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Gio is a tactician, a decent football mind, but he does not provide the leadership required to push an injury riddled squad forward. Many people say that their wage, and the increase of market worth per player should be enough, it is not. Gio gives no spark. I have never spent a second in the man's presence, but I know men. He motivates, no one. He manages, he provides tactics, he provides training in those tactics...but he is sterile...a breathing text. I think Gio will find his place at a high level club as a number two. I think that would be his best fit. I think this season has exposed many things, most of all, his leadership.

I think its more than fair to highlight Morelos - have we had a single season since he signed where his attitude has been spot-on and hasn't been affected by his lack of fitness, getting suspended for something stupid or just having a strop? I love him, but he's had more than enough second chances. You could write a whole article about him, but where it does feed in to the wider dereliction of duty is that until we signed Colak, neither manager really seemed to have a good plan as to how we played when he wasn't available. I've said it before, but Gerrard's stock is rising with every passing week he's not here. He was far from perfect and seemed unable or unwilling to work out and address whatever malaise had set-in after #55 so took the easy way out and left for Villa. I do agree with the point about the board and I'm also a bit surprised with the amount of flak Ross Wilson takes. It's far too simplistic an argument to say "sack the board and Wilson", but that's football fans for you. When you look at his signings, some haven't worked out, some have and some we seem to have signed without adjusting our system to fit them in. So were they the wrong players to have signed? We all know that playing for Rangers isn't an easy job and it takes players some time to settle. So why are we giving some of the new signings such a hard time when they're coming in to play for the biggest club in their career at a time when confidence is low, fans are unhappy and we seem to have no tactical direction? Kent and Morelos running down their contracts though, that is on Wilson as I think that's his remit isn't it? Where I do have issues with Gio is that I still struggle to see what his plan is and what system we're actually playing. We look mentally weak with a lack of leadership and unable to do even the basics anymore. Player fitness seems to have taken a dive off a cliff since he came in. Presumably it was him who thought it was a good idea to give McGregor, Davis and Arfield extensions? FWIW I can see how Arfield is worth an extension as he offers something different, but the other two??? Those two will also be taking home a decent chunk of the wage bill. I thought Souttar was worth a punt, but to have him and Helander here? Mind boggling. Same goes for Roofe - why on earth have we kept him knowing we can't rely on him? Same goes for Jack. I know he's played a reasonable percentage of games for us, but he's too injury prone for someone who, when fit, is a first-choice player. The biggest worry to me, and I've said it time and time again, is that this squad is still exhibiting some of the same issues on the pitch that have been there for at least 4 seasons now. I've also said in the past that maybe we should have let players like Tav and Goldson go because we've changed managers and are still seeing these issues occur, so you know, it might just have something to do with the players?

There are more problems than just the manager but I don't think there's much doubt that he isn't getting the best out of the squad. We need a new manager but we need more football savvy people higher up the chain too. I get the impression a few people at Ibrox are just winging it and have no clearly defined strategy. Wilson and Robertson are the two that immediately spring to mind.

It's lazy to highlight Morelos and Kent. What about all the other players? Morelos has hardly played and Kent has arguably been our best player over the past month. I don't know anyone who wants Gerrard back. I honestly don't get the "most fans would take Gerrard back". Gio is responsible for the players' fitness which has seen a major downturn since last season and he's responsible for the tactics. Injuries may be an excuse as to the team underperforming as a whole but not poor tactical decisions with the players that are available. It also appears that he's lost the dressing room for some reason. I do agree with the point about the board. They have sunk millions into the club and continue to support the club financially.

One day you may actually work out what a DoF/Sporting Director what ever label used is and when you do you'll realise whilst the job title may change the job itself while remain in fact we should me more concerned if such a post were to vanish as it would be a regressive step. Every club that just walloped us in the CL has had a DoF/Sporting Director far longer than us. Our biggest problem is in the dugout (and perhaps the treatment room) not the Directors Box (despite what the baying masses may think).

Agree that Gerrard's reluctance to let us sell players has held us back, perhaps he knew he'd be leaving before these problems came to a head and thus didn't really care about the results of his action. I suppose that's why its important to have a DoF who can think strategically rather than short term players wise. At least that's the idea. And that's why we should have sold Kamara in the summer. That's why we should have replaced Dr Waller. We should have some on the coaching staff to support the current management team rather than giving the current team a full loadout of coaches. If our transfer windows haven't proven to be good then the recruitment staff should be accountable. The DoF should do this but there are gaps there. There is truth to this, but to quote a great Eddie Murphy sketch 'what have you done for me lately'. Both Gio and the board have delivered in the past. There can be no argument. However this does not mean they are beyond criticism for where we find ourselves now. Imagine applying that logic to a player? Well looks like we do hence we still have the likes of Steve Davis and Allan McGregor playing for us. This is also true and for everything this board have done for us off the park and financially, improved our youth setup, our woman's setup. All fantastic. There have been issues with the Ange homecoming tour and surrounding PR, the public spats with SD and Cinch. But they have succeeded in getting us on a good footing financially. However when it comes to on the field decisions they have proven to been inactive when needed and without inspiration, especially when it comes to managerial appointments. Gerrard being the exception but that was also close to not working out if you recall the pre covid collapse. The way Murty was left in the firing line for so long also doesn't sit right with me, he should have been removed long before he was. Communication from the board and the lack of a figurehead for the club is big issue. That's not me being ungrateful. I'm trying to point out things that I think can be improved. I dont demand the likes of Park and Bennet get out of the club if they dont want to be that figurehead, they can appoint a David Holmes type to do it for them and protect thier investment in the club.

People are just making stuff up. Unless someone official says something, I'm ignoring it.

I'd agree wholeheartedly with that, tactically some of his stuff last season in the EL against some bloody good teams was a joy. He just doesn't look like he inspires when we need something else though, when the sleeves need rolled up, or when we face 10 behind the ball. The difference in the CL isn't that we're up against hugely better sides IMO, it's that our confidence is gone, completely. And injuries, natch.

You must be a complete wreck on Christmas Eve.......

I knew the 12pm press conference was a nonsense, but I got my hopes up anyway...

Very few players can say they've done their job this season. Off the top of my head, I'd say perhaps only Colak can say he's contributed enough with maybe Barisic at a push but he's also been poor at key moments. As such to concentrate on a couple of players is somewhat unfair. However, Morelos and Kent are key performers and just haven't turned up. Morelos not featuring isn't an excuse for his lack of fitness or poor discipline or dreadful attitude. Not when he's such a big earner. He's ruining his legacy at the club and that's the worst thing given what he has achieved. Kent has been a wee bit better over the last week but has also been awful over the piece and just hasn't put the effort in. However, we could probably go through every player and detail their poor contribution. Quite simply when we lose the effective performance for whatever reason from McGregor, Tavernier, Goldson, Jack, Kamara, Kent and Morelos and we have no-one capable of replacing them (new or old) then it's no surprise we're struggling so badly. Ultimately the manager answers for that but the issues go so much deeper and are very difficult to resolve.

A good OP/article. We’re carrying to many old players and other older players on long term deals. Perhaps some of these players lost their desire or are past their best. Maybe both as well as others now looking to leave. What does concern me though is the number of us who think ditching GvB & bringing in a replacement (who?) will guarantee an improvement. Not quite that simple unfortunately. And I do believe our DoF has a few questions to answer too

But Gio has been in for long enough to ask that question and he's not just bumbling on with what he's given - he could have made bigger changes to that squad whilst operating within the overall playing budget if he had concerns about certain players fitness, attitude, capability, suitability etc. I guess for the board, they'll point to the success on the pitch and off it last season to say they did their job and did it will. I think every supporter I know was willing to take second place in the league for a chance at the Europa League final for example. The board have made funds available to Gio for signings (and on paper, I still don't think it's a bad set of signings) so they have backed him. And he did more than enough to justify it, but it was apparent early-on this season that our league form was looking patchy at best and its now got worse to the point where the league is effectively over by November. It is telling (and baffling) that Gerrard and Gio haven't made bigger changes at the end of seasons where it seemed like the core of the squad were finished. Not sure how to explain that when we have also been spending money.

Surely this is because we want to see accountability? We have had some shocking stuff on and off the pitch in the last wee while and no-one is accountable. The only example I can think of is Morelos not going to Amsterdam. One point Gerrard always made was ensuring players really wanted to be there and play for him and getting rid of passengers early on. I dont think anyone has asked Morelos or Kamara that for a while? Whilst Gio seems happy to just bumble on with what he's given.

Dave King threatened to liquidate us if his loan wasn't repaid, John Bennent just loaned us over £10m at a rate 25% lower than what King charged, I know which one gets my vote. Souttar was a relatively cheap gamble with the bonus of being Scottish we are always going to take punts like that some will work out others won't que sera sera. It isn't a case of if GvB goes but when that's been clear for long enough. Clubs don't tend to change the FoF as often as they change manager that's part of the attraction of the system. The DoF will be part of process of appointing a new manager again that's part of the system. Our injuries are appalling and my views of what's wrong there have been repeated many times, both the amount of injuries and the length of the subsequent recovery periods need to be at the bare minimum severely scrutinised and the required changes implemented asap as a priority. Our squad with a 90-95% availability is way good enough for Scottish football and should st the very least show up for European football.

Ahhh. He was reasonably lively in the first half but completely anonymous in the second. The fact that you weren’t really watching might explain why you opted for him. The performance was turgid all round but Kent tried to make things happen for most of the game and would probably get my vote if you held a gun to my head. But given that there is no gun, I’ll politely abstain. 🙃

Dont worry about the lack of announcement or movement on the manager. You can spend 50 on a print of our record defeat. https://rangers.arenaimagestore.com/products/30x11-rangers-v-liverpool-panoramic-framed-print

With the WC looming and inaction from the board, it's only going to get worse. Understandably, people are frustrated at the situation.

Surely there must eventually come a point when it becomes clear to everyone that endlessly describing the current situation is making zero contribution to where we go from here.

This has been an absolute farce. Despite his achievement last season in Europe, major questions remained over Gio's ability domestically. A 3-0 thrashing away to Celtic should not be easily forgotten, nor the loss at Ibrox in April and generally poor style of football. The 4-0 humiliation should have been the end of the road. It was clear at that stage he wasn't good enough. All the wins against the dross in the league only serve to pull the wool over people's eyes. It's a disgrace that we are here 7 points and a humiliating European campaign later and he is still in place. We play an awful style of football, and having made the finance excuse in Europe we are now repeatedly struggling against teams with a small fraction of our finance. Some of us have been saying it for months but it does genuinely seem like the board want to wait until there is nothing left to play for before making a change

Personally, if you must know, I don't have a pillow, I just use the wallet.

As a one off, completely agree. Europa was a most welcome relief to a sorry title defence. Sadly the equation looks more like 2,3,4 seasons written off if things don't change fast. It's a puzzle. The amount of horsings we've taken this season has to see some go.

I have a niggling worry in the back of my mind that this world cup break, while perfect time for a new manager to come in and get a 'mini' pre-season is also potentially a good time for the board/Wilson to think that theres no Rangers football for over a month, they can sit it out(hide), give GvB a bit of time on the training field and revisit without the worry of constant pelters after games... Hopefully at 12 today we have a statement..... I won't hold my breath though

I agree and if the manager leaves, I hope the players can sleep at night.

I suspect his defence will be "but it can't be sectarian cause I'm a Proddy too". I've some sympathy for the posters who are neither offended by the phrase nor see much point in escalating the tit for tat 'I'm pure offended' that often dominates online discourse. Like all words the person using them and the tone in which they are delivered makes a huge difference to that word's meaning, whether intended or not. As Ascender says up thread being called a 'hun' by a friend or acquaintance in a friendly conversation rarely causes any offence and neither is it meant too. However a complete stranger shouting Kill All Huns at you on a dark night might elicit a different response, and again I suspect that would be deliberate. I imagine this Aberdeen fan's defence will be along the lines that he feels 'hun' has no sectarian meaning, to him it's simply a derogatory term for Rangers supporters. I also suspect he'll be able to show numerous examples of this, maybe he'll ask Stuart Cosgrove to give evidence in his defence, it's a term he's used a bit in the past after all. It'll be an interesting defence and assumes that bringing a banner saying 'kill all Rangers fans' to a ground holding nearly 50,000 Rangers fans is otherwise perfectly acceptable behaviour of course. From a personal perspective, like all of us, I've been called a hun on numerous occasions. Often it was jocular and delivered by someone I knew, no offence was meant and none was taken. On others I was fairly sure the person was intending to insult or intimidate me, it was meant aggressively. Sometimes it was said in my company by someone who forgot I was there and their reaction when they realised I'd heard was often telling as to their intention and meaning. I'd a girlfriend many years ago who described me as a 'practicing hun' to members of her family when the subject of football inevitably came up. That relationship wasn't destined to last. The meaning of words changes. That's simply a fact about the English language. No matter how much we might wish it otherwise, the meaning behind how we say something, or these days type something, isn't always the meaning that someone reading it will take. On a return trip to Belfast a few years ago I noticed the term 'KAH' sprayed close an intersection where Unionist and Nationalist areas joined. Graffiti and murals have long been used in Belfast to designate territory and I found them a very helpful navigation aid when I first moved there. For those unaware KAH stands for 'Kill All Huns', and it was sprayed as a territorial marker, letting everyone know what area you were entering. Do we think the person responsible meant 'Rangers supporters' when they left that mark? We can only speculate, but personally I'm in no doubt at all that in that context it meant 'Protestant' or at the very least 'Unionist', although those terms are often interchangeable. Whatever that Aberdeen fan's intention, it's naive in the extreme to think that some people who use that word don't see it as a derogatory catch all term for Protestants. Like a number of other words that were once fairly commonly used it's probably advisable to avoid using it at all now.

Don't know if this has been posted in this thread or elsewhere, but decent listen.

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Who broke them - because last I looked they were contesting a European final.

Well, you have to stay on the objective side of things. We were hammered by a decent Yahoo side on a day that many switched off. The defeats against the CL teams may be hard to take, but hey, these teams were and are head and shoulders above us, even IF we had a fully fit squad. For the best part of the season, we've been down to playing at least one fourth or fifth choice centre-half, at times even both. King and Sands played in almost all our CL group games ... against 50+ million people. So please, let reason set in. In general, it is hard to remember a season when we have been ravaged by injury to so many important players at a time. If fit, Helander, Davies, Lawrence, Roofe and Hagi would all be in my starting line-up. Probably even Ridvan. Goldson and Lowry add to that, and IMHO Morelos hasn't looked the same after his injury and has failed to grab any chance given to him since Colak signing that he is capable (and/or willing) to remove the Croat from his starting slot. That said, I'd play 2 strikers or real attacking players anyway. Since we have seen that one striker alone does not yield enough countable results. If he's in the mood (and one has to get back a few months/years here - in terms of league business), Kent is a mean beast on that flank. Yet, far too often - given that he knows he's an auto-pick for the starting XI - he's just not delivering. Hence, put him on the wing, but play one more real striker in that left striker slot. That the right flank remains a project doesn't help either, and you have to ask the manager why he has been shoe-horning player in and out there all season. BTW, SG did that with Hagi too. In essence, no matter what happens to Gio, we need to get our players fit and finally start utilizing them in their correct or most productive position, AS WELL AS adopting tactics and line-ups for the task at hand.

I doubt he'll be gone before January. The board will be hoping they can ride this one out but surely they can see what everyone else can (a hopeless manager overseeing a stuttering mess)!?

Looks like there was / is a meeting today at Training Centre. Gio to be given the "deaded" vote of confidence by the looks of things. Also heard Wilson is attending a "transfer and recruitment" seminar in Germany over next few days, so doesn't look like he is getting punted anytime soon.

They would just make a statement. Hopefully the chap on twitter is correct, if not he should get pelters from bears for getting peoples hopes up to punt his Rangers da podcast no one cares about.

Never a truer word spoken.

It's games like that that's got me starting to yearn for the grand ole days of yore with McCoist in the dugout and Daly and Kyle up front, the workaholic Nicky Law in midfield and the rock that was Emerson Cribari in defence !!