ascender

Maybe go for one defensive midfielder instead of two? Have Keane with Cantona instead of Viera maybe? You could easily pick 2 or 3 pretty amazing looking teams out of the list of available players though.

Fulham were very unlucky, but it was pretty impressive to see Man Yoo in the last ten minutes just surging forward in numbers at every opportunity. They can't be far off the title now, if they could win at Anfield then I think they've got it in the bag.

I'm a bit confused, nothing new there though. Is an appeal against a decision the same as putting a case to defend the player? It was reported on TV tonight that they wouldn't appeal but that they were putting a defence together? Does that mean we're ready to appeal against anything more than a 1 match ban rather than the sending-off itself? BTW, remember what happened when Klos came in against Celtic last season after having little to no first team football?

Exactly. So do we want him to play against Hibs and then Osasuna, or just go straight in against the Spanish side?

If we play like we did last night, then why not?

If McGregor did get involved when easily winning a home UEFA cup tie, then he deserves a right rollocking from the management staff today. He's tended not to get involved in the past and got on with the game, so its a strange one. Or maybe he is that stupid after all.

It looks like there will be no appeal by us on behalf of McGregor as there's no clear footage of what happened. I find that hard to believe with all the cameras which must have been there, but as we only have 24 hours to appeal, its not looking likely. So, given that Klos will be in between the sticks for the next UEFA match and depending on the punishment (for a "headbutt" remember) maybe the next two games, should Klos be brought in to the side to play in the SPL now? Or do we go in to the next UEFA tie with him having only played 15 minutes or so of first team football? Without getting carried away, the UEFA cup is now our only chance of a trophy this season.

And still some Jambos think he's the best thing since sliced bread and can't understand why the rest of Scottish football are laughing their tits off over the whole thing.

He might be. To be honest I've not seen enough of him to give an honest verdict, but he's certainly had a good season. Bottom line is that we just need a quality centre forward to play alongside Boyd. Then we need to give the pair of them some time to get used to playing with each other. Boyd is an excellent finisher, but we need someone who can give the team more to compliment him.

Prso's first touch and general play was terrible last night, but to be fair he has been out recently. I thought that Gavin Rae played well apart from a few loose balls which could have put us in trouble. He looked much more comfortable in centre midfield as opposed to out on the wing. Shame his effort from the corner didn't go in as I think a goal would mean a lot to him, especially if he moves on in the summer. Davie Weir has made a big difference at the back, we look so much more solid and I thought Hutton had an excellent game. He finally seems to be improving. Thomson had a quiet but effective game, I hope he can stay fit and get a run in the side now. We still look a bit unbalanced without a proper left winger, but Burke and Novo switching wings will do as a stop-gap. I just hope we can keep the momentum up and build on last night's performance.

It was really refreshing to see us taking our chances against a team for once. Too often we'd have struggled to win that sort of game, so its all encouraging IMO.

It was fantastic to see how they came out the blocks and just went for it from the off. I think there were 9 Scots starting last night as well which was nice to see. It could easily have been double figures if we'd taken all our chances and it was a great atmosphere as well. Some of the defending by Tel Aviv was truly terrible though and they were lucky to get off so lightly. If we can show that level of commitment and team spirit for the rest of the season then getting 2nd place should be a lot easier from here on it.

He scored, but didn't do too much else to be honest. I also thought his first touch was pretty poor tbh, but I still think that given some time and a regular partner up front, he can improve as a player.

How has Sebo been doing in the reserves btw? I agree that he needs to be given a run, but its going to be tough for him no matter when he gets a chance as we're not exactly creating loads of chances at the moment. I'm hoping McCoist's influence starts to show soon.

I only saw the last 20 minutes, but it was amazing to see how accurate, fast and controlled the Milan passing was, even just when they were playing it across their back 4. Didn't really seem to be breaking sweat, but I'm not sure how the rest of the game went. Coverage was awful with McPherson and Walker providing pretty dire commentary over loads and loads of shots of the crowd for some reason.

They were talking about him on The Game podcast and it looks like Bellamy is a bit of a nightmare off the pitch, always has been, always will. Some managers overlook that because of his talent on the pitch, but it looks like he just can't help himself and always steps over the line.

I'd seen this mentioned recently on FF and I have to say I didn't have a clue what it meant, but people liked to refer to it without actually explaining it. Now I've found out and done a bit of reading about it, I don't think bringing it up paints us in a very good light and its kind of a distasteful subject to be scoring points on. Each to their own though.

Players like Boyd will win you the league because they score a lot of goals. As for the rest, you need a balance between workmanlike players and then a few of those really talented & special "big game" players you talk about. I think in terms of their contribution to Gers so far, its unfair to lump Boyd in with those other names though Cammy.

I'm kind of confused by the direction this thread is going. Why is the weight suddenly on Boyd's shoulders only in the so called big games? He's a very young goal scorer who more than pulls his weight over the course of a season. Comparing him to Wallace and McCoist is grossly unfair as they were both extremely experienced players before they hit their respective peaks of form with us. Yes, PLG dropped him, but even he reinstated him as no-one else was scoring regularly. Our problem hasn't been in the "big" games, its been against nearly every other average side in the SPL tbh. We need a big striker to play alongside him - Hateley, Sutton, Hartson mould IMO to get the best out of him. As well as scoring regularly, Boyd could play off them and also pick up scraps in the box. Considering how awfully negative we've been over the last few years, I think its a miracle how many goals Boyd has scored recently. If we subtracted his goals from our league position, surely we'd be in deep trouble? He's certainly the most composed and direct finisher we have, so I think he's invaluable. Since McCoist left we've never replaced him with a natural goalscorer. And while Boyd has a lot to learn, he's incredibly young, so I genuinely don't understand all of the criticism he gets. I know we were spoiled in the 9IAR years with attacking options, but for 5 or 6 years now we've looked like we have no imagination in the final third of the pitch. We also don't have the players to play a high ball game if we need to get back in a game. Until we sort one or both of those situations out, I think we'll continue to struggle.

Miller and Boyd are totally different sorts of strikers though. As for this thing about Boyd not scoring in big games, I don't think its anything strange, its just that we're not good enough to create a lot of chances against better opposition at the moment.

I think there were a few people advocating that last season. That we should take the money and sign someone better....

I've been getting hassle at work about this since last week. I can't believe there's still some fans doing it and I have to say, if we can't self-police ourselves on simple things like this, we can't complain when the authorities come down on us.

I have to admit that I didn't know he was a striker as opposed to a left winger until we started playing him there and suddenly it all made sense.

He'd have been scoring even more if he'd been around in the team years ago. We've had a shocking lack of creativity from our midfield for some time now, so I really hope WS signs one or two attacking midfielders who can actually produce an end result from their play.

Who knows. Maybe the management are telling him to play as a traditional poacher, hang around in the box and let others around him chase lost causes and drop out wide, deep etc. Or maybe he is lazy and managers just put up with that as he'll give them goals in return. I don't know if that's the case though as it'll just lead to other players resenting him and also him getting away with murder. He is young but I'm sure he'll improve with McCoist being at Ibrox now. I really hope we sign a decent striker to play alongside him though. I don't think the guy is fat btw, but him and Adam look like they are carrying a wee bit extra considering they're professional sportsmen. Just around the face in particular. I could be totally wrong, but looking at how they play and the effort they put in, I think they'd be helping themselves massively if they did lose a few more pounds.