from rival fans. Like many before him, he has been accused of simply inventing the whole episode. And remember, this was an on-field incident captured live on television. Imagine the overwhelming burden of proof required to substantiate a similar accusation in amateur football. In a dressing room. In a boardroom. We know racist abuse is a common, widespread problem. Conversely, there is no body of evidence to suggest that false or malicious accusations of racism exist on remotely the same scale. And yet time and again we are nonsensically asked to give these two scenarios equal weight: often under the cloak of well-meaning phrases like “due process” and “innocent until proven guilty”. Yet the presumption of innocence is not a neutral stance in these cases. It presumes, by extension, that the accuser must be lying or mistaken unless proved otherwise. And in so doing, it provides generous cover to any abuser shrewd enough to cover their tracks. This is the landscape that virtually all victims of racism must navigate: suspicion, bad faith, institutional hostility. Meanwhile, football’s authorities wonder aloud why hatred festers in the game and what can be done about it. They can begin, above all, by assuming that those who stick out their neck to denounce racism are telling the truth. And not only that, but by believing them: not blindly or dogmatically, but instinctively, and with empathy. Jonathan Liew was last week awarded the John Bromley trophy for sports writer of the year at the Sports Journalism Awards

We've had a bloody good season, certainly far better than what I anticipated. We've won the league with ease, performed magnificently in Europe (maybe not last week though) and there's more to look forward to if the team can stay focused. Is there room for improvement - yes but not much. We haven't even been handed the trophy, so let's bask, like a sleuth of fully-fed grizzlies.

you can't be happy all your life.

Anyone else read the headline and just visualizing Gribz doing the bouncy in his living room as he posts ?

Changing the Angle of Attack. League football is over, bar the shouting. Rangers have won the title, gone to the Chamber half-arsed, barely got out of second gear and secured a draw. The gap remains 20 points with only the five matches after the split to go. There has been some shouting, Jum Spence late of the PQ parish couldn't take it, he Tweeted :"Watching the highlights that Celtic squad should hang their heads for abject surrender this season to a Rangers side which wasn't as good, but had more heart and better organisation". Jum is uncannily like Michael Stewart(more of whom later), he pings dozens of ridiculous Tweets throughout the season reference Sellik, "fast, fluent, and frighteningly impressive" and my favourite, "Celtic have secured ten-in-a-row with the signing of Shane Duffy". The Rectum digs a hole and cannot help defecate another turd in justification. Mainly, the generated PQ noise came from the News/Current Affairs Bhoys and Ghirls, a fortnight after Rangers supporters celebrated in George Square. A mixed message, you see Professor Jason Leitch told us on Off the Ball, there was no correlation between joyous Bears and further outbreaks of Covid. Step forward Jane Hamilton and her source, Assistant Chief Constable Bernard Higgins. Bernie told Jane, some officers were quarantining after policing duties in George Square. No numbers, no names and, no specific interviews. Still, good enough for PQ to have it as lead news item on all means throughout the weekend. The Bernie and Jane double act hitting the top of the bill is nothing new. Go back 30 years, then it was Anna Smith and Superintendent Kevin Smith(no relation). Fifteen thousand Rangers supporters attending a pre-season testimonial in Sunderland was painted as a riot. There had been four arrests for fighting in a club, but Anna and Kevin(he provided police intelligence) claimed Sunderland had been ransacked, a 20 times jump in crime rates and, a shady gang of agent provocateurs, the ICS(Inter-City Scots) had lead proceedings. Anna accompanied Kevin and his SWAT lads on a dawn raid in Cambuslang, four teenage members of the ISC were carried out of their beds and into the jail. Front page news in the Daily Record and across Auntie Beeb. The four lads were released the next morning with no charges and no reporting. Let's hope Bernie takes Jane along on undercover raids too? You see Bernie and Jane gave PQ what it wanted, what it needed; with no regard to the truth. Jane has previous, she reported the events after the Scottish Cup final in 2016. Her Polis partner then, was Calum Steele. Police Scotland did not respond to pitch invasions at Hampden because Bears leaving the ground, deliberately prevented responding vehicles by throwing their children in front of the wagons. Apparently, this was a well practised tactic in Northern Ireland by the PUL community? It's quite a comeback for Jane, you see Rangers supporters complained to IPSO(Independent Press Standards Organisation) for her reporting of cup final day events, and IPSO upheld our complaint. Another fallout of that final, was an examination of Jane's social media. Lot's of sectarian language and photos of her and a stage full of cronies. The pictures were all taken at Sellik Park, she was posing with Stacey Mullen(Assistant Editor at the Herald), Connie McLaughlin, Rosie King(SSP MSP), and Alison McConnell. All sitting together in the green comfy seats overlooking the Green Brigade below, and none of them saw a hanging effigy twisting in the breeze? Superintendent Kevin Smith made it all the way to Chief Constable of Central Region Constabulary. I am sure in today's politicised Police Scotland, Assistant Chief Constable Higgins will be similarly rewarded? Sticking it on the H-u-ns earns you wriggle room. Michael Stewart has so much space he can turn an oil tanker. After cautioning against Kamara submitting a racism claim, he reminded the listenership of ross County's Gardyne and, concluded there was a lack of corroboration. A host of pundits including Preston, McCann, Bartley, Dodds, ....... etc chorused, "Bongani Zungu". Michael like Jum, went on to justify things he had said in two previous shows and why he said them. The Tweet from Rio Ferdinand telling Michael to educate himself was water off a duck's back. Michael is right, particularly when he's wrong.

A further point to back this up - we scored from a set piece, which means most of our players were in or around their box when we scored. Normally an OF goal at the piggery would see all outfield players rush to celebrate with the scorer, but on Sunday Morelos was only congratulated by 4 players, with a 5th (Borna) jogging over as they were heading back to halfway, and the celebrations were similar to if we had scored an equaliser against Hamilton. Compare to our previous OF goals to see the difference.

Scrap the split ?

It is exactly that attitude that has them where they are. If it wasn't for us going for an invincible league season I would grudgingly been comfortable with us losing that game if it meant Kennedy getting the job. We basically treated it like a training session. The only time we looked like it was a competitive game was, as you say, when we went behind. You could tell we were treating it like a training game when Celtic scored. McGregor almost looked like he didn't care that we had conceded - very, very unlike him not to be bawling and shouting after conceding a goal. We weren't fussed about winning, we just wanted to not lose. Hopefully in the game on May 2nd that changes and the squad want to finish the last OF game with a performance to be proud of - though, again, I would take a draw if it meant Kennedy getting the Celtic job

Each to their own, but I have THOROUGHLY ENJOYED watching Rangers this season. We have played with a panache, swagger, and intent about us all season long, with minor, very minor, blips along the way. Some of our play has been absolutely sublime, even when struggling to break teams down. I do believe it was you yourself in seasons past who has lamented, rightly so, that "there are two teams on the pitch and it isn't just what we do that makes the game" or words to that effect. If you are expecting every game to be pleasing on the eye when going up against brick walls then I suggest you may need to watch another team because that is going to be the way forward for our opponents in the vast majority of domestic matches. It is a 5-5-0 that they deploy, not a 0-5-5. We have dropped points in 5 games from 33 so far this season - that is we have won 85% of our league games, drawn 15% and lost 0%. And very few, very few, have been turgid affairs from OUR perspective - we can't dictate how opponents play against us, that is up to them. As I said, we have averaged 2.36 goals per game - you will be one of very few football fans unhappy with their team scoring an average of 2.36 goals per game, being undefeated in the league, won the league before the split, the quickest it has been won in a century. It is almost as if some of our fans are completely forgetting the last decade already. The progress made by this team is absolutely remarkable - yet scoring 2.36 goals per game just isn't enough - now we need to do it playing like the 2011 Barcelona team, no matter how our opponents line up. Yes, we know you want guys like Stewart to get game time and we know you aren't particularly keen on Kent. But Kent has been integral to our team and anyone who looks at just his goals and assists is completely missing the other aspects of his game and also how dangerous he is for opponents, such that they double team him. Stewart is a decent squad player and, I too, would have liked to have seen him get more game time - but this season was about ONE thing and one thing only - winning the league - Gerrard was highly unlikely to rotate a great deal from a winning formula - he did that in seasons past and we fell apart after Christmas. One thing that we ALL have a tendency to forget is that we are not the ones who see these players every single day in training - it could just very well be that Gerrard doesn't fancy him because he isn't showing enough on the training pitch. Some players become better than they actually are simply because they aren't playing - I have a suspicion that Greg Stewart is one such player. Speaking of players becoming better because they aren't playing though.... is ANYONE any longer in doubt as to just how important Tavernier is for us ? Took pelters from some sections of our support for a long time - but now that he has a prolonged period out it is clear to see just how vital he is - and it is abundantly clear to see that opponents are now attacking our right side, because he is out.

Very favourable fixtures in a season where the league is already done. Next season could be close and we will be away to Celtic, Aberdeen and Hibs.

Perhaps i need to see that period again, I was on the Peroni! I just recalled I wasn’t surprised we equalised when we did. They had some joy down our RB area getting in behind Balogun in the first half but strangely I never felt the game was getting away from us. Perhaps that just comes from knowing the gulf between the 2 sides.

my wedding is 22nd may. may have to cancel.

the police. A crime was committed.

I had a wee shandy...so lets all do the bouncy.... Ohhhhhhh bouncy bouncy bouncy.... Can we hear the old bones break Compo and Scott and Cammy

Brora’s first game in weeks. What will they be like when they get match fit?

I suspect Ann Budge is currently on the ham bone to Derek McInnes?

Who is that?

It's not bonkers, it's batshit crazy.... Won the league before the split, treated Celtic with disdain on Sunday, played some of the best football I've seen as a Rangers fan (only Advocaat teams came close), finally have a winning formula and mentality and some fans want us to change it - batshit crazy

$55.00.

18 team league isn't the answer. Our league is already terrible quality without adding the top half of the Championship to it.

Ive been an advocate for a 18 team league for years. Money and TV just puts lumps into that and possibly greed. For me 3 leagues and a pyramid system - to be fair is up and running now. Out of interest - what would you have?

It was more of a priority to have us going to the bheasts, sheep, Hibs & Livy all away in the first quarter so they could try to get the bheasts an early lead in the title race. Next season , if we are to believe these things are based on previous years seedings, we should be playing 2 of these 4 sides at home and 2 away in the first quarter. I imagine we will also be away to Hearts early in the season, but of course that will be purely a random computer generated outcome.?

I have the distict impression that he pays attention to no one other than himself; I think that he regards this as a positive trait.

if you have to go to a team 3 times it is the lowest in the league at the split you go to.

pull yourself together lad it's cheaper to live in sin

Defo needs the time to get himself match fit. Bizarre why Paterson wasnt called up though, he is easily the best option at RB yet 3 LBs are selected.

I thought we strolled the game in first gear and only upped it to second gear when we were behind. Gone was our usual press and high energy, gone was our attacking full backs, gone was our long diagonal balls in behind a square and wooden defence, we went there for a point and were happy to play out the second half in cruise control. Not something I ever want to see from a Rangers side, especially at the mhidden, but completely understandable. I said at FT that they would jump on a “we were the better side again” and it proves there isn’t a gap between the 2. Perfect, I hope they truly believe that and recruit accordingly.

A third trip to the worst pitch in football beckons. Worth noting we are 20 points clear despite having played the next 4 best teams in the league twice away and only once at home, with the opposite of course true for the deposed 8.5 times champions. All randomly done of course.

You never know your luck, gs.

watched it again today our players were walking about. Clearly exhausted yet we got a draw.

I think it can be proven beyond reasonable doubt that Kudela is guilty. I believe, then, that UEFA will hit Kudela and Slavia Prague with an unprecedented punishment such as a long term ban for player and club. Because if they don’t, UEFAs reputation maybe shot beyond repair.

Statement from Glen Kamara - well said Glen, 100% behind you. Over to you UEFA; There is no place for racism or any form of bigotry in football. Since summer many of us have taken the knee in solidarity with those who have lost their lives to racial violence. If UEFA genuinely wants to 'show racism the red card', then it’s time to stop the tokenism and take a zero-tolerance approach.As a player I do not expect myself, nor any other to have to tolerate racial hatred on or off the pitch in 2021. The vile racist abuse by Ondrej Kedel, took place on the international stage, and any failure to act by UEFA will be viewed as a greenlight for racism.During yesterday’s match with Slavia Prague, Kedel was arguing with a Rangers player and after I tried to intervene, he told me to shut up and then said 'one second my friend'.He then came over to me covering his mouth, leaning into my ear, he uttered the words – 'You’re a f****** monkey, you know you are”I was shocked and horrified to hear such racist abuse from a professional football player. Kedel’s claim he simply swore at me and said 'You’re a f****** guy” is a complete and utter lie, which does not stand up to any form of scrutiny."Kedel’s actions were deliberate and premeditated, but he was loud enough for my team-mate Bongani Zungu to hear what was said."I am grateful for the unconditional support of my team, our club and especially our manager Steven Gerrard."I want to thank not just our Rangers fans, but the many fans from across the football community and beyond, for calling out racism not just against myself, but also fellow player Kemar Roofe, who was subjected to a tirade of racist bile on Instagram."We as black players are sick of the freedom that such bigots are given to parade their hatred on social media and wonder when the likes of Instagram will start to take action.