JohnMc

I'm surprised at the confidence some are showing. Having watched us this season it's not something I currently share.

It's almost certainly true, I believe him. I mean during his time at their club it was owned by Fergus McCann and then Dermot Desmond and both are known to be subservient to authority and would have shied away from confrontation with referees or the Scottish League. He also played under Tommy Burns and Martin O'Neill and both would have told 'Stubbsy' to put it behind him and concentrate on the match, the ref's decision is final. Plus this is regularly mentioned in the many paranoid Masonic collusion books, talks and films that seem to come out every year. His team mates at the time are forever speaking about it on radio too. Plus it's not like he's an irrelevant walloper struggling to find any kind of gainful employment. Let me be the first to call for the return of all medal and trophies we've won, I can't sleep now knowing about this injustice.

I agree to an extent. It's certainly not the first time I've watched us be humbled in Europe and I doubt it'll be the last. It was our European performances that kept criticism of Gerrard at bay as he tried to figure out how to overhaul Celtic. We could see what he was trying to do. Then, when Celtic changed manager we were ready to take advantage. I've no clue what we were trying to do last night. Other than release Matondo and use his pace on the left wing, something we failed to do with any consistency, I don't know what our game plan was. Our fullbacks were once again forced to defend deep, like they were in the first leg, somehow we failed to anticipate this. Their wide men had the freedom of the park. So when I say I don't know where this leaves us I mean in terms of a playing style and obvious tactics. Yip, if we get a result on Sunday most will forget this match quickly, and I agree the league is this season's priority. But to do both of those we need to play so much better than we did last night. That's my concern.

While it's the defence that will take most of the criticism our midfield and attack were horrific for long periods last night. This season we've lost the art of retaining possession. We just give it up after around 3 passes, it's like watching Rangers from pre-Gerrard days. I remember so well the goal against Benfica when we passed the ball from almost our own goal line, quick, accurate passing to Rangers players who knew where their team mates were and were moving to make the angles and options for the pass. This season that's gone, completely. Our midfield and attack offer no options to our defenders so we either go long where our attack are unable win a ball in the air or hold it up, or we do attempt a pass into midfield and it breaks down. You'll get away with that against Morton or Ross County but not PSV, or Celtic. Dessers continues to look like a guy who someone brings along to your weekly 5s who apparently used to play Junior but these days just talks a good game. With every passing week I miss Morelos more and more. Colak was limited but at least he could score. Cantwell is a shadow of the player of last season, Raskin and Cifuentes looked so far out of their depth last night it was almost cruel, neither an improvement on Davis and Kamara. Unfortunately I find myself wondering if it really was the players at fault, or does the blame lie with the manager. We were out thought and out fought last night. It was crystal clear after 20 minutes we were being overrun in midfield and yet we made no changes. Even at half time, when you expect a response we got the opposite. In the end players carry out the instructions given to them, so you have to question just what they were. PSV deserved their victory, but I don't share this belief they're a Champion's League level side. They'll be cannon fodder and don't be surprised to see them in the Europa after Christmas. We made them look good last night. I'm not sure where this leaves us. If it wasn't for our right back I don't know if we'd ever score, for some reason this side has regressed from May.

That's an interesting observation. I've been surprised at how slow Dessers and Danilo look, Lammers is tall but doesn't look quick either. Sima looks fast, I'll give you that one. Perhaps as they get fitter they'll be quick over the first few yards.

I take it there's no problem with us actually getting to Holland, with this flight disruption?

It can work in terms of increasing his value. If he can play a successful season in English League 1 for example that makes him more sellable for the club, particularly if the feeling is he's not going to make our first team. The same applies with Lowry. If he has a decent season with Hearts, we might still decide to sell him next summer, but he's got more value to us with 30 odd SPFL first team games under his belt. I think we also have a duty of care with young players. It's a short career, if they're not good enough for our first team then this at least allows them to begin building a career elsewhere. Lewis Mayo is a recent example. His loan spells allowed him to gain experience and he's now a regular with Killie. That's a decent standard for a player of his age, if he can keep progressing then a move to a bigger SPFL club or even an English Championship club is a possibility, I'd hope we have a sell-on percentage or similar in place with Kilmarnock.

I'm not sure it makes much difference to TV contracts. I take your point about atmosphere but the TV companies care about viewers, so in some ways no away fans probably suits them. The simple truth is every Rangers/Celtic match is on TV now, so supporters can see it. It's not like my formative days when if you wanted to watch it you had to attend. I feel sorry for the completist Rangers supporter who attends every match, but I can't see any argument for allowing Celtic support the entire Broomloan these days. If they have genuine safety concerns, and I'm not sure they do, then it's police Scotland they want to speak with.

He wasn't a fictional character, William 'Bill The Butcher' Poole was an actual person and a New York gang leader. It was Daniel Day Lewis's image they used from the Scorcese film, but to be fair they'd be hard pushed to find a photo of the real guy, and if they had we'd have spent 5 pages of this thread wondering who the hell was the guy on the UB banner.

I'd never heard of the St Bartholomew's Day massacre until now. Liberté, égalité, fraternité indeed.

Richard Winton is a Dundee Utd fan, he's been a jobbing journo in Scotland for a while. He was deputy at the Herald I think, but then everyone gets that gig eventually.

I don't think he's a fan, is he? I mean I'm sure he wants us to win currently, but I doubt he'd much interest in us prior to this.

William Poole (Bill The Butcher) was of course killed by his actual Irish immigrant adversary in real life and also his fictional one in the Gangs Of New York film. Daniel Day Lewis is of Anglo-Irish background, his grandfather was a Church of Ireland minister who had pretensions to aristocracy apparently. I didn't see the game so I've only seen pictures of the display. It's visually spectacular, there's a ton of work goes into creating something like that, it's really very impressive. I won't pretend to understand ultra culture, I'm too old now. For obvious reasons he wouldn't have been my first choice of character for the banner, but then I don't think it's aimed at me. I'm not sure why they have that Andy Capp type character either. Is that open razors on the banner? Many young men seem drawn top these type of characters, the popularity of Peeky Blinders is another example of the romanticising of violent thuggery society seems to enjoy. The 'nativi' thing the Milan fans use a slightly more political point, regarding 'natives' and immigrants. I'd be pretty uncomfortable if the Union Bears went down that road.

I've seen the goals only, WBD, so have only got what i've heard and read to go by. Thanks for your take on it.

Due to bad work planning I spent all but 6 minutes of last night's match in the car traversing the roads between Buchan and Glasgow with Radio Scotland Sportsound as my company. The pre-match stuff was fine, Steven Thomson, Neil McCan and Tom English weren't the worst, it was balanced and there was a decent interview with a Dutch journalist who gave some insights into PSV. They also interviewed a Rangers podcast guy, maybe This Is Ibrox(?), who was calm and articulate. Tom English threw him a couple of snide questions about fan media and being able to criticise players or the club, but it wasn't anything the guy shouldn't have expected, and frankly something I've thought about too. I then proceeded to listen to Rangers get hammered as wave after wave of PSV attack was launched and Rangers struggled to get possession. Liam McLeod described a game that doesn't seem to match the one my son, some friends and the posters on here watched. Dessers work rate and contribution is being complimented on here, while on the tranny he was isolated and ineffective. Cantwell was lucky to stay on the pitch apparently, something that's perplexed most of the bluenoses I've spoken to this morning. It was the crowd noise that told me we'd scored, the commentary was surprisingly muted at that point, Radio Scotland don't celebrate (Rangers?) goals like those Spanish or Brazilian commentators, that's for sure. Our defence were being overran on the radio, while here they're being complimented as our best players. It's a shame the commentator wasn't a bit more 'even', as the show was definitely trying to be.

In my formative days we'd get an entire end of Parkhead and some of the Main Stand. Those were great days, a right of passage for every match going Rangers supporter. Times change however. The police have more power now (to much I'd say), season tickets dominate now and of course every Old Firm is televised live now. Probably the biggest change though is the two clubs do not get on at board level anymore. Having attended the 3-0 home victory at the end of last season I can't say I missed them, even though we horsed them and it would have been fun to have some captive to mock. I'm comfortable with no away fans while the games are televised. It's not the same as going to the game, but so much has changed about football over the years this just feels like another thing.

It's pure conjecture on my part, I've no inside information or anything. I don't think football can or will continue in it's current form. The financial gulf between a handful of clubs and everyone else is growing. So either the bubble bursts, and there's no sign of that happening, or the structure changes. The changes to the Champion's League coming next season (I think?) are the start of a proper European League, and a sop to the clubs who looked at breaking away to form a Super League a year or so ago. The rich and powerful clubs want change and they usually get what they want in the end. It also wouldn't be a huge surprise if Saudi sides started looking for a bit of international club football. Look what happened in golf, they are wealthy enough to do almost anything. There's a turf war between UEFA and FIFA too. Perhaps a Saudi funded international club competition might get FIFA backing, as long as the right people are looked after. Whatever happens it's not sustainable for us to remain playing in Scotland. On the opening day of the season Celtic played Ross County. County's entire turnover is less than the Celtic manager's annual salary. How can they compete? It simply leads to negative football where clubs play for a draw at best and no one wants to watch that. We're not alone, around 10 leagues in Europe face similar issues and they all have a vote at UEFA and FIFA. A change to the league set up is inevitable I feel, and I think it'll come sooner rather than later.

I know, we were regularly out thought and out played by European sides with smaller budgets than us under Smith's first reign, second time round he takes us to a final with a squad assembled on far less than he had in the 90s. Go figure.

You could argue the first two tiers are always in the Champion's League, but it's arbitrary, Bournemouth and Brentford are operating in a different financial planet from us. Strong, clear leadership is so important for Rangers just now. Change to domestic football is coming I think.

C'mon, slating players is what we do, what would we talk about otherwise, we're Rangers fans after all? There's a harsh reality I think most of us have adjusted too in recent years. That reality is we're now probably a third tier club. That's nothing to do with support, facilities, history or potential, but everything to do with money. Our spell in the Champion's League last season was a reminder of just how far behind the elite clubs we are. Even if we didn't do ourselves justice last season, the reality is our very best players struggle to get into also ran sides in the big leagues. Bassey didn't seem to have the season we all thought he would in Holland, a stronger league than Scotland's but not a top one. Let's see how he gets on at an yoyo club like Fulham. Aribo and Paterson both struggle to make the first team of relatively poor English top flight sides. We can buy players who should be the among the best in the league in their position. But they'll not be top players. There might be exceptions to that, Butland might prove to be one for example, Raskin might push on and have a very good career too, but for us we're either looking for players with potential to improve or journeyman who can do a good job at our level for a few seasons. Danilo, Lammers and Dessers fall into the latter category. Raskin, Cifuentes and Sterling into the former. I think most of us agree Raskin looks like a cracking player and had a good game the other night. But he also needlessly gave away the ball trying to make a very ambitious pass that then almost led to a Servette goal, earning him a bollocking form Tav and Goldson. The days of Gascoigne, Laudrup or De Boer playing for Rangers are long gone, maybe never to return. Doesn't mean we can't enjoy it. Plus, I slated De Boer on more than one occasion!

You're right, if Ridvan had only done those things during his Rangers career we'd all love him. But he hasn't, so, you know.

I'm not sure that is true. Bassey looked competent when he first made the team, I'm not sure any of us thought he'd go stellar on first viewing, but he looked a more than able back up. Bassey was 20 when he broke into our first team with no previous first team experience, Ridvan is 22 now with over 70 first team appearances and 6 international caps. Whatever ability he must have been showing a few seasons ago he's lost it in Glasgow. I'm not writing him off, I'm just arguing that currently Borna is the best left back at the club, Ridvan has demonstrated nothing in his appearances to suggest he should get the jersey ahead of Barasic. Best case scenario for me is we find a Turkish or Saudi team willing to take Ridvan and pay us what we spent on him and we find another young left back to challenge Borna.

Ridvan won't get a look in because he's not very good, or at least hasn't been in the matches he's featured for us. I don't think we are obsessed with 'the edges', of the 4 gilt edge chances last night, one was a move through the middle when Dessers hit the post, the other 3 were all crosses from wide. We have full backs who are good at getting forward and crossing, we were at our best last night when we created the environment where they could do that. As for last season our first goal was Colak from a Tav cross, our 2nd a fluff by their keeper and in the away leg again it was a mistake in their defence that led to our goal. Currently none of our forwards are playing particularly well, maybe that'll click before Tuesday, but I suspect it might take a little longer than that. Forwards not reading runs, misplacing passes and failing to hold up the ball forces us wide, as we keep giving up possesion in the middle.

Barasic's crossing is the best in the league and he showed again last night, with our goal, just how important that can be. Along with his willingness to overlap and attack the final third those are his strengths. As long as we play to those strengths then he's an asset to the club. If he was great defensively then he wouldn't be playing for Rangers, he'd be in Spain or England, the harsh truth is none of our defenders are top class. All have failings, Souttar was at fault for the goal, Goldson had some shaky moments, and half of our support think Tav is past it, apparently. The only way we're going to get a top class defender is if he's at the very beginning of his career or the very end. Personally I'd be happy to keep Barasic. He's the best left back at the club, but if we can bring in a better one I wouldn't shed a tear if he moved on. Ridvan isn't better, no matter how many might wish he was. Robbie Fraser doesn't look like he's going to make it with us.

Beyond a few zoomers on Twitter I've not actually read anyone sane suggest Beale might be the problem. Until this thread. A couple of defeats in pre season friendlies, one to a sports-washing financially doped PR vehicle who'll spend more on a back-up full back than we'll spend on our entire squad and the other to a club we'd expect to be on a similar level to ourselves. The Olympiacos performance was really disappointing and our next match away to a Bundesliga side will be a challenge too. Another defeat wouldn't be a big surprise. But ultimately it's about beating Kilmarnock, then Livi, then Ross County and then Celtic. I guess we'll know more by then.