buster.

Did you mean to leave Rangers blank ?

Potentially good for a Tav, pen. We badly miss his energy.

Kamara and Tillman back to positions they prefer. With Wright more balance to team and increases our counter attack threat.

Ajax 2 Rangers 0 Colak

McLaughlin keeps his place Other than that team as above. Not much else he could do really. McLaughlin Tav Goldson Sands Barisic Lundstram Kamara Wright Tillman Kent Colak

B365 odds to win group reflect the difference. Liverpool are hot favourite although on the field, not as hot as last season. Liverpool : 1/3 Napoli & Ajax : 11/2 Rangers : 16/1 (drifted from 14) Plzen are 150/1 Copenhagen 100/1 Zagreb 20/1 (after a win last night)

Morelos still looked way off it during his cameo at the weekend. Needs to improve his condition and get more minutes before he is ready to start at this level. Kent and Wright required to defend when needed. Move the game up the park when possible.

First OF goal in 217 minutes of CL football (senior & youth). Celtic got a combined 0-9 doing yesterday.

With our injury problems and players not at an acceptable level, not much scope for change tonight. MY team McCrorie Tav Goldson Sands Barisic Lundstram Kamara Wright Tillman Kent Colak

Yes and No Definitely under general scrutiny after the weekend but not under threat. Red Bull and Chelsea expected to win last night. We hope we can tonight. Lose tonight then fail to beat the Sheep and real pressure will start to build.

Two losing managers from last night's CL games sacked in the morning. Tuchel at Chelsea Tedesco at Red Bull Any nervous managers going into this evening ?

Missed this He isn't going to change. Best he goes to North Korea.

Well done to Dinamo Zagreb ! A scalp, 3 points and €2.8M in prize money. They have shown that pot 4 teams don't always get rolled over. The other three pot 4 teams got beaten 0-3, 3-0 and 2-0.

After the 0-3 reverse in early Feburary, Bobo Gimp slapped them 1-3 in their midden as well. Up a level, down a level....they seem to get found out. With Hearts going badly, the Scottish co-efficient is not going to have it's best year and automatic qualification for league winners to the CL won't continue for very long. We found out a lot about our team on Saturday from a domestic stand point. Tonight, it is about how we react and if we can put in a concentrated, well-drilled and competent performance, without switching off or making stupid mistakes. We might do that and still get beaten at this level but it is important that we perform well.....then we will see where that takes us.

Early days but good to see both Paterson and Bassey overcome initial problems and start to show some form. We need our exports to do well so as to help make the foundations of our player trading model more solid and attractive to potential customers. I noted the figure that Ajax received in transfer fees this summer window as being £195m.

The club are changing but need to speed up the emphasis on youth. Not easy but necessary. As FFP regulations are gradually introduced, our youth system/pathway has to gradually take over and provide say, half of our starting XI. The full details and ramifications of FFP need to be spelled out (via third parties?) prior to the club communicating with the support on the continuing way forward and the patience that will be required. eg. AGM 2022 We need to be clear that things are changing and resource allocation will be different/challenging.

Update on the same poll. We are now approaching 3 days post OF match and another 362 votes have came in and changed the the percentages to 50/50. That means the majority of the votes coming in after my initial post on the poll hav been in favour of the Gio continuing. Would you replace Gio ? YES : 878 (50%) NO : 877 (50%)

We need to bring through enough quality so as 5 or 6 of the first team regular starters have come through our own youth development. It might take a couple of years but we have to start now.

In the immediadte years prior to 2012 we had Donald Muir (Lloyds rep) placed on the board to assist in controlling our finances, a few months after Sir Duped left the hands on role, (August 2009). Prior to that, we had for many years been spending more than we earned in revenue. Sir Duped would look for other ways of trying to balance outgoings with incoming, whether it be investors or creativity around the tax bill. However, the salient point being generally speaking, we struggled to earn enough money to pay for how the club was run and this goes back a fair way. The support got used to a diet of big money transfers (and their wages) as a balm to soothe the occasional pain. We grew accustomed to the rumour mill being full of speculation around who would be the next name to come. Addiction is too strong a word but many missed it when it stopped. Our operating financial model back then was heavily flawed and not viable in the medium to long term. Walter did what Walter tended to do (win leagues) and Champions League Football/Finance helped us continue on. Three out of 4 years between 07/08 to 10/11, making the CL group stages. We spent to soothe the balm of losing to Kaunas in 2008 (before DMuir), with Walter putting together a team that would win the next two leagues. Then 2011/12 came and our financial chickens came home to roost. Post 2015 was a strategy of constructive losses that were paid for by director/investor soft loans turned into equity. That has finished. The point of the above is to say, we can't go back to how it was. That an eventual 70% limit of revenue (part of new FFP regs.) on spend (transfers, wages, agent fees, etc.) is going to force us (and many others) into a fairly radical rethink. The board have obviously been thinking about this for quite a while and are trying to up revenues and strengthen youth development. The latter being the only realistic way forward, IMO.

Lundstram

I said I didn't think it would happen. On the football side, the obvious possibility is further poor results change that.

Aye, communicate the cold hard reality (without the fine detail) and how we intend to reach stated objectives. Everyone in it together Ps. Civil conversations between you and I make me think there might even be hope for Ukraine/Russia.

Yes, football is an often unpredictable environment. Regards communication of 'changes', I see the AGM/WC break as an opportunity to take if not a completely new direction, a new road in the same general direction. We have to win a 2 horse race in which we are still a way behind financially. On top of which, they happen to have struck relative gold regards new manager/recruitment. Plan 56

The board need to decide on a viable strategy, who they want to be in charge and make a realistic call. Personally, I think the new FFP rules point toward our own version of the Ajax model. Parts of it are (at least partly) already in place, eg. Improvement in youth development, early stages of player trading model, commerce, etc. .... looking to improve .... It won't happen but I would be looking at around the AGM time / WC break to go with it. Ruthless, yes but we won't get to where we want to be, as it stands. Timescales are always difficult and we may have to go a step backwards, to actually get to where we need to.

An important part of this squad have in all seasons bar 55, shown themselves to be unable to keep together a consistent league season. When we got 55, we immediately handed the title back when we should have consolidated our position. They won't be for doing the same and we won't even get close.