Gaffer

First of all, excellent preview Frankie! I enjoyed reading that, and when you see that second team it just shows you what a difference a year makes. Was there a reason you left Middleton out? I realise he has lots of areas to develop but he did so well in that last game that I just can't see how Gerrard can leave him out in this one. I think he'll keep Grezda (barring any knocks) on the right to further develop his match sharpness. These international breaks are probably ok for fans of the national team, but if (like me) you have little interest there now, it'll just be great to stop those withdrawal symptoms. In some ways they're worse when the breaks come after such a great display of attacking football against Motherwell. This game will be another real test of our ability to break a team down. Live are so well disciplined and tight at the back, AND have a goalie who is arguably the most in-form at the moment. If we can win this game by a couple of goals it'll set us up nicely for the end of year run of games.

Do you guys watch much football outside our own games? I just ask because I get terrific value from my Rangers TV subscription, and I couldn't get that value from Sky or BT. For many of us that spend a lot of time abroad, we seem to get a much better deal than those who rely on coverage from home soil companies. My only frustration is that I can't watch the Europa League games unless I'm at Ibrox, because RTV doesn't cover those games.

Fair enough. If I'm bored I pick up the FT or telegraph in the airport lounge. I'm generally looking for commentary on finance, economics, impacts of political changes, etc, but in my opinion it's a skin deep assessment. Maybe I'm expecting too much, but there are some great commentators online and I wish they were employed by some of the broadsheets, or at least did some freelance writing for them. Not everything online can be relied upon though. My guilty pleasure is reading the Kerrydale Meltdown (@Kerryfail) and today it's showing their fans going apoplectic because a Scottish referee (Andrew Dallas) is playing number 12 for Rangers in Kris Boyd's testimonial. It's hilarious seeing the venomous tweets. Maybe someone will point out that Dallas is actually one of our own young players.

You're right the kids do love every things like this. One thing I struggled with was how to get some aggression into kids. It would frustrate me because we had some players with an amazing level of skill but they've just didn't have that desire or aggression to make them strong enough against more physical players. These types of drills seemed to help a lot. In addition, these judo sessions should better prepare the kids to handle themselves should they ever be attacked by exuberant opposing fans.

I don't buy newspapers but I'm genuinely interested in this subject as someone who has to predict future developments and trends. I've read the posts with interest but I'm still struggling to understand what role they play. I think it was JohnMc that suggested we need journos to hold politicians, landowners, and others to account. I don't agree with this. The journos usually just write about things they've picked up from the locals, or other informed individuals. With the advent of social media, is there still the same need? Print, radio and television was the only way previously to spread the word quickly about something. Based on the rate at which the Internet and social media can spread a story, it makes other media perform like the horse and cart in comparison. Now, someone with the information can just post it and immediately spread the word. If journos were offering investigative services, quality of writing, or some other value add, I might be inclined to appreciate them, but they don't so I don't. Until they can find and offer a service that's valued by prospective customers, the print media will continue to decline until extinction.

It's of course a sad day for many of those employed by the newspaper group, but isn't this just what's been predicted? What role do these publications play these days? By the time something is printed, it's out of date and we've already had the news via digital routes. Equally, with so much obvious political bias in most publications, why would anyone trust a newspaper for the real story any more? And finally, when was the last time any of us really read a piece of decent journalism? Most of it is just re-presented wording they get from forums (like this one), Reuters or other news agencies. Isn't this just the first of many? I realise that some people appear to be portraying the free press as an important aspect of our culture and democracy, but is it? Like many industries, I think this one will eventually be replaced as it's become unresponsive, irrelevant and outdated. The various football forums serve us better than any back pages of a rag ever can. The analysis is smarter on line than anything you'll ever read in a newspaper. The same goes for the nonsense written about BrExit or other key decision points (where an independent voice would have been valued). Much better insight is available online with professionals in the field who write blogs. There is less of a need to sensationalise (or make stuff up) on quality forums because they're not so reliant on that attention grabbing headline to sell copies. I feel for the families affected by this, but I'm neither surprised nor disappointed at the outcome. If the staff, shareholders or customers disagree with me, I'm sure they'll consider options to fund it somehow (under a new company structure), but I think they realise themselves that this is just the first of many.

Good question ... 1. San Siro (an amazing theatre for football) 2. Wembley 3. La Mestalla 4. Camp Nou (It is old but it is still beautiful) 5. Allianz I appreciate we are all biased, but I really do think Ibrox is the best. There's nowhere in the world I'd rather watch football.

The TP rules and regulations are clear, and he broke them. However, that's what then resulted in him being ordered by the TP to perform a number of actions. It's then equally clear that they did move the goalposts, and that's what the contempt issue relates to. He can have no complaints about punishment for breaching TP rules, but has every right to fight the ludicrous contempt claim. The TP reps should be carpeted for making a mess of the way they've handled it. I don't know if he will win his case or not, but I'd be fighting this if I was him.

If you decide to run for PM or FM with policies like that, I'll vote for you John! ?? I understand your point about the things we do as youngsters, but surely there should be no tolerance for this at games. Where are the consequences, and is that not a prime reason for this behaviour being perpetuated? I also noted Gonzo's subsequent post about ignoring coin throwing if done by another bear. I'm shaking my head in disbelief at that. I'd hope any real supporter of the club, and it's image, would want to remove such morons before the Rangers brand is tarnished. Are we really so tribal that we will tolerate any behaviour if perpetrated by someone who just happens to follow the same team as us? Where do you draw the line? That lot across the city didn't appear to have a line, but I'd hope we'd be different.

I think you and I both read that as him being a director of those organisations. I think what the guys are suggesting is that he is a film director (or similar), which is quite different. Either way, his services should be no longer required.

Quite simple. If someone is given a lifetime ban, it could be part of a suspended sentence. Then, if they're found at a game at any stage they go straight to prison. Either that or bring back the death penalty. Anyone that has a habit of getting into bother at football (or anywhere else) is NOT a fairly normal member of society, and does not deserve to have a season ticket.

I am disappointed that throwing things is still going on at games these days. Surely this is easy to identify the culprits and ban them for life? If someone near me was throwing something, I wouldn't hesitate to seek out the police and point them towards the morons doing it. I'd imagine most people would, so why are these people not being caught? I don't remember seeing anyone charged with this and if it's as common as some are suggesting, what's going wrong? I haven't witnessed this for a very long time (since a Hibs fan threw a banana at Basil Boli), so I assumed we had managed to weed these idiots out. I wonder why it's become a thing again.

Rangers can do this alone though. There's plenty of video evidence to prove that the ref couldn't have seen Candeias make any gesture. In that case, he was either advised by the linesman, or he just made it up to disguise a terrible mistake. I didn't see any communication with the linesman so it can only be the latter. Either way, Rangers don't need support from anyone else to get justice here. All they need is the desire and guts to take it further. Something tells me we are in the mood for getting some justice. Watch this space.

Is this for real? If those are his real tweets, this is an open goal surely? If he really can be linked to those remarks, he should be forced to resign today. I'm flabbergasted. I wonder if Club 1872 could consider looking at this to see I feel there's something we can do as a support.

What must the other referees be thinking? In one way it's great to see your bosses stick up for you in public, but on the other hand it must make them wonder how many mistakes they can get away with. It hardly encourages improvements in professionalism if these mistakes are not only covered up, but result in changes to the laws, just to save face for the referee. This was a mistake. We didn't need a statement from the SFA to explain it. Everyone knew it, so much so that even the usual characters in the media kept fairly quiet. Even their bias couldn't stretch so far as to support that decision. Are our referees and their bosses unable to say quite simply "we got this one wrong"? If they said that, or even if they said nothing, this incident would have blown over (especially because of our result at the weekend). Now there's an entire tank of fuel been thrown on the fire because every fan will now be watching for every gesture. If shushing (sp?) another player is now not allowed, what other gestures will also be punished? Can a player still swear at another player? Can they use diving gestures if they think the player has gone down too easily? Can they punch the air in delight? Can they shush their own fans? Can they tie their scarves to the posts of the oppositions' goal? Maybe we should get a list of what's acceptable now. Its pathetic and whoever thought of this strategy to deal with referees' errors should be sacked.

Just when you think our game can't stoop any lower, we get this. This is utterly embarrassing to our league. Rather than admitting to a mistake (which everyone knows it was) we set one of the most stupid and dangerous precedents. How many bookings will we see from now on under this new "law"? This is incredibly stupid and although we think little of our ruling body, I doubt any of us thought they'd come up with this nonsense. Other clubs need to abandon their anti Rangers stance for once and support an appeal against this. I won't hold my breath though.

The manager and coaches felt he needed to vary his game more, rather than just going down the outside each time. I mentioned in the Sunday match thread that they had Jamie Murphy and Steven Smith on RTV and it was a very good commentary team, along with Tom. Jamie was able to give great insight on many things throughout the game, and one thing he spoke about was Middleton, and the drills the coaches are doing with him to help vary his play. Jamie specifically mentioned his confidence to use his pace on the wing all the time was admirable but too easy to defend in many occasions. He said he was pleased on Sunday to see the training pitch drills working out the way the coaches wanted them to in that game against Motherwell. I felt he was right because that's the most I've seen Middleton vary his play and Well couldn't live with his pace and trickery. I hope the boy continues to develop because he could be a really good player for us. He's certainly direct and exciting.

Windass just proved to me in that interview why he's not at the club. The only managers he's ever rated are the ones that "let him do what he wants", and he "doesn't listen to coaches because they've not played football at the highest level so don't know what they're talking about". He was also apparently happy after the 5-1 loss to Celtic "because he played brilliantly". Really!?!? He lacks any discipline or regard for his team/coaches and I'm glad he's gone. If that was anyone else from a different club I think I'd have been mildly amused. With him I just found myself getting annoyed. Looks like we did a great piece of business in selling him when we did.

It would have been the ref or fourth official (can't remember who) that provided the reason for the game not being able to start on time. If we are at fault (which it seems we were), we just need to hold our hands up.

Do we get our cup games on RTV? If yes, I couldn't care less who else shows them.

Every team knows the rules and I think this is quite right. UEFA are consistent with this one so we can't complain. The TV rights results in plenty of revenue for us so we have to respect that.

I agree those three played very well, but for me Grezda was the danger man. They had no idea how to deal with him. There was one piece of skill he did over at the corner flag. I think there were three well players closing him and Tav down and he just spun them all and ran clear. He can break through packed defences and I'm excited at how good he could be.

Anyone else watching Grezda and thinking we've got a gem here? When this boy is fully match sharp he's going to be exciting. I'm very impressed with him today. He's got a Mols sort of style about him. If he turns out to be anything like him it'll be awesome.

I'm listening to RTV and I think it's Steven Smith as the co-commentator. It's interesting because he's commenting on the things they practice, both as a team and individually. He mentioned that Middleton was too one dimensional and they've been drilling him on when to cut inside in order to vary his play. He said its showing today, and he's right. This is the first time I've seen Middleton actually confuse defenders with his intentions. He can of course just out sprint them (depending on the space he has), but he's now cutting inside when they flood that wing, or double up on him. What a pleasant improvement, and I hope he continues to develop that in his game, because he could be very dangerous.

30 for me too. I feel we're just about to put a run together.