ascender

That's a deeply impressive list. Souness was one of the finest midfielders we've ever produced and I'd have thought most fair minded Scottish fans would agree on that, regardless of who they support.

TBH Frankie it comes back to the age old issue of the club not standing up for itself and its supporters.

Well, Wright was always touted as being one of the best young keepers in England, but it just never really happened for him, did it? He's failed to make an impact anywhere since stepping up to the Premiership. The story itself makes sense though I guess. Problem is that he wouldn't want to come up here and spend even more time on the bench, but is he any better than McGregor? I don't think McGregor has done anything wrong and we should stick with him if he's going to improve, so maybe we should stick with Robinson as reserve? I don't know much about McDonald to be honest, but he's been getting good reviews this season along with Gow. They're both young, so I think that's a step in the right direction if we can supplement their signing with a couple of more experienced players.

Just blatantly stolen from a couple of online papers.... Apparently WS is keen on Everton's keeper Richard Wright who is available on a free in the summer and will have him watched over the next while in the reserve matches. Scott Brown remains a priority and we're still interested in Scott MacDonald as well.

Unfortunately I think you're right Frankie. I couldn't believe the stories about what some people were being warned about and ejected for doing. The problem is of course, that unless our club speaks out in the strongest terms possible, the general (footballing) public will never be educated and become aware of this, so we'll just come across as being as paranoid as fans of certain other clubs. On this sort of related note, I also think its time that our club came out and backed us over what songs we can sing. Every week, whether its in the newspaper or from other fans, I hear people moaning about the songs we're singing. Now, I could be wrong, but I was on the understanding that our songs, apart from the Billy Boys, were cleared, on the basis that they were folk songs. So wtf does the club put up with the media going on and on about them week in, week out?

No, I don't think he'll play this week either.

Which will probably mean Adam starts as he seems to be one of the only few in the team who can hit the target from a free kick.

Of course, had forgotten about Novo. Maybe him on the left and get him to swap wings with Burke throughout.

Yes, but they were both senior players with a great deal of experience. We're talking about a 22 year old who's just starting out in a poor Gers team. I don't understand the other side of Boyd's game though. How has he survived under 3 managers if he's that lazy?

It'll be interesting to see how the midfield shapes up without Fergie as its been an incredible defensive setup for much of this season. Sebo deserves a start, but if he throws himself in to challenges like he did yesterday, there's no way he'll last the 90. In an ideal world I'd go 4-4-2 with Prso and Sebo/Boyd up front. Centre midfield of Thomson holding with Hemdani pushing on. Burke wide right and Adam left. I don't see the point of putting Rae in as he's just not played enough games and will be off the pace. Its at times like these you start to realise just how thin our squad it.

It shouldn't matter in which games he's scoring goals though, should it? Not in a normal, strong squad, because if he's not scoring, then someone else should be. At the moment how can he be a squad player only when he's the only player we have who regularly scores goals? I think we're all agreeing that he's not a top class player, but at the moment, he's the best we've got. Even PLG found that if you drop him, we struggle to score goals. We've struggled for years to find a player who can score 20+ goals in a season. Now we have one and we're still not happy. Boyd should be the least of our concerns at the moment IMO.

But if it was that easy even clubs in the SPL would have figured it out. There's some not bad, no-nonsense centre halves in Scotland. Besides, the SPL is our bread and butter and we need to get back to winning that first before worrying about Europe. I think its easy to use the OF and European stats to prove a point, but you could also point to our recent poor displays in both of those cases to show that its not exactly just Boyd who has been under-performing.

So how can he be easily nullified if he's still topping the SPL scoring charts? Looking at our strikers just now, at least Boyd scores goals. Prso, Novo and Sebo each have different qualities, but none of them are even close to the finished article, the sort of all round striker you're wanting Boyd to be. Our forward line has been pretty impotent for years and we've often looked clueless in the final third of the pitch. That's a massive problem for us and WS needs to sort it out this summer.

That's true, but I bet if you look around any of the leagues in the world, any club challenging for honours would be a lot more confident about finishing highly if they had someone who could guarantee them 20+ goals a season for starters. The last twice we won the league we had other players weighing in with goals on a regular basis though. Think what the winning margins could have been if you'd added in a Boyd type of player too. I think there's a place in the team for Boyd if you play him right up front as an out and out striker, but its pointless unless you have someone else playing alongside him or behind him with other qualities. PLG didn't rate Boyd, but quickly found out that if you dropped him, we struggled to score goals. I don't remember him changing the formation just to accommodate him though. I've never said Boyd is the be all and end all. I'd love if we had better strikers to select than him, but we don't. That's the bottom line just now. Not one other player in our squad looks capable of scoring regularly in the SPL, let alone the so-called big games in Europe. What can we do just now? Could we afford to sell him? Where would we be in the league if you took his goals out of the equation? I'm guessing it would be much further down than second place.

I don't dispute that, but you both seem to be making out that this is a fairly easy thing to happen and that the reason we haven't done so is because the management team are happy with Boyd. How many years did we have to wait for someone to come along who would regularly score as many goals as Boyd has been doing? Did anyone come close apart from Novo in his first year here? I can't think of many players since McCoist retired who look capable of giving us a guaranteed haul of goals every year. We'd all love for Rangers to unearth a new player who would be better than Boyd on all fronts, but how many years could we wait for that to happen? Do we just sell Boyd and hope we can replace him with someone better? That's a pretty big risk considering what he does bring to the table.

No it doesn't although I think its a bit harsh to criticise his link-up play as he's done OK in my eyes when playing as part of a front two. In games where he's been joined up front by someone like Novo, they have linked and played off each other. The guy needs work & maybe with McCoist on the coaching staff he'll improve. Maybe with better players around him he'll improve. Maybe with a settled formation he'll improve. Who knows. But at the moment, despite lacking all of those qualities, he's still scoring a shed load of goals which have proved vital to us. What's the answer then? If we sell him just now, we don't appear to have anyone who can weigh in with even half the goals he seems to score. Where does that leave us? Part of the problem is that no-one else in the team, midfielders especially, are scoring regularly. Without that, we don't have the luxury of trying a new partnership of players and giving them time to bed in. But even with that time, I don't think we have the players anyway. Prso is on his last legs. Novo isn't composed enough. That leaves Sebo. So why not play Boyd and Sebo up front and actually give them to get a partnership going?

OK, but because we're in the SPL and can't afford big fees, that's a large percentage of the possible replacements ruled out straightaway. No point buying a young player to replace him as Boyd is only 22/23 so he should improve and we shouldn't be expecting him to be the final article anyway. That leaves the option of unearthing someone from the foreign leagues or going the shorter term option of getting a prove goalscorer who is maybe entering his last couple of years in the game. I'm not denying Boyd has major flaws, but given what he does contribute, I can't understand how we can replace him, just like that. Players who can score as many goals as he does aren't going to be available for long and we're not going to be the only interested club. Also, we're all aware that he's playing in a poor Gers side and hasn't had the benefit of a settled formation or even a settled striking partner. Why not wait and get those things sorted first before punting the lad on?

Sell Boyd though and who's going to score the goals?

That was the first time in a very, very long time that we had a forward up front who got stuck in, worked his socks off and actually ruffled a few feathers amongst the opposition centre halves.

Its been like that all season though, particularly where some of the Scottish lads have been concerned. McGregor and Hutton have taken a lot of stick, much of it undeserved. We should be supporting all our players, not constantly knocking them. That's exactly what's confusing me about Hemdani, I don't know if its his unwillingness to get forward or if he's under manager instructions not to go forward, to leave that to Fergie.

I don't think Hemdani's done too badly at centre half when he's been asked to play there. The difference is that Boyd is a striker, but Hemdani is a midfielder being asked to play at centre half in a league where he's just not suited to the task. The decision to play Boyd on his own up front was a very strange one. I'm not sure if it was down to the other striking options being limited or the fact he wanted to play 5 midfielders. I thought most of the team were absolutely terrible last week and while Hemdani drew the plaudits, it wasn't that he was getting great praise, just that he was the best of a bad bunch. I think most of the players got slaughtered in the press and most places did mention that the formation did Boyd no favours at all. Hemdani's goal and his willingness to get forward despite being saddled with a very defensive position was one of the only plus points for us. He also showed yet again that he is a class above many of the other players with his touch and how comfortable he is on the ball. I've said it before, but if he had more of a final product to his game and was being allowed to play in a more free and attacking role, I think he'd be getting talked about as one of the best players in the SPL. I'm giving Walter the benefit of the doubt just now as he's got his work cut out for him. Coming in halfway through a disastrous season I think he's doing well considering what he's inherited. Besides, once the players cross the line, there's only so much he can do. Those players were abysmal on Thursday night and while WS could maybe have changed things around, he didn't exactly have many options on the bench. The main thing for me since WS took over is that he took immediate steps to sort out our defensive problems. These were problems which were obvious to every fan for the last 2 or 3 years, but which two other managers didn't seem that concerned about. That in itself was a massive step in the right direction, but the real test will come in the summer when we'll see what his long term plans are for the club. But that's a whole other discussion.

If we don't spend and bring in 2 or 3 players who are a clear class above who we have at the moment, its going to be another very long and frustrating season for us.

I know he's on his last legs (literally) but why not play him last night in the home leg? Doesn't make any sense to play with one striker. Even Novo struggled to get in to the game last night but after a while he managed to get on the ball a bit more.

I don't remember Klos flapping last night, although I do remember some mix-ups when he appeared to shout for a ball and Ehiogu would go to head it anyway. That sort of thing is always going to happen if you change your keeper midway through a season. I know he has apparently lost interest, but I kind of agree with Gribz, that if we're paying him, why not get the benefit of him playing? He's clearly a world class keeper and if fit, he should play. However, I also think that its now too late to do this as McGregor hasn't done much wrong for a young keeper, so why should he be dropped now? At the end of the day, we'll probably never know what happened with Klos, but I think its a crying shame that he's no longer our number 1 and his career is just going to end on a whimper rather than a bang.

That's what I thought, I fully expected to see him starting.