Gaffer

No point mate. By the time the current school-age bears get to that career age, the MSM won't exist, certainly not in its current form. It serves no purpose. It does not inform, and it doesn't even entertain (other than a few morons that support other teams, but enjoy reading bad things about us more). MSM is dying. Instead, you have people on twitter and forums like this who can provide far more insight and entertainment than the lazy hacks at BBC Scotland or other outlets. In fact, I suspect most of them get their stories from here anyway. Why pay for old news when you can get it immediately and first hand from Gersnet and other sources? I asked my kids (late teens) what newspapers they had bought or heard of. They had heard of the Metro and that's it. That sums it up. The only people buying these rags now are the uneducated or the elderly (sweeping generalisation there!!!!). And I think the rest of us have all but given up hope of a decent service from the BBC. I know 26th of foot is desperate to receive the service he pays for from the BBC, but I'm hoping he'd be equally satisfied with their demise and an alternative, and truly independent service instead.

It's hard for us to swallow that I know. He might not have the funds to buy good enough players in those forward roles. Having said that, I'd rather we had effective players that had to leave at the end of the loan period, than misfiring ones who we had to keep. I'm hoping this has been part of a carefully planned recruitment strategy rather than an impulsive reaction to that shambles the other night. I still can't believe that we created so many chances in one game, and scored none. Tell me that was a bad dream. He still has to bring in another central defender too though. The defence has looked solid but we've got no (not to the same standard) cover if either of Flan, Goldson, or Katic get injured or suspended.

This is another humiliation for the SFA, but completely avoidable. It was evident to anyone with an ounce of sense that this had no chance of success for them and yet they pressed ahead anyway. It's even more humiliating now as they have to listen to DK say "we told you so". Why are other member clubs not openly criticising the SFA's mismanagement? At the very least, why was the press not critical of this action they took? We all know the answer to those questions of course. The next time Scotland fails to qualify for a major championship, the usual characters will be quick to ask the usual questions about why we can't qualify when countries like Croatia (with a smaller population than ourselves) can reach a World Cup final. Inevitably the standard of youth development in this country will be rolled out as the reason, or the lack of funds for football facilities. Just maybe we will have someone brave enough in the press (but more likely some punter on Twitter) to point out the real reason. The SFA is more focussed on wasting its time and efforts on 'punishing' Rangers as much as possible, and would rather redirect funds for footballing facilities to rich lawyers for futile cases. This is the real scandal going on right now, and yet not one single 'journalist' has called them out on this. The SFA is an embarrassment to our country at the moment, and they are failing our kids. Maybe spend a bit more time, money and effort on that eh!?!

They no doubt but will have to withdraw (or be withdrawn) unless Cove Rangers feel it's in their best interest to have a replay. However, administrative errors happen all the time and I'd never be so confident to think that it couldn't happen to us.

It was such a horrendous issue as far as he was concerned that I'm so surprised that Dornan hasn't been pushing the police for an update on their investigation. I'm sure that any day now he will tweet about the results of this - or maybe not. As a tax payer and citizen of this country, I think I (and everyone's else) am due an update on what the police have found. This cannot be allowed to be swept under the carpet. Maybe Humza (his colleague who also displayed outrage) will support him in demanding an update from the authorities. Probably not though.

Opening an account is pretty straight forward and takes a matter of days, providing the necessary KYC checks can be completed. In DK's case, this is more straight forward than for people who do not have the same profile he has. The stage that takes longer is providing the source of funds and evidence as to the source of wealth. If the funds are held in trust, this can take much longer because it's complicated. However, that's really only part of the issue here. As soon as DK moves funds out of SA to the UK, they stop helping him. They are no longer just ring-fenced, they are isolated. If I was him, I wouldn't be doing that either until the latest possible moment. Why should he? The problem here is that the TP has issued these court proceedings against him, despite them changing their conditions and causing the delay themselves. Once again the TP has mismanaged this. They should have agreed a timescale up front, allowing any challenge against this to be aired up front. This doesn't appear to be the case and is just amateurish as far as I'm concerned. Without a timescale, it is perfectly reasonable for DK to expect to send the money across in time for the offer to be made, and not weeks before. Maybe I'm missing something here, but other than his initial flouting of the TP rules (which he could have pre-empted and managed much more proactively, probably resulting in acceptance by the TP that an exception could be granted), I think DK is absolutely right to challenge this lot. It's utter nonsense, a waste of time, and I can understand him making the assertion of 'bullying'.

I completely agree with all of this. In particular the section in bold is key. I too would have been calling for the board to sanction these transfers and that comes from the sheer desperation to start challenging again. If they hadn't backed the manager I'd have been asking "what's the point in appointing someone if you won't back them". Isn't hindsight wonderful though. As football fans we are the most unreasonable people, and as Rangers fans who have experienced so much success in the past, any rational or logical expectations are tossed aside. In quiet moments I try to talk sense to myself and that is why normally (or at least most of the time) I'm supporting the existing manager, fully appreciating that it's a thankless task at the moment. I do however get caught up in the hype and that's why performances like the other night are so hard to accept. I think I expect better, but then I realise I want better, but can't reasonably expect it - yet! For the sake of my sanity and that of every one of us, I hope Gerrard can give us something to get behind this season.

I agree with much of what you've said here Buster. Your point about a strategy is a good one, but I do think there is a strategy to improve our financial security, however this is being negatively affected by the costs involved in paying off failed players and managers. As for the footballing strategy, some of it has been delivered but the important parts have not. We do now have what appears to be a good appointment in Mark Allen, and we do appear to have a pretty solid strategy around our youths and their development. But let's face it, this is great longer term but we will always regard the club as a failure unless we can start challenging again. It's hard to be too critical because every manager is a risk, but where I think criticism is justified is when the board sanctioned such huge sums on players and managers that were a risk. We were not in a position to take these risks and I feel that this could have been handled differently. There would have been lots of noise from the support about lack of funds, but the board should have been open enough to say that PC was a risk (although not necessarily as blunt as that) as therefore they would limit the funding until he proved he could demonstrate he wasn't the right man for the job. I rate DK, but not so much the members of the executive board. When DK gets involved, things change and normally for the better. I just don't see that same impact from the others and that's why I agree with your point about the CEO. I'm not looking out for SR's communications so I may have missed things, but he seems to be invisible. If he's playing good cop from the inside (e.g. At the SPFL or SFA), that's fine and makes sense, but when will we see the results of his efforts? It needs to be soon. The part I disagree with is your assessment of the TP. I don't think it impacts the club, and in many ways I'm glad he's brave enough to challenge an injustice. His initial manipulation of the rules was wrong and no one can condone that, but the subsequent management of this by the TP is ridiculous and I think he's quite right to hit back. I expect him to win his case against the contempt of court charge, because it's absolute nonsense in my opinion. Having said that, its noise we could do without and I'd really like it to be dealt with asap. The appointment of Gerrard has bought the board some time because I think most sensible fans think this was a great coup for the club. He needs to work out though. If he does not, I have no idea who the club can turn to next without taking another serious risk.

A senior SNP politician has been accused of spreading fake news on a Russian propaganda station by wrongly claiming that a majority of Scots support independence. James Dornan, the convener of Holyrood’s education committee, told RT on Tuesday evening that a poll published that morning had recorded support for leaving the UK at 54 per cent. In fact, no such poll existed. After being challenged by The Times, Mr Dornan sent a tweet to RT, saying he had been referring to a poll published more than two years ago, carried out two days after the Brexit referendum. The poll had “popped up” on his Twitter timeline that morning, he said, leading him to mistakenly believe it was new. {It seems his fake news tendencies are being more widely identified. Maybe we are being unfair to him. Maybe he's just crap with technology.}. Anyway, I appreciate it's not a Rangers story, but useful to help make others aware of his reputation. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/james-dornan-lied-on-kremlin-backed-channel-6l6jhqb80

Thanks JFK, but that's one game I definitely won't want to watch again. Having said that, I hope you can send it to the players because our front 4 could do with watching it back again a few times. Then they can see what we had to witness, and maybe then they'll understand why they're getting a hard time from us.

I think he's proven he's knows how to do that. He was banging them in from every angle last season early on. It's his head that's a mess in my opinion. That's what someone needs to sort out. In many ways though I think McCoist is a great example of someone who can tell them that it's important to forget the chances you miss and focus on putting the next one away. That's what McCoist was brilliant at. He was able to do that despite missing 4 chances and while having the majority of Ibrox shouting at him. Inevitably he'd then bury the next one or two, win us the game, and have us all singing super Ally.

I honestly did Bill. I felt the problem we had last season was losing goals. Scoring goals seemed more straight forward. So when we sorted out the defence, I expected us to win these games by a couple of clear goals. We've definitely got a much improved defence and despite Shkupi throwing the kitchen sink at us last night, we really weren't in any trouble. But OMG, I expected us to put away some of those chances. It would be reasonable to expect any pro footballer (never mind a striker) to put those chances in the net. Watching some of the efforts at passing/shooting in the 18 yard box was how I imagine I'd act if I was asked to play for Celtic - I couldn't have done a better job at making a bigger mess of it. We can complain about the players not being good enough, but those players are too good to be missing chances like that. It's clear that the weight of expectation is too much for them. They'll be banging in those chances in training I bet. Windass, Morelos and Murphy can never be doubted for their skills. They are excellent players, but with Morelos in particular I'm seeing a mental fragility that will no doubt be a real concern to SG. Obviously I want us to do as well as we can in Europe, but the real focus has to be on the league. Fortunately he has some time to fix this before the opening day against Aberdeen. Its a shame in many ways though, because we should have been allowed to become excited at how well the defence is developing. Katic, Goldson and MacGregor (and Flanagan to be fair) have made a huge difference and I'm no longer watching through half closed eyes when the opposition attacks. Instead though, we are all worried about how we are ever going to score goals this season. Nil - Nil draws each week won't be enough to challenge.

Gerrard was pretty clear there about the problems in the final third. We all knew this would happen and he himself knew that he'd be able to see the weaknesses in our team when it comes to important games. The simple fact is that our forwards are not good enough to challenge for the league. Morelos certainly can be more than good enough but there's a problem there and I hope he can sort himself out soon. The good news is that SG has a few more weeks to beg, borrow or steal some talent to see us through this season. Our players are skilful enough and he will have seen that in training, but when it comes to the crunch, too many players can't handle the pressure and lack the composure we need.

Probably. That's normally the point he wants to make. ?

I was delighted that we sorted out the defence, but I agree Frankie. If these guys (especially Morelos) can't recover from an obvious and serious mental block, we will struggle this year unless we bring in more attacking options. Windass was ok again, but posted missing for too much of the game. Morelos was involved a lot, but needs a psychologist to work on him. If we had a striker, these games would be done and dusted in the first half with the number of chances we create. This was a solid and comfortable performance but I'm concerned about where our goals are going to come from. Stevie G, it's over to you.

??? I've no idea what your point is to be honest, but I'm happy if you leave it there too.

To be honest, if you've got a blank screen it just reflects what's going on at the moment - nothing. This tie is dead.

Shkupi have started to push two more players forward. We should get more space to play through Middleton now.

I wonder what's going on his head. He plays like he's got a million problems he's trying to solve. His head is a mess for some reason.

Morelos, as you said too Frankie, is excellent outside of the box, but his decision making at the moment is terrible. Gerrard must work out how to use him, because he is looking like a desperate school boy. He needs to get his mojo back but he's far from it at the moment.

They might be, but I think we've made it very difficult for them. I'm really pleased at the way we've controlled this game. I can't remember us controlling any game for a long time, and yet we've done it three games in a row now. It will be interesting to see if it translates as well when we play better sides.

Tha was very comfortable. It's how we need to play away from home in Europe. We are doing what we need to keep,them out, and we are breaking when we get a chance. I don't think our players have broken sweat yet.

McCrorie and Jack look very comfortable in there. I forgot how effective Jack is. Last year I was predicting Jack would be the next captain. We've missed him, and McCrorie looks better beside him. Goldson and Katic look solid gain and it's allowing Tav to go forward. Having said that, Tav needs to sharpen up here. He doesn't appear to be concentrating and has been caught a couple of times. Shkupi are understandably throwing everything at us to try to rattle us and cause the nerves. We need to keep it under control for the next ten minutes to take the sting out of them. We are getting chances though.

You're just showing off now dB.

What's your point caller? Smith knew he had a 'problem' before he joined Rangers. That's all I said.