buster.

SG&Co Very fitting that pic, the success is very much about the coaching/mgmt. team as a whole.

You have to remember that gabbing the baws of other blokes is viewed as normal at Parkhead.

'Cream' is somewhat subjective but my idea of it is exceptional youth players. If we look at the last 30 years, I'd point to three Barry Ferguson (B), John Fleck and Billy Gilmour. What bigger clubs are doing now is just hoovering up 16 year old talented footballers at cream and cream minus levels. Further down the food chain, we look to hoover up at a lower level BUT as you say it's down to the acquiring club to improve them. Now if we are becoming more professional then good BUT as I said before,...then comes the pressures of consistently winning on managers who are expected to provide a pathway.

Over decades, our hit-rate has been rank awful at improving players of all ages. Generally, our record on injuries has been rank awful as well. I go back to the marked improvement in levels of professionalism that SG&Co brought with them. What went before 2015 was various states of poor to awful that at times was masked by chucking money at problems, ...which in turn eventually came home to bite.

My impression from afar is that we currently have a football operation (including youth development) that has a level of professionalism higher than Rangers have ever had previously. That's currently a big positive and begs questions of the past wrt making the most of what we had. Touch wood, but for an example of a major positive, I look at our injury list over the time SG&Co have been at the club, it's not about luck. Given the pressure to win or win at Rangers, the fabled pathway is a very difficult engineering project, even if the youth development structure is sound. As I previously mentioned, If you lose the projected cream then it gets more difficult. If today's system and financial hierarchy was in place when Barry Ferguson got to his 16th birthday, would he have ever played for us ? Youth Development at Ibrox has been a good news story for a while (the Sinclair departure seems to have been a positive)...but will it produce players for us or are we caught up in a place where the cream go to more resourced clubs and the rest end-up at smaller clubs, where occasionally we end up buying them back ? The only way I see a major change is if we were semi-forced down the road of playing more youngsters because of financial reasons.

A pathway will appear if the youngsters are good enough and the management team of the day are prepared to go down that route....BUT if we consistently lose our best youngsters, the chance of such a route becoming a regular feature is remote. We are putting a lot of effort and investment into our youth development but we need to see a return. If not, we may as well spend the money on poaching other teams youngsters.

Thank´s elfideldo !! With Leon King looking likely to follow the Billy Gilmour route, the problem seems to be the ability level that stands out, does so to other more resourced clubs in more attractive leagues...and therefore we don´t get the cream of our own crop to tread a pathway into the first team.

Clancy being elevated to OF match level is a disturbing reflection on the state of refereeing in Scotland. He is plainly not able to handle big games with any authority and composure. He has the look of a nervous wreck who has been cast in the wrong movie.

Scottish fitbaw is about to get wild #chaos ...

We´ve been actively attempting to go in the ´professional modern football operation´(PMFO) since 2015. However, there were teething problems mainly down to levels of investment (which have cumulated over time) and the standard of professional employed (on and off park). What happened in 2018 was a recognition that trying to go down the PMFO route wasn´t working if we didn´t have first class professionals in charge who also knew what it was to work at a big club. Given finances and that we play in the SPFL, it had to be a gamble with someone making their way in management or in fact, just beginning. We rolled the dice in a calculated manner, upping levels of professionalism throughout the football operation and we are seeing the benefits. That said, the gamble is still in-play until we win the League.

I´ll be glad when the games start again.....

Agreed ! I strongly opine that we should keep a hold of Ross McCrorie and can eventually see him being a solid Rangers and Scotland captain. He needs to work hard at his game and desperately needs regular first team football. The other thing is that SG&Co won´t be here forever but Ross is the kind of lad who could end up staying with us his whole career.

Tic tacs and an inspired, tight group that understands & implements instructions are what has us challenging home and abroad. Happy Days !! Will be happier if we can close the deal.....

I don´t doubt Ross Wilson is a good professional but he isn´t a magician or a Mafia boss who can offer deals that are impossible to refuse.

I´d remind the Scottish media that only a month or so back, Christie was sent off at Livingston for violent conduct and booked last week for diving. He´s now grabbing players by the haw maws. When do we see the appropriate narrative to all Ryan Christie coverage as per we have seen with Alfredo Morelos ?

I think the fact that the Arsenal scouts have attended so many games of our games indicates serious interest in at least one player. Memo to Arteta: If interested, come back in the summer. Given recent circumstances at Arsenal and our collective performances in those six games, I wonder if those scouts who attended secretly think they should have tried to appoint SG&Co at the Emirates.

If Morelos and Kent were to be cited it kind of looks,...well you know how it would look. Cynical but for good reason

That all depends on how you go about your transfer business (exhibit 1: Glen Kamara). We need a centre forward badly and given circumstances, I'm sure something will be done. The other thing to bear in mind is the collective, positive, fighting spirit that most within our present squad have. Any incoming players should be the type who are a good fit in this sense.

It appears like another layer of costly, imperfect decision-making that ultimately depends on a human interpretation, which in effect leaves us with age old questions. I'd stay clear until it appears to be functioning well.

Reminds me of the Walter Smith celebration after Edu got that last minute winner... A gentleman in his mid-sixties leaping into the air in a CR7 pose

In your terms that is "stating the bloody obvious". The main point I was making was that despite their squad depth advantage and significant wage bill difference that represents it, Celtic haven't been able to come up with tactical answers to the way we approach OF games. They had 3 weeks after the final and an hour of the game at the weekend before they attempted to change it. For me it is a significant weakness between the two teams but as @DMAA points out, we depend more on keeping vital players fit because we tend to suffer otherwise. SG has remarked on an improvement on lost games down to injury this season and we could do with that continuing BUT also 2 or 3 players this window to help in specific positions, eg. centre-forward and unless Halliday is deemed good enough, left-back.

Generally, stating the bleeding obvious would be a significant improvement for a Scottish fitbaw hack. If stating the bleeding obvious wasn´t allowed in football, you might as well close down the whole circus that follows it around, including forums like this. It´s a decent article but IMO doesn´t touch on a point that I would regard as important as we head into 2020. It is that when asked a question tactically, the current Celtic management are relatively poor. In part, I think that the protected status of their first team manager within the Scottish media means that such criticism would only be pushed as a last resort. Tom is a man for stats, comparing the wage bills then looking at performance would be a useful base from which to analyse why things are going in the direction they are. Back in August, I thought we missed a golden opportunity to put pressure on a Celtic team managed by Lennon but we have stuck at it, improved our consistency of result and have now taken a second opportunity that we earned the right to have. I guess it´s stating the bleeding obvious but it´s now we have to kick-on and continue to stack up results, or in other words exert pressure and then see what happens. Ironic that Under Pressure was a Queen song...

SG knows all about being a huge component part of a massive club, it´s been a feature of his stellar career in football. He knew about the importance of putting together a coaching team that together were capable of moulding players into a way of playing that brought a synergy of sorts. You also get the impression that he himself can inspire players and install belief. When most were talking of managerial inexperience in the summer of 2018, Dave King saw exactly the right type of experience in SG to take on the Rangers job and he was very right. A successful football club, as well as a team, needs a solid spine from the boardroom to the football operation, management & coaching staff to the team on the park. We now have a good structure but still need to close the deal regards success.

IMO we badly need another centre forward brought in next month, even if it is a six month loan.

I´m tempted to go Kent, he got through a power of work to add to a sublime finish for his goal. The Croatian contribution was immense, that Aribo control was a thing of beauty, the McGregor penalty save was vital, Goldson did his job and what about that pass !!!