BlackSocksRedTops

1 minute ago, Rousseau said:

Yes. You can make as many changes as you want until the kick-off deadline. 

 

I had Danilo too. 

Every day is a school day...🤣🤣🤣

1 minute ago, ian1964 said:

Aye, just edit your post

Cool. Got Jim Denny as my first scorer now...

2 minutes ago, Graeme Ro55 said:

It is a bit of a surprise team selection, a few Bluenoses will have to ammend their FGS in the prediction thread. But we all want a Gers win.

                                                                                   C'mon The Gers   

Can we amend? I had Danilo...

3 minutes ago, ian1964 said:

First good look at him, so I am looking forward to see what he has.

He looks like an impressive specimen. Built like a tank. 

On that front, does anyone else think Tav dip in form and pace has coincided with him bulking up. He looks larger than he did before in terms of muscle. 

2 minutes ago, Graeme Ro55 said:

Sterling & Yfeko are not our usual bombing forward full backs and the three midfielders are more defensive than Cantwell.

Let's see how the game unfolds. I genuinely feel that much of the issues we are facing are merely compounded by the minute by minute microscopic analysis of everything before, during and after games. Fans need to calm down (including me!!) and see how the team gets on today. I think I've listened to 7 different podcasts this week about Servette/Morton/PSV and its information overload. I didn't do this before!! 🤨

2 minutes ago, Bill said:

It's ridiculous that Hagi and Roofe can't get a start. The defence is fine but up front it just looks weak. We'll see.

Win the game early to allow for a good rotation of the players that need games. 

16 hours ago, Bluedell said:

 

 

Parkhead is a total shithole IMO. Went there during the Opening Ceremony of the 2014 Commonwealth Games and was shocked at how shabby it was. Celtic would be doing Rangers fans a favour by not making tickets available. Play hard ball Rangers. They are just used to getting their own way with everything.

2 minutes ago, Graeme Ro55 said:

Not the team I'd have picked. A bit defence oriented for a Morton game imo. 🤔

How is that defensive? See this as Lundstram as holding DM and then moving back to be part of a three. Everyone else attacking.

Rangers 4 Morton 0

FGS Matondo

14 minutes ago, ian1964 said:

 

Whit? Do you register a squad of 90 players? 

18 minutes ago, compo said:

I think Hagi and the manager have had a fall out .

Hagi seems to have become 3 times the player during his time off through injury. 

1 minute ago, Malangsob said:

I like that.

 

Perhaps swap Sterling for Souttar?

 

Big John is pretty good at getting forward/delivery.

 

But yeah, that rocks. 

 

 

 

 

That's why I put Souttar in the middle. Not seen much of Sterling but Souttar is strong at moving the ball out of the back IMO.

As this new season has slowly progressed, much has been made of this current squad of players and what formation we should be playing to ensure we get the best out of them. Despite the influx of new blood, much of the debate has unsurprisingly focused on two senior members of the squad, Tavernier and Barasic, due to their Jekyll and Hyde starts to the season. Further questions about our narrow shape and lack of width have have also been reinforced by Tuesdays events in Geneva. This has got me thinking of how to get the best qualities of Tav and Borna working to our advantage whilst ensuring that we are providing cover for our central defenders. It seems Beale is curious about the possibilities of a playing a back 3 as he has utilised a deep lying midfielder dropping in there on occasions. He has also further teased this idea with Sterling's recent cameos appearances against Livingston and Servette.

Does anyone see this as a long term concern? I could see this working for games against Celtic and games in Europe. On the graphic attached players could be swapped like for like (Roofe for Dessers, Ridvan for Borna etc.) IMO it provides cover for our back line and would ask less of Tav and Borna during games. Both are at the stage of their career where they cannot do both jobs to a good enough level. A 3 also gives Souttar more licence to step forward and use the ball. I know they are on a different level but look at what Stones does for Man City. It also allow us to play a higher press which (I feel we will have to do against PSV and Celtic). Thoughts?

1 minute ago, Gonzo79 said:

The first leg was in Athens last week but got cancelled when the AEK fan was killed, hence the game in Athens now being played this weekend. 

Cheers Gonzo. I did think it was strange that a CL game was on a weekend. 

1 hour ago, Gonzo79 said:

I'm a wee bit surprised Dinamo Zagreb haven't been kicked out of Europe after their fans travelled to Athens and killed an AEK fan last week (they did this despite a ban on away fans).  

Was the game not in Zagreb? 

Not too many wholesale changes for me. We need this team playing together as much as possible. Start strong and then make the relevant changes when the game is done.

4 minutes ago, Sutton_blows_goats said:

Brugges have Ronny Diela as manager so will probably be ragdolled by any decent opposition. 

 

I'm torn on this thing, I am not sure we have the squad to play in something like this and challenge domestically. if its an additional 6 games for example on top of Europe (if we need to go through qualifiers again) it will stretch us.

 

But on the other hand the money and exposure will be good.

I am also torn. With regards to potential money earned, I've seen 25 million mention. Is that overall prize money for the tournament or what we could potentially earn? I'll email Gianni Infantino...

1 minute ago, weebluedevil said:

Indeed. Moreover, it depends on what competition they will play in. 

 

Club Bruges: Over-performed massively in Europe last year - came 2nd in CL groups with 11 points, but came undone in round of 16.  This year they are playing to qualify for the Europe Conf. Groups already 5-1 up from first leg. They could go quite deep in that competition, our biggest threat. 

 

Dinamo Zagreb: Like us, in the CL qualifiers. They are 2-1 up from 1st leg (home) against AEK Athens. We should probably hope they make it to the CL, where points will be tougher to come by. They played in CL last season and took a gallant 4 points though, but came last. No EL fall-back. 

 

Shakhtar Donetsk: As winners of the UPL, they were straight into the CL groups. They managed 6 points in the CL group stage last season and dropped to the EL where they failed at round of 16. A big threat, if they again do well in the CL and drop to the EL, but they are also the furthest behind on current points. 

Just a wee correction WBD. Zagreb actually lost their 2-1 in the first leg at home so might struggle to qualify.

5 minutes ago, Thinker said:

Only very marginally less - the convoluted points system is explained here:

 

https://kassiesa.net/uefa/calc.html

 

The chances are they'll score higher than they would if they were in the Europa. I'd be surprised if they didn't progress through at least a couple of rounds of the knockout stages.

 

So the buggers have probably the best chance of any team of catching us.

Cheers Thinker. I thought it was it something like this. With regards to Dinamo Zagreb, they lost 2-1 at home in the 1st league of their CL qualifier and randomly play the 2nd leg in Greece on Saturday. 

32 minutes ago, Gonzo79 said:

Whether they catch up with us may well depend upon what competition we end up in.  

Brugge are in the Conference League so I'm not sure if you get less points for that?

Just another wee side note regarding the progress of our new signings. It's clear to see Dessers/Danilo are not up to speed yet and I've seen some mention of how they compare to Celtics Japanese signings a few seasons ago. It's worth noting that Kyogo came to Celtic in the middle of a J League season so was already in tip top condition. Hatate came in at the end of a J League season so once again was fully up to speed. From our point of view, you can already see Cifuentes is relatively up to speed as he has came in the middle of a MSL season. 

Just a wee side note from our European adventures. It was mentioned recently that we may be eligible for an extended version of the World Club Cup due to our recent European exploits. I recall that our participation was dependent on certain conditions ie. How we fared in Europe this year. Does anyone know the full details of this and what we need to achieve to take part?

OK. Who's gonna start a Morton League Cup thread? The potential line ups should be interesting...

24 minutes ago, 26th of foot said:

"Rangers have got themselves a little more time in the Champions League".

 

Above are the last words uttered by the host, Jonathon Sutherland of last evening's Sportscene production of Rangers second leg away to Servette in their Champions League qualifier. We know PQ positivity about all things Rangers is as common as rocking horse manure but, the Shetland islander Dandy was trying too hard. Immediately after the final whistle as fellow Dandy, Rob MacLean blowing inane platitudes as Rangers players and Rangers supporters celebrated in the background; the production cut back to the PQ studio and, jonnersinho(honestly his Instagram username) spoke over a prepared graphic. He said and, it read : Sturm Graz 1 PSV 3(2-7 on aggregate). 

 

Both Alan Hutton and Neil McCann sat on the sofa across from wee Jonners and looked askance as the Rangers happy mood balloon was deliberately deflated. The Producer of Sportscene is Eamonn Donohoe and with ra Sellik  not talking to PQ because of fellow Irishman, Tom English talking the truth about another Irishman, Brendan Rodgers, it is most important the streamers and party hats remain boxed reference Rangers success. PQ continually claim to support all Scottish clubs in European action but, are desperate to distance themselves from any attachment or association with the wrong type of Scots ie Rangers.

 

There are Scots positives that were not mentioned last night. The national coefficient has been improved again and defeating Swiss opposition in the tie means we have stymied the country directly behind Scotland in their attempts to take our current ninth position. The Celtic state of mind is all that matters at PQ, assuaging Peter is uppermost. Even that graphic, a national broadcaster prepared to support all Scots clubs in Europe might have considered a history of the head to heads between Rangers and PSV  in Euro' competition? Currently, it reads played eight, Rangers have won four, drawn three and, lost one. Just too positive.

 

Martin Watt's report on the BBC Scotland website is akin to a most grudging flick through a thesaurus. Martin utilised, "squeezed, fraught, salvaged and, slender" in his opening two sentences. The fourth sentence rushed to lionise PSV who were "scintilating" whilst, "thumping" the Austrians. Martin has featured on this thread in the past, his high point coincided with ra Sellik's high point in last year's Champions League. He waxed lyrical(not alone at PQ) as ra green'n'grey hooped horrors dominated Real Madrid at ra Stade de Gadd in the first half. This culminated with Sellik hitting the post then slumping to a 0-3 home defeat. 

 

Perhaps Martin will inform us of ra Sellik's contribution to the national coefficient these last five years? I note his colleague, Liam McLeod told us in part last week during the Rangers - Servette game at the Stadium. He talked about both Rangers and Sellik's impressive contribution in the last five years, reeling off Porto, Galatasaray, Dortmund, .... etc for Rangers. His only contribution for ra Sellik was Napoli. I looked it up on Google, the games were in the Autumn of 2017. This is 2023, maybe i am struggling with arithmetic but that is in excess of five years past. We cannot argue that Sellik's two points in last season's CL was two points better than us but, we can offer confident arguments on relative national coefficient contributions.

 

Anyways, to Jonners and his Producer; Rangers supporters will continue to hum the Chairman of the Board's 1970 hit single, 'Give me just a little more time'.

Look out for the sea change in attitudes if the Edinburgh teams can muster up some kind of result tomorrow.I still can't believe there are people still paying a licence fee to that shower.