stewarty

We can now deal with Elite, is the jist of it (I think).

I would separate that mindset of being disappointed with the prospect of Morelos being out with how we deal with playing Ross County. Absolutely we have the players to beat County even without several other first picks. But that doesn't detract from the way we have played in the last 3 games and why many will see the return of Alfy as a way to spark a bit of form.

I think its more disappointment as we really miss him given how integral he is to our preferred style of play. We are undoubtedly a more consistent and better team with him playing.

Bugger. We really need him playing tonight. It will give the crowd a lift, if nothing else.

Goldson for me.

I think the last three games have highlighted the drop in quality should we be missing some of our first picks. Appreciate we need to be realistic but I would be hopeful of someone in midfield and potentially a forward option too. Ideally both who are capable of immediately making an impact.

Aribo caused problems consistently so just edged Borna for me.

The stated goals on the c1872 website are as follows: Make significant, direct financial contributions to the rebuilding of Rangers Football Club through upcoming share issues. Gain more direct influence over decision making at Rangers Football Club through securing a place for Club 1872 on the RIFC Plc board. Maintain/grow our shareholding in Rangers International Football Club Plc. Initiate significant, supporter driven projects (eg. safe standing). As a member I think they have made positive strides towards those goals. Success in these goals moves their board to working closely with the club on a number of levels. Where our goals are the same or similar to the club, this approach works. If they are to move away from those goals to a more campaign or issue based organisation, then I think that would call into question the apparent cosyness of its relationship with the club. I will be interested to see how the various nominees for election to the c1872 board plan to address this as I think we need to remain vigilant and able to hold the club to account, should the need arise.

The prodigal son returns. Welcome back, Sir!

We hadn't forgotten, we were just relieved. I see he has found his level.

Know your place, Timmy! ?

Cheers! Keep up the good work with the blog/twitter, sir. Very much appreciate your efforts to keep the wider support up to date. @elfideldo

Was interesting listening to Craig Mulholland being interviewed by David Edgar at the weekend's Mercedes Cup in Stuttgart. Essentially saying how they are constantly looking to put the youths into situations they find uncomfortable, to challenge them and see how they react. To the point where they did not bring some of their most senior development players to the tournament because they would benefit more from being on loan or training with the first team squad. A number of our squad were therefore 17-18 I believe, although we had one 15 yo (Leon King) and a couple of 16yo's I believe. Not sure what the age limit was for the tournament but the chat was that our squad was one of the youngest and we again reached the semi-finals. Assuming this approach is mirrored within the teams playing in the U-18 league, I wonder what the average age was for each of the games? Another interesting bit of information was that as an academy they targeted having 240 "best v best" games in the last year, but actually had circa 300. This includes the european youth league but also some of the other challenge matches we have held against teams from across Europe particularly. Should be an interesting couple of years ahead to see whether this more strategically structured approach will see more players either establishing themselves in the first team squad or being sold for a decent fee.

How brave of him to make such a statement now that has stepped down.

Dapo Mebude is in Dubai. Rudden doesn't seem to be featuring too much for Plymouth after an initial run of games and a few goals.

Its a special brand of victimhood, paranoia, entitlement and parochialism, with a fair amount of religious and racial intolerance thrown in.

No surprise that their lack of perspective is on full beam. They never seem to appreciate that as the biggest teams, with the largest crowds and the most media coverage, that we both get more than our fair share of decisions in our favour when arguably they could have gone the other way. Referees are always going to be influenced and the best we can hope for is that decisions are based on what the referee or his assistants can see and with the laws of the game fairly applied. Rather than just suck up the fact that they lost a game, they are focusing on the odd decision that they think they should have got. And in some cases, they are probably right. This of course will play very well with their overly-entitled support. Quite why they feel like they are getting a raw deal when they have swept aside all competition for 8 successive years, is anyone's guess. Added to that, they won their most recent trophy with the aid of a refereeing error. After the final, rather than focus on the refereeing error, most Rangers fans were more concerned with our lack of ability to convert chances and to make the most of our dominant performance. Therein lies the difference between the two supports in my view. The other element for me was the clear nervousness of the Celtic support at Hampden. They really didn't fancy it at all and their support was subdued whilst the Bears sang and cheered from well before kick-off. It wasn't until Eduoard came on and they got the goal until they finally sparked into life. Taking a step back, it seems their strategy is clear. Point the finger at the referee, highlight perceived injustices (no matter the imbalance in terms of the number of injustices to each team), ramp up media outrage over non-issues like Morelos' gesture and have lapdogs in the press regularly spout nonsense about all of the above. I sense the biscuit tin Board mentality kicking in again, and all of this is designed to distract the core-mentalists in their support. Personally, I'm loving every minute of it. Lets go!

Can only assume Stewart is injured. Disappointing

Merry Christmas folks xxx

Katic slotted in very well and I thought dove-tailed with Goldson nicely. In terms of headers, I recall him winning them regularly. He had a couple of crunching tackles and he stepped forward on a few occasions to clean up and feed the midfield.

Great to see this finally confirmed. Hopefully we can back him with a few more quid in the January window.

Bittersweet night with the late equaliser. Agree with the comments about the need for some fresh legs. YB were not that great overall, and we never gave them a sniff until we faded in the final third of the game. But we're through and we have yet more evidence that the squad is progressing. Barasic my man of the match, followed by Katic.

The way these loans tend to go, as far as I know, is that the loan fee we pay is dependent on the amount of appearances they make. The more he plays, the less we pay.

There's lots of players from Eck's time that are inour All Time Worst 11's given the financial constraints we were under post-Advocaat, but was there an exciting potential signing that you were in for that we didn't hear about? Was there one that got away?