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Gersnet wouldn't be Gersnet without an alcohol fuelled a Gribz ramble 😄 I mean it has to be Laudrup.

Favourite? Josh Windass. Absolute best player ever? Josh Windass.

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.

Albertz for me too, although I think Big Dado would have been a fair shout had we got him a lot younger. Guy was a warrior.

Tend to agree with this. Cant see him breaking into this team and adding value, but obviously hope that he can. Haven't been overly impressed with his performances against us this season, but all the very best to the young man.

Think about the publican who before the game offered a free pint for every goal they scored

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 ,

Sugar Ray Robinson at Ibrox

Favourite player - Davie Cooper Favourite 11 - based on who I've seen play. Woods Stevens Gough Butcher Numan Cooper Gazza Durrant Laudrup McCoist Hateley Missed so many players out of that 11 but it's not a bad team 😀

Is that definite he goes back to Wolfsburg? As John Mac says below it's not easy to replace that level of quality.

Lyall Cameron has a more than decent goal scoring record for a MF player. If he continues that at Rangers he’ll be near or thereabouts in the starting XI

For me both. I accept that the latter is up for debate whereas the former is not.

Surprised no Davie Cooper mentions.

One of the worst must be that dumpling Mervan Celik what a walloper

Await Cammy reply

For his length of service and adaptability Sandy Jardine .

Barron is injured, probably until end of March.

Different. We'd need to pay a development fee similar to Barron.

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 .

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 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..

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.

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.

A bunch who could play a bit of football .

Had the misfortune to hear Richard Gordon and even Neil 'Two Hats' McCann* downplay last night's fine win on BBC Sportsound last night. Isn't it amazing how many poor teams we've played in the last five years in Europe? Just good luck it seems delivering this ranking for Scottish football (H/T https://x.com/swissfootdata) Triple click the image to see it full size. * I've noticed quite often that Neil wears a very different BBC Shortbread hat compared to his RTV one. He is a decent pundit IMO and I'd much rather such people were objective but there's a difference between rightly calling Nice awful (let's face it they were) and not also really giving us the credit for what was a performance full of hard work and physical strength.