barca72

I'm sure we'll remember his contributions on the park a year from now.

Thompson had no problem listening to and acting upon the fans' opinion four years ago. What's wrong this time?

I agree with him about Jig. Maybe he lingered a year too long, but he did put in some really good shifts. Once a bear, always a bear.

From Ibrox Loyal Fb page. Well done Mark Warburton. ... Mark Warburton Gifts Title Winners Medal to Young Fan Mark Warburton gifted his league winners’ medal to a young Rangers fan who is fighting Non Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. Lee Welsh is an 11-year-old diehard fan of the club who is currently halfway through his treatment plan to fight the illness. He’s looking to raise money to help his cause and has grown close to the club as part of that, joining Warburton and his team as they trained last month and even took part in one of the manager’s press conferences. Several Rangers players have shown their support for Lee via social media and he also walked the team out ahead of their clash with Alloa this afternoon. And after joining in their post-match celebrations as they got their hands on the Championship trophy, Welsh was also gifted the manager’s league-winning medal: It’s an amazing gesture from Warburton – and one he’s quite rightly getting praise for from supporters of the club: Rangers were unable to mark their title party with a victory as they were held to a 1-1 draw by a stuffy Alloa side. But that hasn’t soured the celebrations, with 50,000 supporters hailing their manager and team.

They have to give them the business to help pay for the mega-bust that was Scott Allen.

Under normal circumstances I might agree with you, but all weekend people have been saying that Sunday's game was a real step forward, a statement of intent, a confluence of four years of hurt and a supreme effort to show that there was no gap. The team did all of that. Even under Walter, his teams were prone to having a let down after a great effort in Europe or in the league or cups. I really don't think this is anything to worry about. For example, I thought Halliday was a shadow of himself tonight compared to what he was on Sunday. There again I thought I detected quite a few times that he was still trying to get Broony out of his back pocket. Relax, apart from Crooks and Windass I think we will see another four players coming in for next season. The players are only human, well paid but human.

I don't entirely agree with that. I think quality and value will always enhance hard work.

That was a great wee vid. I put it up on the big screen in the bar in the basement during happy hour. I think we may have a couple of converts - a Portuguese and a Venezualan. Bluenoses are born, affiliates just take a wee while longer.

We give a f*ck? There's a magic hat at play here !!

He'll be back just as quick as he can to stick the boot into us again. He knows today is not the day.

http://www.celticfc.net/news/10358 Manager's disappointment as Hoops exit Scottish Cup By: Mark Henderson on 17 Apr, 2016 15:58 A DISAPPOINTED Ronny Deila admitted Celtic produced a below-par performance in today’s Scottish Cup semi-final defeat to Rangers at Hampden as their double dream was extinguished. The Hoops failed to find their normal rhythm in the first half and they trailed to Kenny Miller’s opener at the interval, though they did miss some golden chances, most notably when Patrick Roberts missed an open goal. However, the Bhoys burst from the blocks at the start of the second half and deservedly levelled the match through Erik Sviatchenko’s thumping header. With both sides locked at one apiece after the 90 minutes, the game went into extra time and Barrie McKay struck first for the Ibrox side when his long-range shot found the top corner. Again, Celtic mustered a response as substitute as Tom Rogic fired home from Kieran Tierney’s cutback, and only the width of the crossbar prevented Leigh Griffiths from grabbing a dramatic winner with seconds remaining when his fabulous free-kick had beaten Wes Foderingham. That was to prove costly as Rangers prevailed in the lottery of penalty kicks 5-4, with Rogic missing the decisive kick in sudden death. Speaking after the match, the manager said: “It was a rollercoaster of a football game. It was up and down and, in the end, it was very down. “I’m very disappointed to lose the game and I’m not very satisfied at the performance either. We have to look at ourselves. We could have been better. “In the first half we didn’t press well enough and weren’t intense enough. We could have intercepted more balls and we needed to be much quicker and calmer on the ball to play our game. “The positives are that we came back twice and created some chances but, overall, this wasn’t the best day we have had. It was quite an even game and we had our chances but we have more to offer than we did today.” “The first half was the most disappointing thing for us, that we didn’t start sharper and more aggressive, because we knew we wanted to go high on them and intercept balls in the middle of the pitch," he continued. "We did that better in the second half and they didn’t create a lot of chances. They had an unbelievable shot to go 2-1 up but apart from that I don’t think they had a chance at all. "You have to keep the ball better in those periods so you need to defend less. We knew what was coming but we didn’t execute the match-plan well enough. Overall, it’s my responsibility.” Once the post-mortem of today’s defeat has been completed, Celtic will turn their attention to clinching a fifth successive championship. With five games remaining in the campaign, they lead second-placed Aberdeen by eight points. “We have to lift ourselves after this disappointment and get the league over the line,” said the Hoops boss. “There are five games left in the season and getting through those is the most important thing to win the league.”

How many new players have they targetted to close the gap, did Ronnie say?

Depends on the tint of your spectacles.

Today was the greatest spectacle watched by Rangers' fans in four years,

http://www.<No links to this website>/news/scottish-news/mission-accomplished-rangers-fan-reunites-7763628 Mission accomplished: Rangers fan reunites fellow supporter with ticket for Celtic clash after desperate hunt A MAN's desperate mission to reunite a fellow Rangers fan with his missing ticket for Sunday's match against Celtic has had a happy ending, thanks to help from The Daily Record. David McLaren, from Thornliebank in Glasgow, was left shocked after receiving one of the gold-dust briefs for the Scottish Cup semi-final although he had never ordered one, so he set out to right a wrong and make sure the "deserving" person took their seat at Hampden. But, despite knowing the ticket belonged to a supporter named Brian Cassells and trawling through social media to locate him, his hunt proved unsuccessful - until it was reported on the Daily Record online. Explaining the bizarre situation, David said: "I went on to Facebook to try and find Brian, and there was a few men of with the name out there, who I messaged, but got no response, until the article appeared online. "As soon as it was pushed out, people saw I was taking this seriously and it started to get a lot of attention, which led to me finally making contact with Brian himself. "I asked for his membership number and how much he had paid. He gave the correct amount, to the penny, and his club number was one digit out different to mine, so we solved the mystery of how it came through to me and I was delighted." But, there was another twist to come, when Brian said that he is currently holidaying in Florida, and it was actually his brother, Gary, who would be going along to the all-important fixture. Not to be beaten, David was determined to make sure Gary got what he had paid for, and managed to finally meet with him to deliver the much-talked about ticket. "I'm so pleased that I got the outcome I was hoping for," he said. "My son is disappointed, though, as he thought he might be able to use it if we didn't find the right person, and I myself don't have a ticket, but I'm delighted, I really am." Gary, who is counting his lucky stars, told how he was, at first, oblivious to the drama, saying: "We were really surprised. "I was going to be picking up the ticket from my brother's house, so we only found out about all this when I started hundreds of messages saying someone was looking for him. It has been mad." And the Balarnock resident added that he has been bowled over by David's honesty - because not every fan would have been so kind. He said: "A lot of people out there would have put that ticket in their pocket and used it themselves, because it's such a big game. David couldn't have been nicer and we can't thank him enough."

Gary Caldwell, I think.

This game will be won in midfield and we are restricted in our options.. We need tackling and distribution. We are light in our options with Shiels, Law and Zalelem ruled out as starters as being too lightweight. I would expect them to start Lustig and Kierney as full backs and Brown, Bitton and Commons in midfield. The full backs give them pace on the overlap and Brown and Bitton give them hard tackling and distribution in midfield. Commons provides the guile and the diving. A lot of the time where we have conceded goals this season our full backs have been on the overlap and Kiernan and Wilson are pulled out of position to cover. We can't have that with Griffiths and Roberts around. I would start Ball at right back, and keep him back with the CBs, with Tavernier in midfield. This alone would give us more solid tackling in midfield, and push going forward. Clark with Tavernier on the right would keep Sviatchenko and Tierney honest while Miller, McKay and Wallace keep Boyata and Lustig occupied. Halliday and Holt will have to cover a lot of ground before giving way to Shiels and Law. Waghorn (hopefully) on for the last bit for Miller.

Back to the drawing board, then.

I went by this article on the Rangers site. Whether this has been extended, I'm not sure. ... http://rangers.co.uk/news/headlines/hardie-heads-raith/ Hardie Heads To Raith Wednesday, 17 February 2016, 17:00 by Nick Thomson RANGERS have agreed to loan Ryan Hardie to Raith Rovers on a short-term emergency loan deal. The 18 year-old has made 10 appearances for the Light Blues over the last two seasons, scoring twice. He last featured in the 5-1 win against Cowdenbeath in the Scottish Cup in January, and he also made the bench for last night’s Cup replay win at Kilmarnock. His two strikes for Rangers came in a 3-1 victory at Dumbarton last April. Ryan’s loan will last for 28 days starting on Saturday and everyone at Rangers wishes him all the best for his spell in Kirkcaldy.

I would play Hardie, or even Walsh, for the first hour or so and tire out their poor defence. Waggy coming in for the last part of the game would probably be too much for them. Clark is a willing runner but how often does he run at and beat defenders?

Murdo, you can go f*ck a duck, son. You think we are ever going to forget what you did to us? The fear you feel right now is only the start of the rise of the latent resentment that's headed your way.

The discussion is growing in various sports where there is some kind of violent contact to the head. ... http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2015/09/02/why-heading-the-ball-in-soccer-is-so-wrongheaded-cohn.html http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/29/sports/hockey/nhl-emails-link-concussions-fighting-bettman.html?_r=0 http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/249912.php There may not be absolutely conclusive proof at the moment but it has to come. Some of these court cases pending will give the definitive breakthrough to a causal link.

If we just think of him as a playing legend, I think we could manage to be magnanimous as a support towards him. We're going up and all bears are welcome.

Don't worry about it bud, just explain that they are all plastic paddies. Even Ireland doesn't want them.