der Berliner

I'm getting too old for this!

If you refer to Inspector Barnaby, occasionally yes. We defended reasonably well, lived on their defensive lapses and the quick thinking of Raskin and Cantwell. Butland rather steady so far, Goldson with one of his better games. Cifuentes and Jack looks a bit lost every now and then, but thats probably down to the quick movement of the Dutch. Sima every now and then somewhat awestruck, but what can you say about that goal and the previous work by Dessers. IMHO, we need to press them higher and was about to suggest Lammers instead of Sima for the second half. We shall see.

It's more like questioning what you have done to these so-called "reporters".

Dear me, the squad list on the screen said 4-3-1-2 ... make a cross on the calender, Rousseau!

Dowell on till the end "confirms to me" that he played to get up to his full fitness levels, more than anything. He looks better as a deep playing midfielder to pick some passes. But we need something more Hagi or Cantwell in the attacking department. Tuesday, I'd play Danilo, Sima, and Dessers, Hagi and Cantwell behind them, the rest shall defend.

Hagi so close ... and before that were inventive and aggressive. Hagimania on the horizon!

The PSV coach is sure having mares about the upcoming fixture!

See above, Gonzo beat you to that!

Yes, left winger, your eyesight is spot on in this case. 😱

How much did you pay him? Admin, please check their PM chat-log!

A back-4 with Sterling and Yfeko very much the fullbacks we know from days of old, Stuart Munro springs to mind. every now and then, they get forward, but not much. Lundstram and Cifuentes are the "central" midfielders, Matondo the left winger, no-one on the right, Lammers and Dessers the centre fowards and Dowell sort of roving about like Laudrup, but with little effect. In short, a 4-4-2 with no true right winger, but a AM who moves about. We can easily take off Yefko, go to a true 3 at the back with Sterling, Goldson, and Balogun, and bring on Sima for the right-wing role.

We may very well hammer them 5-0, yet so far, Matondo and Butland aside, the pass marks are hard to find.

No disrespect, but it seems you truly believe this?

Early days, but IMHO, Devine showed up better than Sterling and Yfeko so far. There's nothing from Dowell that suggest he's a starter. And Morton aren't exactly over-stretching themselves.

Truth be told, a few late appearances aside, Dowell is no-where near a creative influence of a Cantwell or indeed Hagi - right now. (I was almost tempted to write: even when looking from the bench). Most creative stuff needs to be done by our front line or even Cifuentes.

His and Roofe's omission today is pretty strange, but Beale probably wants to give his CL conquerors more game time to get up to their best form. Hope to see both before the game's finished.

I read as far as "Gers were desperate ..."

MotM Raskin, hands down. Sometimes you would hope we give these chaps an earlier rest, or might lose them later in the season.

Has anyone got ties to some Caribbean vodoo priest, so we can dig up one of the good BBC Scotland reporters for our games. that bloke there is utterly terrible.

Wicked deflection gave them the opening chance, wonder where our right sided defender was at the time. You wopuld hope that three CMs spot the danger of free players on either flank. Maybe our right sided defender starts defending AND give Borna the next free-kick chance? Danilo will have nightmares about that miss, but probably go on and score 20odd this season. Jack, is he actually on the field? IMHO, Servette are far from the finished article, yet we did not applied enough pressure, no wonder with but 3 attackers though. I'd get Lammers on at HT.

The sort of defensive line-up I expected, only that Raskin and Cifuentes are rather attack minded compared to our "central" midfielders of recent seasons.

Roofe, Davies, Lawrence, Matondo are not included, Lowry and Sakala are gone, Kamara essentially too. I think we can name new players for the group stages, no matter which competition that will be.

Kent was de facto a winger being pushed into a role where he had to score as many goals as a striker. Same on the other side. Else, the 4-3-3 would not have worked against Scottish sides ... and it generally did not. With Cantwell, Lammers, Danilo, Dessers, Sima, and Roofe, we now seem to have attackers who are able to hit the target regularly, with the new guys an upgrade on all we had. Matondo is indeed essentially a straight replacement for Kent as some sort of winger, who is not expected to score with every other strike at target. We wouldn't have assumed that from e.g. Neil McCann either. For the time being, we might be well advised to sit back and watch these guys gel into a team, maybe into "sets of players", which can be used according to the task at hand.

IMHO, as last season showed with Goldosn, we seriously need an upgrade on all our three defensive warhorses, Goldson, Tavernier, and Barisic. Maybe Sterlin is one answer, Ridvan is okay, but we need better than Goldson and Davies, not least in Europe.