ascender

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 it should - look back at players like McCoist and Wallace. Whilst they scored against the 'lesser teams' they also scored in 1-0's or 2-1's regularly. You could DEPEND on them to score the winner in tight games. You had a feeling that no matter how bad we, our they themselves were playing, that they would still score a goal. You just don't get that feeling with Boyd.

 

I am happy that he can score goals, what I am unhappy about is his apparent lack of of effort in games that aren't going our way. I am not happy that even after all this time, he can't control a ball and has no basic footballing skills.

 

Cammy F

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.

He is easily nullified in OF and European games. Experienced defenders know how to cope with him - simply keep him out of the box and its like playing against 10 men.

 

Cammy F

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.

It isn't the fact that he hasn't scored against Craptic nor enough in Europe, it is his alround performances. He just doesn't look like scoring in those games and doesn't do enough for the team.

 

He can not hold the ball up. He is as slow as me. He can't control the ball. He can't bring in players around him. He is cumbersome. He is lazy. He doesn't win enough in the air. He is easily nulified.

 

Cammy F

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.

The team that are currently running away with the SPL don't have a player who is anywhere near Boyd in the scoring charts.

 

The last twice we won the league, we didn't have a player who was anywhere near Boyd in the scoring charts.

 

What we need in a front player is a player who can lead the line, who can hold the ball up, who can bring in players from midfield, who is very mobile, fast, skillfull etc. That just isn't Boyd and I'm sorry, but he hasn't improved all of the above under 3 managers, so I don't think he has that in his locker.

 

Yes, maybe with another striker around him, he would improve, but should a manager adapt his formation around a player who lacks the basic footballing skills?

 

Cammy F

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.

But what me and Cammy are saying is that if you look hard enough you'll find players who we can sign for a small fee who will score for us and generally bring more to the team than Boyd does.

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.

None of that excuses the fact that he is lazy, can't trap a bag of cement, can't get involved in link up play, can't hold the ball up.....

 

Cammy F

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?

Buy a replacement. We need someone who does it in big games (OF and european) and Boyd doesn't even do it in small games against the likes of Falkirk and St Mirren. With him we haven't got much hope.

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.

Good response mate. Still think I have a point re: some players getting away without criticism and others taking an unfair amount.

 

Only grip I have with your post is about Hemdani being given more freedom.

 

I may be wrong, but I beleive it is an unwillingness on his part to cross teh half way line and make forward passes or shoot (2 key goals aside). Which is odd, as when he does come forward, he can be effective.

 

Maybe on weds, with Barry out, Thomson will sit in and we will see if Hemdani is held back by the managers or if it is his style of play.

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.

I thought WS was just saving Prso for last nights game, giving him a wee run out every game to get his match fitness back. Obviously not though!

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

Problem is that WS has come in well through a season and with the transfer window system, that means he can't make wholesale changes until the summer. I would say that we are now at the point where we need serious investment in the playing staff or we won't be turning the corner and challenging Celtic for the league for a good few years.

I thought Klos played very well last night although you could see at times that the defenders didn't want to play it back to him. Is he carrying an injury just now or did he stand no chance with his kicking due to the weather last night? His kicking was never the best, but he always took goal kicks before.

I thought Prso and Sebo showed a decent touch last night which was a nice change from what had gone before.

Is Prso carrying a knock or something? I'm just a bit confused as to why we played Boyd up front on his own again?