stewarty

Looking at the first 5 fixtures: Malta - A Lithuania - H Slovakia - A England - A Slovenia - H Slovakia will be hard to break down, and will pose us problems defensively. A resurgent England under Big Sam will also be tough. But to me we need a minimum of 10-11 points from those fixtures if we are to stand a chance of qualification. A good outcome would be four wins and a draw. Suspect we'll be looking at about 8 or 9 though, and we'll be staring through the "glorious failure" looking glass once again.

Yes its noticeable he's tightened up his game and isn't so attacking. That said, he was out of position for the goal conceded on Saturday and was unable to get back to prevent the cross that resulted in the goal. I think this is a weakness teams will look to exploit

Welcome aboard TBT!

I've also lost all faith in Strachan. Seeing the likes of NI, Iceland, Wales and ROI qualify and then perform well (to varying degrees) at the Euros, with squads that don't seem to me to be that much better, if at all, was not pleasant to see. Also, I cannot fathom why he continually refuses to pick McCormack or Rhodes. Based on transfer values alone, two of our best players. Rhodes in particular, we are told, doesn't fit well into our system. This just underlines his belligerence for me - I'd rather he found the best system to suit our strengths rather than dogmatically stick to a system that hasn't worked and sidelines some of our better players.

Jim White/ SSN. Hopefully something official soon. There was also a pic of him leaving Auchenhowie doing the rounds on Twitter.

He's gone back to Geneva for a couple of days, but they've got him a return ticket so seems he's keen on trying to do a deal.

failing a medical seems more plausible than he didn't want to move for family reasons. not sure of his family circumstances, kids etc. But a fair chance they would stay where they are and he would travel to/from somewhere rented/owned locally as and when needed.

Rangers 4 - 0 Motherwell Tavernier FGS

Slightly disappointed at the value of recovery we are looking for. Unless more can be awarded??

Some of the choices might be in part subject to how Dundee will shape up. If they press high and we can hit them on the break then O'Halloran might be preferred to start, with Forrester coming on later. Certainly some nice selection problems to have!

Agree with most team suggestions. key questions for me are: - the centre half pairing and whether Hill's double earns him a start... possibly at the continued expense of Wilson. - forrester v O'Halloran... both showing up reasonably well, though forrester seems to be a better impact sub so that might decide it. - rossiter v halliday - as discussed above... time for rossiter to start in my view

Is Gersnet taking some Sports Direct dime??

Garner's goals to games ratio not that hot, but as we've seen with Waghorn, that doesn't tell the full story.

Rangers 3 - 0 Peterhead Forrester FGS

Agreed. If he missed on CL qualification, bums out of the Europa League and is behind in the Premiership, it'll be interesting to see how long ra hoops faithful keep the faith.

All a bit of fun, but how we can properly assess championship credentials, when the transfer window is still open and we've not seen how teams shape up in the opening fixtures, is beyond me. The justifications for Celtic winning the league comfortably, as was given by the majority of pundits, is that they have the biggest squad/resources and that will therefore win through. That could well turn out to be the case. Bookies don't make a habit of getting these things wrong regularly, but I think it ignores a variety of intangible factors that point to things not being straight forward for our east-end chums. The way that Warburton turned around our squad and style of play would seem to be an anomaly. Typically it takes managers at least a couple of transfer windows to put their stamp on a team and for their tactics and training to take full effect. Whether a manager as high profile as Rodgers will get that long, who knows? All depends on results. Which makes tonight's game all the more intriguing. My guess is that any significant transfer spending will be contingent on Celtic qualifying for the group stages of the UCL. Europa League will be a poor second best and could well mean he needs to take more of a "sell first" approach to generating his own transfer kitty. If that transpires, will he attract the same quality? Will they make an impact? Can he get more out of the numerous fringe players under Deila? Will Warburton strengthen at the back? So many questions that can't be answered yet...

Agreed BD. There's a lot of background noise, mostly hot air, but also valid concerns. Important we don't get bogged down so think this adds weight to my thinking that a review of the working group is needed by the new board.

I attended one of the meetings at the Ibrox suite and my thoughts to Greg Marshall were that we were missing a step in the governance process. My view, similar to RBR's, is that we needed more consultation before voting yay or nay for club1872... I was in favour and still am, and won't be cancelling my subscription, but I do think that more thought needs to be given to the governance of the new organisation. At the end of the day we are putting faith in people who give up their time voluntarily, but nonetheless are in charge of significant sums on behalf of members. With all the sniping and agendas, we're in danger of scaring away the calibre of people needed to help make this the success it hopefully will prove to be. As with any organisation, it takes time and persistence. Mistakes will be made. We need to learn from this episode so my next piece of advice is that the elected board of club1872 (whenever that happens) should carry out a review (ideally independently) of the working group and its work, before enacting its recommendations. The report and findings should be provided to members along with any recommendations deemed necessary to ensure transparent governance as we move forward.

I wouldn't be surprised if he signs for Selkirk at some point, especially if they have a good season. Currently they have Garry O'Connor as Manager, and also Gary Kenneth on the books.

Don't know much about him, but fair do's - looks pacy, good touch and an eye for goal.

Oor Joseph isn't shy of an opinion or two. After all the Stan Collymore nonsense, its a safe bet that these will be fairly regular. Today's is a rocket up Raheem Sterling's erchie... JOEY BARTON has branded Manchester City’s Raheem Sterling a £50million flop who doesn’t merit an England place. The Rangers midfielder launched a typically no-holds barred assessment of the 21-year-old and claimed the former Liverpool kid isn’t technically good enough for professional football. Barton’s brutal verdict on the wide man also included his belief the final ball is so poor that his inclusion in in Roy Hodgson’s starting XI has weakened the national side. “As for Raheem Sterling, he’s been bad for two years now. Sadly, he hasn’t trained well enough. If you take away his speed, he’s really weak and very limited technically. In the final move, he isn’t precise enough or is clumsy. Without his speed, would he be a professional? If he wasn’t this quick, he wouldn’t be able to do this job. And to think he cost £50m. “I’m really perplexed to see him with the England team after his season. With France, Germany, Belgium or Spain, he would never have a spot, but with England, he’s a starter, which means we’re not that strong in attack. “I don’t want to bury him completely, because he’s young. With Pep Guardiola, we’ll see within three weeks, either he pushes him aside from the group because he doesn’t find him good enough technically or he’ll help him to progress. However, I’m not sure you can learn how to take a touch and improve the quality of your ball control at 21.” Read more at http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/rangers-midfielder-joey-barton-brands-8293079#efIV1SSTzhHwDAMh.99

Great to see some of this articulated in a succinct fashion. This will take time to come to fruition but we will hopefully soon see the influence of having a systematic approach from top to bottom. As an aside, I'm really liking these messages. Much better to think through the messages in a clear and concise fashion, than to stick King in front of a camera and then scrutinise each potentially contentious phrase.

Phew, bullet dodged.

These tanks of his are terrible.

Agreed. And it seems the gaffer's thinking is similar. We'll get a good sense of where we are with the first couple of games. By January, we can then look to bring in one or two more depending on how things go.