RANGERRAB

Of the four signings we’ve made so far, Tom Lawrence could be the interesting one for me. Goalscoring MF players are worth their weight in gold. We’ve lost aribo so was vital we replaced him in some way

Just hope we haven’t given Schalke 04 a large percentage sell on clause for Matondo.

He’s only 21. Make no mistake if he does well for us he’s offski

49 minutes ago, buster. said:

Malmö had played 4 league matches (and European qualifiers).

 

A couple of seasons prior to that Midtjylland had played 4 league matches before we put 7 past them.

I think Malmo were a better team than Midtjylland

21 minutes ago, buster. said:

Given the 3 years of successful European qualifiers under Steven Gerrard, we would have trusted in him on our way to Malmö. 

 

The difference, it would seem was that SG didn't appear to think we were as well prepared for the challenge. IIRC, he seemed to suggest he needed more backing for quality players .... (relatively complex matter)

 

Another potential issue is you actually lose out on competitive match preperation when you don't have to play earlier qualifiers.

Malmo were halfway through their league season when we played them. We’d played one just league game. They were more up to speed than we were

From what we saw last night thought Scott Wright looked good…

Hopefully create a few more chances second half. Pretty grim so far

39 minutes ago, CammyF said:

Roofe to be sold? Being touted about for £3M apparently. Like him as a player but injury prone. 

Absolutely no way anyone would pay £3m for him. He’s too injury prone & almost 30

What does Lawrence offer us that Scott Wright doesn’t?

59 minutes ago, CammyF said:

Well we must be in deeper shit than we imagine. Record season ticket sales, merch, EL money (ticket sales, hospitality, TV, UEFA money etc), money from Patterson sale, compensation for SG and his team. 

 

Are you suggesting that if we hadn't gotten to EL Final we'd be turning off the lights? 

 

Worrying if true....

I’m not suggesting that at all but I don’t see us being net spenders in this transfer window. We will buy only if and when we sell. 
this current squad got us to the EL final last season. They must be doing something right 😎

21 minutes ago, CammyF said:

The squad is weaker than it was when the season finished, our only signing is injured. We have no wide right attacking players / options.

 

Going into CL Qualifiers and the league campaign with no quality additions is a recipe for disaster. 

 

3 of our most attack minded players are entering the last year of their contracts and we've no idea of they will extend or if they they'll leave. 

 

If Kent, Aribo and Morelos leave, I'll guess it'll be late in the transfer window and we'll be left scrambling around trying to replace our front-line at the last minute. 

 

Huge couple of weeks ahead and it appears we are not buying before selling - another huge gamble.

I’d suggest our current finances mean we can’t buy before selling

10 minutes ago, CammyF said:

All true but we have CL Qualifiers in what? 3 or 4 weeks? We are currently weaker than we were at end of last season and our only signing is injured. Hardly ideal situation to be in. 

 

We gambled on CL qualification last season going with what we had, we can't afford to do the same this season. 

I don’t accept we’re weaker but as yet we haven’t strengthened as we might have hoped. 

We need to remember we’ve got a new Rangers manager who inherited almost all of this squad.

there will be players he’s inherited he might not want & we may see them moving. 
And there still almost 2 months to go til the window shuts so a lot can still happen

The biggest issue at the moment for me is still Aribo, Kent & Morelos. All have just one year left on their current deals. If they’re not extending then they need to be moved on & replaced at the earliest 

I’m not sure we’d have won 9IAR without Andy Goram. There’s no doubt towards the end Celtic we’re close on our heels and it took some exceptional performances from Andy(particularly at Celtic Park) to get us there. I always think of Andy Goram when our 9IAR is mentioned

1 hour ago, ChelseaBoy said:

The Best in Britain during his heyday. 

He was indeed. Very sad news today. RIP Andy

3 hours ago, craig said:

Actually one game mate.  Had we got, and converted, the two stonewall penalties we were denied against Celtic at Ibrox in March we would have won the league.

 

Completely agree about some of the histrionics in here.  Should we strengthen ?  Yes.  Will we lose the league if we don't ?  Absolutely zero guarantee that happens if we keep this squad together.

 

Some observations with respect to last season and our squad :

 

1.  We were still very close to winning the league (see point above)

2.  Our squad quite possibly were complacent last season - unacceptable, but understandable given the prior season invincible league campaign

3.  Celtic benefitted more than us, by far, with "honest mistake" officiating.

 

Aside from the 2 stonewall penalties that would have won us the league you can count a bunch of times they got a large slice of the "benefit of the doubt"

1.  They scored an offside goal against Hearts to turn 1 point into 3

2.  They scored another offside goal against Hearts that turned 1 point into 3.

3.  They should have had a penalty given against them in the last minute at home to Livingston which would have turned 3 points into 1. 

4.  Then we have the penalty we should have had at Ibrox against Dundee Utd when Sakala was pulled back, that would have turned 1 point into 3

5.  Then we have the draw at Tannadice when we were denied a stonewall penalty for handball which would have turned 1 point into 3

 

These are just off the top of my head and provide a 14 point swing (10 points for points 1 to 5 and 4 points from the OF game at Ibrox).

 

The suggestions that we are way behind them if we go with this squad is quite preposterous IMHO

 

We did ourselves no favours continuing to play a goalkeeper who was costing us points 

As I’ve said previously, I think we’re waiting to see if we get acceptable bids for Aribo,Kent & Morelos before we commit ourselves to major signings  

We have known for some time we’ve got key players about to enter the final year of their contracts. If we sell them we must hope we have indentified replacements for them

Looks to me we’re seeing who goes out the door first before bringing in new faces

6 minutes ago, ian1964 said:

He is our best keeper!. He might start the first league match? I'm not concerned!.

We lost our a league title but it wasn't his fault! or any other individual's fault! every player contributed to that!.

Clutching at straws here I think!.

This is my original point, ageism!.

McGregor conceded  too many goals last season that he should have saved.

Are the SFA happy to have the incompetent SPFL run the professional leagues in Scotland?

if they are then maybe there lies the answer to some of the points Maxwell raises in the article

People are just making things up now 😂

last week it was Botheim, this week it’s Colak. Who’s next?

My guess is, GcB wants to send McCrorie out on loan to assess him for himself.  Either that or he’s trying to offload him & on lookout for another keeper but has signed McGregor as back up

Robby McCrorie has had a few loan spells. Can only presume he hasn’t sufficiently impressed in these loan spells to convince the Rangers management he’s good enough to be first choice at Rangers

The situation we are in at the moment is we have several players entering the final year of their contracts.

These players can be split into 2 groups.

The first group consists of players we may wish to keep longer term & try to get them to extend their contracts. The likes of Aribo, Kent & Morelos are in this group.

The second group consists of players  whom we may not wish to extend their contracts for whatever reason such as constantly being injured. The likes of Helander & Ryan Jack are in this group. These players simply do not play enough games & we may wish to move them on if possible.

Until this situation  becomes clearer I don’t see us making many moves in the transfer market