Big Jaws

I was in the audience so to speak but I thought you did a good job on your maiden pod mate.

The goalie is there to stop the ball going in the net. He saved a few shots that were powder puff and kept them in it. Whats more concerning is that when they had the ball and attacked us, in the second half, they cut us open with ease. Thats fine when you're 4/5-0 up as theres nothing to worry about but when its 1-0 in a Uefa game where away goals can win you the tie then you need to cut that out. The only stat I care about is the goals for stat. Tonight we won 2-0 but we made hard work of it and could have easily lost a couple of goals ourselves. That concerns me!

It ends 2-0 and missed a penalty. Other than Edmundson our defence have looked pretty poor tonight switching off at set plays not picking up their man. The players they brought on were much better and tougher than the ones they started with. I think they have goals in their side and it will be a tough job over there in the return leg. In saying that they may open up a bit and have to score three to go through. We still struggle with the issue of breaking down teams who have everyone behind the ball and play on the break. We'll need to be a lot better than that if we're going to do anything.

Standouts for me have been Edmundson, Jack, Davis, Halliday and Aribo. Ojo, Tav and Goldson haven't offered much. The ball all ways seems to end up with Goldson to spring the diagonal when Edmundson has a far better range of passing. Its frustrating to see big Connor just kick the ball back to their keeper more often than not.

Great goal from Aribo after some nice play around the box. If they don't stop trying to walk the ball into the net though this games got 1-0 written all over it.

The reason I assume they do that over there @pete is to avoid hotlinking. Follow the link if you want an in depth easy to follow explanation to what that is or here's a quick summary. When you lift a URL for an image/page on someone's site then you send all traffic to their site to grab the image/text for display. That obviously increases the traffic on their server/server provider and if its a small blog or self hosted site then it can end up costing the owner a good few bob to increase their bandwidth. They could also remove the link target at any time leaving a dead link or image you cant see. You can also turn off the ability to hotlink on your own servers but since I'm not an admin on here I don't know if Gersnet has that facility with their service provider? @Frankie

I'm just as happy as any other Rangers supporter when the team turns in a good performance or wins handsomely. However pre-season is really about the team getting up to speed with their match fitness, testing and gelling together new players and how they fit into the managers systems and patterns of play. If they play some nice stuff and score a few goals along the way then great. We did highlight that we liked what we were seeing, singled out certain players for mention with regards to their quality, but that its too early to read anything into it just yet. From my perspective experience has taught me that its absolutely pointless getting carried away with pre-season friendly results. An example of what I'm talking about is the Ibrox International Challenge Trophy 95/96' where we beat Steaua Bucarest 4-0 with goals from Ferguson, Gascoigne, Hateley and McCoist. We beat Sampdoria 2-0 in the final of that little pre-season tourney by the way. Literally a month later we were paired with the same team we smashed in the pre-season only this time in the competitive CL where they beat us 1-0 away Prodan scoring the only goal and drew 1-1 with us in the return leg at Ibrox. So much for our scintillating 4-0 performance in pre-season friendly eh? So beating Marseille 4-0 at home in a friendly is good to see as a barometer of how we might play during the season but it doesn't amount to a hill O' beans if we turn up at Kilmarnock and draw or lose on the first game of the new season. When we've navigated through the EL qualifiers into the group stages and have put Kilmarnock to bed in the first game in a similar fashion to how we've played in these games then you'll be scraping me aff the ceiling if I'm on any of the pods at that time.

Looking forward to it. See you lads there.

If either of those two are on I'll be expecting a live phone in from you mate.

I agree with your premise and if truth be told that goal was the raison d'etre for my own involvement in the pods. However I would argue that in order for what you suggest to come to fruition there has to first be open dialogue within the support that isn't simply, 'well I put into whichever fan group of choice so I've done my bit' while sitting in the boozer before a game. In some cases folk simply cant manage anything else either through time constraints, illness or disability and that's OK however, from other able bodied elements of the support, its a bit of a cop out. Its a post and forget action! Fan groups should be taking more affirmative actions leading discussions etc but if they are reluctant to put their head above the parapet then the fans themselves need to voice those concerns where they can be heard. Youtube, Twitch-TV, Podcasts and other media are the modern equivalent of radio/TV/Dead Tree Press. I'm a strong supporter of a holistic approach, the more Rangers focused pods and shows the better as far as I'm concerned. Unfortunately David Edgar has set himself up a bit of a walled garden and so it would be difficult to establish a voice in his echo chamber but I'd encourage any Rangers fan with an opinion to put themselves forward to join the discussion on any one of the other emerging new Rangers medias. Perhaps then when fan groups and their reps have a clear message from their members and supporters we will hear them. When I met the lads for the pod hook up at the Livi game in November I specifically expressed to Frankie that, since they attempted to kill us off, as a Rangers supporter I felt continually marginalized and repressed in my own country. I didn't say it to him because I was looking for sympathy or pity I was telling him so he would know why I was there. Of course I want to see The Rangers win but this isn't just about football teams for me. I'm no shrinking violet and for me that's NOT happening, Fuck that... No Chance!

I'm probably the least patriotic person you could meet but I'm not allowing my national team to be hi-jacked by a bunch of amandans!

Its still a loss though isn't it? Going into the winter break we were equal on points. Celtic pushed on in the second half of the season and improved their points tally. We had three less draws from three less games. Personally I don't think being neck and neck was enough of a challenge to worry a team used to winning titles. I think we needed to be in front going into the winter break, have made a serious challenge in the cup competitions, to have any impact on the title race going down the final straight.

I'll try my best to get on more often in the future with even more little Easter eggs for you @Gaffer. :D

No mate it wasn't. We're on the attack its played back to Flanagan and when the ball breaks Goldson is the one who steps up and is caught with acres of space in behind him. As I said Eduard to Ncham, Eduard runs around Goldson and gets it back from Ncham. Now Katic has to cover across and cuts off the inside run and possible pass to a runner forcing Eduard to go wide onto his left but Eduard cleverly plays it with the outside of his right boot to go past Katic on his outside. Katic adjusting to that at full pace looks pretty clumsy. Over those 5 yards Eduard had the turn of pace to go past Katic. IMO we're fortunate that Katic got a little on him during the exchange because it slowed him down and forced him wide enough not to shoot himself, its on his weaker foot and has to play the final ball again with the outside of his right boot, and for us to get bodies in the box to defend the second ball after Wes saves from Burke. If you're looking to blame anyone then John Flanagan for losing the ball and not tracking Burke and Connor Goldson for committing himself inside their half is where you should be looking.

I agree with you that Katic isnt there yet and that he still has some learning to go through yet. However He's not responsible nor was he in the wrong position. The ball is charged down by Burke from Flanagan and breaks into Eduard in the centre circle. Goldson is drawn to the ball and gets caught between Ncham and Eduard who lays it off to Ncham who plays a ball over the top of Goldson back to Eduard. Goldson is towing a caravan well beaten for pace and 2-3 yards off it. Katic has to make up 50 yards because Flanagan doesn't track Burkes run and Katic, is where he should be, covering Burke. Once he realises the ball isn't going over his left shoulder to Burk he tracks 50 yards across the park to then cover Goldson. Eduard beats him in the turn and puts it across the box for Burke. Keeper saves, knocks it out Sinclair picks it up and Goldson clears. Goldson going absolutely mental at Flanagan after he heads it clear tells you all you need to know about that whole passage of play. Not that Goldson wasn't partly to blame but you get the gist.

I really should let Steve mention this. When Willy trapped after the youth game we were already two hours into the recording with nearly 90+ mins of material to work with. Steve made his first podcast executive decision to cut the piece and reschedule it. Personally I'm looking forwards to hearing what Willy has to say.

I do understand what you are saying. Kent is all over the place and more often than not IMO is in the wrong place to where he should be from the shape the team is supposed to be. Anyway I'm done for the night thats skunnered me.

McCrorie might have been a better option than Jack at the moment, I feel Jack is carrying a knock, but thats not the type of player that Kamara is Pete he's a sitting mid. Both Kamara and Jack together are the types of players you want when you play in Europe or against Celtic but not against Aberdeen, Hibs or Kilmarnock at home mate. At home you'll have 60% of the ball in attacking positions and two sitting mids in those games is one too many. We dont seem to be able to play with our wide men narrow sitting inside their full backs in the channel.

I understand that but Kent and Candeias arent playing as midfielders in that set up. They start wide and stay wide. if they were playing in the way you seem to be suggesting they should then they would be much tighter to Arfield breaking out to the wings. We'd get far more quality crosses into the box and they also contribute more goals too. We play with one AM and two wingers.

I agree with you but we dont play with three attacking midfielders we play with one. Jack and Kamara are never going to be running through the lines finding space to receive the ball they are sitting mids. The only player we have that can do that is Arfield and its farting agaisnt thunder expecting him to do it, on his own, up against a packed defence/midfield.

Funny you should say that Frankie as Aberdeen played with 5 in midfield and were particularly effective in breaking up play and condensing the space in the first half. So not really conceding the midfield at all is it? My opinion is that going with the two defensive type midfielders Jack, Kamara and one attacking midfielder in Scott Arfield at the head of the triangle is never going to return the type of play we require to break teams like Aberdeen down when they come to Ibrox as their game plan is to stack midfield and defence defend deep and hit on the counter. If SG is going to persist with the 4-3-3 in its many guises then he needs another quality attacking midfielder in there along with Arfield. Our two wide players were particularly poor tonight. Candeias final ball was astonishing for most of the game and Kent did as he has done most of the season, other than the odd game here and there, which is run across the field from left to right and vice versa and lose control of the ball eventually. All it takes for that to happen as a defender/ midfielder is a little nudge on him or get a little nick on the ball. Its not new stuff I'm saying here as you guys have heard me say it often when we're recording pods. We're far too predictable with a single game plan that more often than not doesn't succeed against these types of teams because we simply dont have the quality.

We should be at least 2-3 up here if not for some last ditch defending from Hibs. And what can you say about the absolute spunk trumpet having a go at James Tavernier? At no point were the stewards in control of that situation not even after the initial incident absolutely disgraceful behaviour.

UB representative Ross McGill interview on Heart and Hand with Cammy Bell.

The truth is I don't agree with their politics either @Bluedell but I'll defend their right to have a political opinion regardless of whether I agree with it or not. Its a situation I have previous in. In my final year of Uni 92' I canvassed the University senate into hearing debate against SLAB Murphy position. He had just taken over as the president of the SNUS and had dictatorially refused to affiliate the RCP now RCS (revolutionary communist society). Incidentally theirs was and still is a political opinion I do not agree with. My position was that its not Murphy or new labours job to decide what political discourse undergraduates are entitled to read or discuss and I'll be damned if I'd allow him or his party to dictate to us what is. Other than the RCS president I was the only speaker. The senate agreed with my position and had them affiliated. It seems to me that the UB hold political views that some are are uncomfortable with hence their stance on them however there are others within the Rangers support who simply see them as an annoyance. Neither of these positions sit well with me.