ascender

Adam has wasted numerous opportunities with us, he only has himself to blame as far as I'm concerned. The lad clearly has talent and can strike a ball, but the basics in his play just haven't improved since he broke in to the first team.

Finally saw the game from the weekend. What on earth was McGregor doing? I've seen it a few times now and still can't figure out what he was trying to do or why he tried to do it.

How many mistakes does he have to make before he's dropped?

Sounds like agent talk to me. Is the guy's contract up? Signing him wouldn't make any sense at all with the current players we have.

At his stage in his management career I'm not sure how walking out on Sunderland this early on will do much for him tbh.

I'd love to see what Davis could do playing in his preferred position in the centre.

It will be good to have Papac & Miller back.

I still think that our forwards are the least of our problems. If we had a half decent midfield providing width and creativity, I'd put money on Boyd and any other striker scoring a barrel-load of goals. We just don't have a target man to play the long-ball game, so I don't know why we resort to it so often.

McGregor made a great save seconds before Hearts 1st goal it was just a pity it bounced out at the feet of a Jagger.

One of my problems with McGregor's keeping is that we seem to lose quite a few goals when the ball bounces out to the opposition in our 6 yard box.

Either our defenders are too slow to react to the second ball, or McGregor needs to work on his technique so that if he palms the ball away instead of catching it, he gets it clear of our box.

The other thing in his defence is that he doesn't have a settled back line in front of him this season.

But having said all of that, I thought it was inexcusable for WS to drop Alexander when he hadn't put a foot wrong. Another inexplicable decision from Walter. McGregor should have been made to wait for his chance and prove he was our number 1.

If Webster was match fit, then I'd love to see him and Bougherra play together, but its looking increasingly like that's not going to happen. I do think its a priority for us to get a settled back four though, preferably with guys playing in the natural positions. We really need to tighten things up at the back.

We seem to be having threads like this every 3-6 months on here now and that's been going on since Eck's reign. Its definitely no knee-jerk reaction to a couple of bad results imo.

Our captain's response.....

GUTTED Rangers skipper Barry Ferguson last night admitted his side must win EVERY game to lift the league crown after a demoralising 2-1 defeat by Hearts at Tynecastle.

 

Walter Smith's men slumped seven points behind leaders Celtic as first-half strikes from Marius Zaliukas and Laryea Kingston sealed a surprise victory for the Jambos.

 

Gers got back into the game thanks to a Christos Karipidis own goal but left empty handed - despite playing against 10 men for the last 15 minutes after Lee Wallace was sent off.

 

The Ibrox club have dropped 10 points on the road this season and Ferguson admitted that's far from championship form.

 

He said: "The results we're getting away from home will notwin us the title. They are not good enough.

 

"We must win every game now.

 

This defeat was hard to take and we lost the game in the first 20 minutes or so. We conceded both goals from set-pieces yet last year we coped well with high balls into the box.We'll need to look at that.

 

"We also didn't create enough. We had plenty of the ball but never put their keeper under pressure.

 

"It's important we pick ourselves up because our aim at the start of every season is to win the title.

 

"People can talk about Celtic being out of Europe and not having distractions but what happens to themis of no concern to me."

 

Ferguson made just his fourth start of the season yesterday after recovering from ankle surgery.

 

The midfielder knows he has yet to hit top form and said: "I'll need another few games. When you do a pre-season you normally need eight games to get right up to speed so the boys are still a few ahead of me."

 

Ibrox gaffer Smith was furious with his defence and hammered home the importance of the remaining three Old Firm games.

 

He said: "We struggled defensively in the first 20 minutes and there appeared to be anxiety with high balls.

 

"We gave away too many fouls and lost goals from setpieces.

 

The inability to defend has plagued us this season.

 

"There's no doubt we had plenty of possession after that but we didn't create enough.

 

"With the consistency Celtic have shown this season it means the pressure has been heaped firmly on us for the remaining Old Firm games. Andwe deserve that."

 

Smith was asked if this result will force him to strengthen the squad but there is unlikely to be money available unless players are moved out.

 

He said: "We just need to keep going. We have a big group of players and they need to handle the situation."

If things do get any worse this season, what's the betting that Smith will step aside or move upstairs and Ally will get the job?

I am sure a good manager could get far more out of the players we have.

Plus getting rid of some would maybe bring in others.

That's a fair point.

The main thing worrying me is that we're still seeing some of the characteristics in the team which saw the beginning of the end for McLeish and also PLG. We're still leaderless on the park, we have no width, no creativity, are struggling to finish sides off, dropping needless points etc etc

How can 3 managers have failed to sort out the basic problems we seem to have?

If we changed the management team now or in the summer, surely the main problem would surely be a lack of funds to rebuild?

WS has strengthened some parts of the squad, but still seems unwilling to try and sort out some of the problems which have now gone unaddressed for 3 or 4 years. Ridiculous really.

I think what's made it more difficult to take this season is that he's had significant money to spend this season and seems to have spent it very unwisely.

On one hand, Lafferty looks poor, even struggling with the basics at times.

On the other, he's not had a run in the team playing in his preferred position, so I think its harsh to get on his case at the moment.

Why are the centre halves playing long balls? They did this last season too, so I'm assuming they're doing it because WS is telling them to? Seems pointless when you don't have a big target man up front.

Of course it wasn't all Fergie's fault, but as our best player, he should be doing more on the pitch for us on a regular basis.

He was totally anonymous today. Very disappointing as today's game is exactly the sort of match we'll never win unless the big-game players step up and influence the match. He's been under par for the majority of his matches he's played for a couple of years now, but what's the answer?

I don't think it will happen but it's not the least plausible scenario I have heard.

My thoughts exactly.

And another thing! What sort of message does it send to our reserves and youngsters when Lee McCulloch gets a game at centre half ahead of them? Especially in a home game against St Mirren ffs.

Actually, thinking about it, why didn't he just move Broadfoot to centre back and put Whittaker on the right?

Excellent post as always. The only other thing that's got me riled up is Smith's love of playing certain players out of position rather than giving other squad players or reserve players a chance to play in their natural position. It was something he's done for years, but I really thought he'd have learned from past mistakes. Obviously not.

As for Ferguson, I'd still like to see him fight to earn his place back in the side. The way Smith handled his return was very poor indeed and I'd liked to have seen Edu given a chance to replace Thomson.

Does anyone else think the lack of width is why we struggle to kill teams off these days?

Disgraceful how they had a minutes applause yesterday, they should never have been given the option for anything but a minutes silence. Even more shocking is how the media seems to have swept it under the carpet today.

Yes. I think WS was right to drop him after the start he had when it looked like he'd a real confidence problem. He gave him a run in the team but it really didn't seem to help him. Alexander came in and did very well but was then, imo, surprisingly dropped for AM who has come back and not looked any better. He's cost us points since he came back through basic errors and our defence is looking much nervier with him behind it, even if you discount his individual errors.

Surely Alexander deserves to come back in?

Its encouraging and I've been surprised by how many people on other forums have given him credit for his last two performances. Could the comments from Burley have something to do with our supporters getting behind him a bit more? Without going over old ground again, there were times last season where he was obviously trying harder on his overall game but many supporters were loathe to give him any credit at all.

Good to see he's knuckling down and putting in a harder shift and still scoring the goals.

This rumour was first posted on FF by someone who said it came "straight from the horse's mouth". Amazing to then see it in the Sun and on the radio the day after. Things must be bad for the lad if we're prepared to let him go after all the time and money we've invested in his recovery. There have been a lot of rumours his career was effectively over, so maybe there's some truth in those after all? Why else would we be letting such a young, promising talent leave?

I don't think putting McGregor back in there has helped things either tbh as he still looks short of confidence to me.

I thought Weir was a liability at one point last season due to his lack of pace and how deep we were having to play as a result, but then he seemed to turn things around and just went from strength to strength.

How has Webster been playing on loan? He's always impressed me when I've seen him play tbh.