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Same team as Wednesday for me. Consistency of selection will help this team gel IMO. (no shit Sherlock...) High tempo and on the front foot from the first whistle. No excuses. No sideways football. No subs until your first picks have put the game to bed. Easy.

Good team i am surprised Hagi didn’t start midweek he’s a decent passer of the ball

Why do that when you can just get the ball out to Barisic and Tav, cross it to one guy in the box v 5 defenders, then bring on Scott Wright when it surprisingly doesn't work.

With the number of games coming up, we need to ring changes or we'll be back into wholesale injuries again. Players like Hagi and Roofe are proven commodities and should never be considered a selection risk. With Servette in mind I would try to rest Jack and Lammers. There's no point continuing with crosses from fullbacks, everyone sussed that out long ago. Butland Sterling - Souttar - Goldson - Yilmaz Cifu Hagi Raskin Cantwell Roofe - Danilo

Any chance Hagi getting a game tomorrow? Looks a better option than Dowell or Sima from what I’ve seen

I'm not talking about rinsing players over a season. I'm looking more at having a semi settled starting XI for the next month or so that will carefully managed. This is a tricky part of the season. There's literally no point getting to the OF game and then stating that Dessers/Danilo are not match sharp. They need games to do this, so just play them.

Quite right. His main job was to create and score goals, not to give the ball away.

We're always going to have lots of games at this point of the season but IMO this is not the time to be making change after change in each game to allow for this. We need 3 pts on Saturday or we are putting ourselves under a mountain of pressure this early in the season. By all means give people game time vs Morton in the LC but for me it's the same XI that beat Servette. Put the game to bed then make the relevant changes. We need to stop playing like we are waiting for things to happen. Celtic put teams away in the first half and then have the luxury of being able to change formations/players etc. There's no reason why we shouldn't.

Fixed that for you.

I'd go with Danilo and Dessers/Roofe, with Lammers back up for Cantwell but agree with the 4-4-2 and midfield diamond.

I've been reading that Real Madrid are using the 4-4-2 diamond this season. Ancelotti going back to his roots. I would really like us to lean into this formation: stop trying to shoehorn all these forwards in, and just play with two, and get Cantwell into the #10 position where he's best. We have a potential attacking threat from Raskin and Cifuentes, too, with Hagi and Dowell as back-up. I think it should be Danilo and Lammers, with Dessers and Sima as the back-ups.

Beale's subs are quite often the prompt for a...

I long for the days when a substitution was made to strengthen the team.

Cantwell for me but I thought he faded badly in the second half and that had a significant effect on our team performance against the loaded defence. Borna & Souttar had good games too. I thought our subs weakened us (Cifuentes apart) and this has always been a big failing of Beale, even back to the SG days when they would discuss what needed changed for ages and then get it wrong. I wish he would get some help from the 87 members of the back room team, surely one of them is tactically savvy?

Its not even close.

Can’t see us losing that many on the bounce. It will be over a longer period of time

My report on the U18's win over St Mirren today https://rfcyouths.wordpress.com/2023/08/11/comfortable-win-for-u18s/

It’ll be worse than that.

It's not about where we start. It's about where we go from there. Give the wrong person too much power and you could sink the whole ship.

We were linked with Cooper under Gerrard. These signings really are just names in Beale's address book. The quicker we get a DoF the better.

Few stories floating around about Jake Cooper at Millwall, 28 year old left sided CB 12 months left on his contract

Also, I think Arsenal just running their 'best' XI week after week in the prem probably cost them a bit in the end with fatigue and injuries, like I say - for the big key games get your best players on the park but we've got the squad to rotate in Scotland, we should be comfortable doing it. And need to with the schedule - December looks horrific, I don't want the team being ragged until then.

I'll need to replace Kane if he leaves Spurs.

I'd also move Lammers up front, play one of Danilo or Dessers (Danilo probably) then after 60 mins swap over. Early goals are essential.

I should have posted my 4-4-2-diamond-must-be-played rant in here... My team would be: Danilo - Lammers Cantwell Shifu - Dowell - Raskin Who's fit? - Souttar - Goldson - Tavernier Butland If Jack's rested, I want Dowel as the deep-lying playmaker spreading the passes from deep - and he likes a tackle. Cifuentes and Raskin should have licence to get forward.

I think he was subbed on 65 mins. I'm not sure if he had a knock because there was a bad foul on him just prior to that (according to the BBC feed)

Alex Lowry starting in Norway for Hearts, can't see how this loan won't do him wonders. Best of luck to the boy.

However, maybe it's time we should play with wingers and two defensive fullbacks or find two better attacking-fullbacks. Tav has a great free kick in him (occasionally) and the odd cross, but he's getting slower and is not good enough defensively. Borna showed that he still has a decent cross in him when he's playing high but again absolutely useless defensively (he'll take plaudits for last night but truth is he wasn't pressed much or tested defensively).

I'm going to go for the much aligned Barasic. Played very well in the first half and although quieter in the second, he managed to set up at least one clear chance and put in some other great crosses.

I thought Souttar and Goldson were both good at bringing the ball out from defence, Lammers played some nice stuff, Dessers got stuck in and Barisic played in some lovely crosses but Cantwell gets my vote, as he played well and never stopped.

Even if they did sell him for £25M, they've made less money than we did off Bassey. You won't read that in the press though.

He might turn out to be a gem but for me he was too slow and ponderous on the ball. I lost count the amount of times he was caught on the ball last season.