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Late news Scotty has gone back to fis first club----Falkirk wish him luck.

Rangers twitter tonight is bonkers. People losing the plot over our lack of business. Don't they ever listen to what is being said?

Becoming the Gray man. On my first morning at Sandhurst, I filed into a lecture theatre to hear the Commandant's opening address. It was several minutes of advice on how to survive the ten month long course. He finished by emphasising the first ten weeks was a period not to shine, "do not stand out and attract the attention of Directing Staff, be a grey man". Two or three weeks later you realised the Brigadier was being sage, the first half semester was deliberately designed to be overwhelming. Just endure the pressure. This time last year, the Scottish Secretary for Health, Michael Matheson had resigned his position after being caught attempting to claim eleven grand on his expenses incurred during a family holiday to Morocco. Michael was watching his beloved Sellik on his Government issued laptop and did not give a flying for the roaming charges. Michael's mea culpa came in gradations, finally agreeing to pay back the monies claimed before throwing both his teenage schoolboy sons under the bus. These last thirty years, PQ has broadcast a satirical football show twice a week, 'Off the Ball'. One would expect the Michael Matheson affair was manna from heaven for regular Presenters, RAB Cosgrove and Tam Cowan? There were three or four one liners aimed at Michael's grift but, no sustained bombardment of ridicule ensued. The Secretary for Health chose to watch his team and then decided to attempt to denude the Health budget to pay for the pleasure and the Establishment broadcaster took little to no satirical action against a supporter of the Establishment club. Peter would not like it. Two months past a submitted FOI request revealed Michael's successor in the Health designation, Neal Gray had taken nine Chauffeur driven ministerial cars to Aberdeen games at Hampden and Sellik park. Further, another four had been utilised for home Scotland internationals. Neal Gray assured Holyrood that government related meetings had taken place and necessary minutes had been taken. Neal admitted family and friends had accompanied him in said vehicles. Continuing the precedent set by Michael, Neal's mea culpa arrived with an admittance he should have diversified the club attendance and he cannot locate the afore mentioned minutes. Another open goal for 'Off the Ball', surely? Not a peep and over these last ten weeks RAB Cosgrove has been on a sickie(more to follow follow later). We have endured several stand-ins, mostly Plastic Whistle lovee, Ray Bradshaw. Others have included Susie McCabe(Sellik), Mark Nelson(Queen of the South), Marc Jennings(Sellik) and, Paul English(Sellik) - you can see an equitable divide between Yahoos and supporters of the diddy teams. A second successive Health Secretary rips off his own Department's budget in a specific Scottish football circumstance and the national broadcaster's satirical football show deliberately ignores the entire episode. Why are they allowed to sit so comfortably with their preferred prejudice? I started this piece on a personal basis and will conclude likewise. Back in early autumn, the Health Secretary attended an Alzheimer's Disease Seminar for two hours. The idea being all those involved ie health professionals, sufferers, relatives of sufferers, administrators, charity workers, ...... etc come together to relate experiences. A good idea and well done Neal Gray agreeing to attend. I have an aged Aunt, now in her ninetieth year and has been a top floor resident in a Care Home for over three years. She resides on the top floor because of a five year long Alzheimers diagnosis. Genuinely, I took note of this Seminar and was disgusted that the Health Secretary spent over an hour viewing his mobile I-Phone, monitoring his progress in the queue for Oasis tickets. Becoming the grey man is now trumped by becoming the Gray man.

Realistically how far away are we, player wise, from a concerted and successful title challenge? The squad has finally shown it can compete with Celtic in a head to head, the last two games have proved that. Our next match at Parkhead will be a test of whether we do have what it takes to take points off them regularly. That aside our away form is poor, we really struggle to breakdown most Scottish sides who sit deep and aim to frustrate us. So we're missing at least one, probably two, players who can create a goal or a chance from nothing. It's no coincidence, I feel, that our improvement in form coincided with Raskin and Igamane coming into form and also Hagi returning to the squad. I'm not sure we have replacements for any of them if/when they pick up injuries or suspensions. Likewise Cerny is a very important player for us, who is his replacement when he leaves? We're short at full back too, another utility type defender would get a decent amount of game time with us. Lastly I feel we're really missing an experienced old head. Our defeat at Man U was a perfect example of that. We should have killed that game after we scored. Players should have been down with cramp breaking up play, forwards pulled into midfield, midfielders into defence, and a strong voice marshalling them all. Players like Arfield and Davis were essential when we won the league, that experience is something every side needs. I'm not sure how many players that is, 3 or 4 at least I'd say.

I’m no Sherlock Holmes but I would deduce the reason we bought no one is were skint penniless without a curdy in the box under the bed .

I'd like to have seen more of Lovelace but he's another that was almost always injured so not that fussy he's gone.

Boys a bit of a rocket so not sure he's the type of boy we want to have about. Don't believe the narrative about wanting to be with family. Boy doesn't know what that means.

26th of foot has again put it brilliantly excellent piece as for politicians the day’s of one setting out to make a change or to make people’s lives better are long gone they are only interested in what’s in it for them that was plain when Mathieson put his children in the line of fire ,

The frustrating thing is - and has been for about a decade - that we cannot adapt to the style of most Scottish team, like JohnMc wrote above. We can talk about transfers and windows all day long, but the managers simply didn't cope with the demands, but used the same tactics with different players time and again. As soon as teams wanted to play football, mostly in Europe (hence the good results), our side clicked admirably. I have little doubt that no matter whom we had signed, would be used in the same way as before, pressed or utilized in a 4-2-3-1 that works only with luck or the odd creative spark or - indeed - penalty. Alas, probably out of necessity 😱, PC used two strikers of late, hence we were able to snatch a few good results. I wait for any further judgement though, as my gut feeling says that we will not deviate much from the system above for some time to come. I don't think we are worlds apart in terms of quality from them, only that they have more and also people capable to take up the responsibility if someone gets injured. Injuries is another serious topic. We lost so many of our important and/or expansive players over the last couple of seasons that it is unreal. And there is hardly anyone able to fill their boots. Currently, it's Cortes and Danilo, but if you go back through the months it was Helander, Ridvan, Danilo, Sterling, Cantwell, Raskin, Jack, Matondo, Roofe etc.. On a similar note, we need a good stock of able Scots or British players. There's a reason why a Tavernier or Lundstram or McCausland, a Brown, Gough, Ferguson or McCall, can go through season after season without much problem. Whereas we seem to have so many fair-weather people that it is unreal. These Britons may not get us to the EL final, but through those soggy nights in Perth or Motherwell. The least is said about the omission of some players from the first team squad for a few months at the start of the season, the better. You would hope that scrapping the B-team wil see more youngsters train and play with the first team squad, that's how those 17+ year old talents are brought into the first teams all over Scotland and Europe. We may look at B-teams later on, but nowadays we should concentrate about harvesting the talent we have. This transfer window fits nicely into the deflating mood about our season so far, alas, the last few games give us a little (sic!) hope of a turning tide.

I get the argument we are not competitive this year so don't really need to bring anyone. But we are looking at doing a hell of a lot of lifting in the summer to get competitive for next season..

The kind of signing we need, young, hungry, wants to be here and great stats. Everyone focuses on certain strikers goal numbers, but we badly need goals from the midfield IMHO. He averages a goal every 4 games, we should be able to give him the platform to improve on those already impressive numbers.

Pre Contract announced. Nice.

I was hoping for his jock strap !!!

According to the Daily Telegraph, City have spent £180.2M. The rest of the Premier League combined have spent £193M.

Possibly because we don't have £600K to offer at the moment?

I doubt this will be this case, he's one of their key players, I'm not sure they're in a position where they can just drop a player out of spite. It is Scottish football though so you could be right

Disappointed we've not added to the squad but also pleased that a few younger players should play an increasing part in the rest of the season. Vital we get likes of Cortes, Danilo and Sterling back contributing as well since they've disappeared again. Injuries remain a huge concern. The summer window now looking like (another) major one for us. Good news is that if Jefte, Raskin and Igamane continue their development then we should have funds at hand. However, turnover likely to be large as we still need to move several on and replace them with better. Not to mention we'll lose Cerny who has been a key part of the squad this season.

Fee and sell on by accounts.

Might have been let go because he had little hope of displacing Cerny, Igomane and/or Dessers, at least in the short term; if that implies a willingness to hold on to those 3 then I'm ok with it.

Right the sales are over time to get them all prepared for a clash of the fallen giants of yesteryear Rangers v Queens Park this Sunday