buster.

Glenn Middleton was born on the first day of the 21st century. Makes me feel an auld git .

Not that surprising.......... New improved defence Same players middle to front (bar Arfield who was subed) Improved when two new arrivals to first team come on.

We are short in gametime and forwards. 2-0 is just about acceptable but still work to do next Tuesday.

First Leg : ....CS Petrocub 1- 1 Osijek.....FT The Croats, Osijek on course for the second round. Notable result FK Qabala (Azerbaijan) 0 - 2 FC Progres Niedercorn

First Leg / HT CS Petrocub 0 - 0 Osijek

Not much cover for Morelos. I'd have been tempted to stick a young forward on the bench insead of Halliday.

Only one other team were as short as us at 1/14 in the EL today, the Slovenians Rudar Velenje (me neither). They have 10 minutes left against Sn Marino minnows, Tre Fiori and lead 6-0. Edit, 84mins, 7 zip Progres just gone into a 0-1 lead at FK Qabala (Azerbaijan)

Since 2000, we've played 22 Home games in the UEFA CUP/Europa League and only lost twice (Auxerre 2004 and PSV 2011) The other 20,..........12 wins and 8 draws Rangers 1 - 0 Kaiserslautern Rangers 1 - 0 Anzhi Rangers 3 - 1 Dinamo Moskva Rangers 0 - 0 PSG Rangers 1 - 1 Feyenoord Rangers 3 - 1 Viktoria Žižkov (AET) Rangers 1 - 0 Marítimo (AET and pens) Rangers 3 - 0 Grazer AK Rangers 0 - 2 Auxerre Rangers 2 - 0 Molde Rangers 2 - 0 Maccabi Haifa Rangers 1 - 0 Partizan Rangers 4 - 0 Hapoel Tel Aviv Rangers 1 - 1 Osasuna Rangers 0 - 0 Panathinaikos Rangers 2 - 0 Werder Bremen Rangers 0 - 0 Sporting CP Rangers 0 - 0 Fiorentina Rangers 1 - 1 Sporting CP Rangers 0 - 1 PSV Rangers 1 - 1 Maribor Rangers 1 - 0 Progrès Niederkorn Rangers20 : 45Shkupi

Contrast that to the actual Final (same 4 competitions 02, 06, 10 and 14) Same 90 minute average goals measure comes in at 1 per Final (2, 1, 0, 0)

A judgement call/decision from the coaching staff is fair enough. Onto the game.........

We'll find out soon enough how prepared we are.

I wouldn't count a closed doors game against the equivalent of non-league opposition and a training game amongst ourselves.

What makes me wonder is we've only played one friendly prior to our first competitive game.

Interested hatred and relatively scant regard to professionalism has helped Scottish fitbaw secure it's niche !

Let's hope we can see the reaction on gameday.

Sometimes I think that Scottish fitbaw is a particular sport that time forgot.

No value at the bookies. Bet365 have us as 1/14 odds on. It's as if they are rating the Macedonians as East Fife, which I'd guess isn't very fair on them.

Third place play-offs have tended to produce goals. The last four have seen an average of 4.25 goals (5, 4, 5, 3)

France (4) and Croatia (1) semi-final starting line-ups featured 5 players from the EPL. England (11) and Belguim (10) featured 21 players who started their respective semi-finals. The extra quality that some of the players from Real Madrid, Barcelona, Athletico Madrid and PSG seems to have made a difference.

It certainly was important (not to win) and England, by 'accident' or design managed to get beat and have the easier route in the competition in front of them. So whilst technically, they had been behind in the scoreline and beaten by Belguim...the pragmatic view has to be they were actually ahead and came out of the game as victors wrt the a 'bigger picture'. As you say, "savvy". -------------- Two Belguim v England matches in a WC and both have a strange feel about them that will feature mucho rotation

Aye, Gazzer in his pomp would have made a big difference. Some of the previous England sides that failed might well have done better than the 2018 team, if they had benefited from the same route to the Final. The better teams in the EPL tend to bring foreign players in to fill that type of role instead of playing and developing younger English players (other than sending them on the loan circuit). The prevailing footballing culture that has seen the UK relatively short on gamechanging numbers 10's could be starting to undergo change but it'll take time to work it's way through.

When it came down to it, England weren't good enough to take advantage of a relatively straightforward route to a WC Final. They have a solid team who are excellent at set-pieces. Their team spirit was also evident. However, they don't have the level of creative abilty middle to front to excite, entertain or take advantage of a golden opportunity. Southgate will stay in the job and if the creative talent develops in the coming seasons, then they'll be a really good team.

Thanks lad's ! An hour is fine if the content is interesting, there are varying views on X and Y and you offer a little bit more than standard Bear chat, eg. the vew on Flanagan from Liverpool fan recently. Conversely, 45 minutes is long if the show is medoicre. ie. concentrate on quality

Spending 2M on an Iranian left-back with a year left on his contract when we curently have three left backs on the books........ I doubt it.