Big Jaws

Fairly comfortable win for us tonight with a good half dozen + fringe players from the squad making an appearance and doing a decent job. Middleton tired a bit from 70 mins onwards but what he did in the previous 70 was enough for me. Grezda came on for the last 20 or so minutes and my instant impression is that when he is match fit he will be a top player for us very impressive movement and speed off and on the ball.

From what I could see on Rangers TV he didnt do anything to get booked he's quite entitled to speak to the ref about it.

Yasssss Morelos 3-0!

Nothing at all. Ayr player followed through on him and while he was sat on the floor made his point to Madden who just booked him.

Thats typical.

Did Morelos have bookings hanging over him already for this tie?

Six changes to the Rangers team its not really a surprise that things have been a little different. Middleton has been excellent and his goal is actually a cracker. Haliday dinks it over the defender and he runs on to it inside the box controls it with his knee and strikes it across the keeper into the right side of the net.

Left

Apart from a snapshot from the edge of the box by Crawford Rangers haven't been troubled by Ayr. We've looked a bit laboured at times and at others theres been some good interchanges mostly when Middleton is involved. In saying that though Ayr have played some nice football albeit in front of us but they do look comfortable on the ball and want to play it on the carpet. McColls team are a decent Championship team.

its not about 'them' its a light hearted review of some of the previous weeks crazy comments by supporters of other clubs in a closing segment that lasts 1-2 minutes tops. If its not for you then you can skip past it to the following weeks schedule and credits. Each to their own.

I'm annoyed with that last 10-15 or so minutes. We're 4-0 up and cruising and then by messing about we've invited pressure on ourselves. Theres no need for that if we're in that position again I want to see us absolutely hammer the opposition. Don't do anyone any favours by sitting back when we're well in front because they wouldn't do it for us.

Games been a bit pedestrian for me. St Johnstone have packed the midfield closing down the space in there so neither Coulibaly nor Arfield have been able to work their triangles other than once or twice towards the end off the half. Other than that St Johnstone have done nothing other than pick up half a dozen loose passes that Goldson has been giving them. Thursday-Sunday fixtures look to be making a mark on this game as far as our energy is concerned. As far as I'm concerned the game is crying out for a Middleton or anyone else to open up the pitch in the wide areas. This St Johnstone team are absolutely garbage but if we keep playing to their strengths through the middle then we may get another goal in the second half but it'll be more of the same.

I agree with you on all of the points you've raise. The support wont boycott simply because the Club hasn't defended them. Of course I was presenting a hypothetical argument and drawing attention to previous fan actions that I felt were important as they set a precedent at the time due to circumstances on the pitch and until Stevie G's appointment, IMO, was looking like a distinct possibility again. The argument I was making only half addresses the issue of the Club taking the support for granted centring mainly around team performance or lack there of but I would have thought that should those issues have arisen then it would also likely contain the pertinent aspects of the lack of support from the Club towards the fan base too.

I would tend to fall into the Norman MacCaig camp who said, where patriotism is concerned, and I'm paraphrasing here. 'I'm a patriot for me. I can never understand the general notion of patriotism because you're born in a certain country you say 'here's tae us wha's like us'. Just being born in Scotland, by pure accident, or anywhere else for that matter is no reason for loving it to that un-thought-out extent!' Basically he's asking what type of person is it that can become ensconced and rooted passionately in a thing thats inception was complete chance. Obviously those who are prone to succumb to salacious jingoism.

Thats a foolish strategy for them to have adopted without at least a cursory glance at the past. If they had minded the past then they definitely wouldn't be using such a strategy because they'd be aware of Rangers fans staying away from games on numerous occasions. I don't know if you remember the John Greig, Jock Wallace debacle with Tommy McLean, Alex Totten and even Walter having to step in after Wallace was sacked before Souness was appointed. I personally don't remember it being an open public campaign in the way the Mike Ashley one has been. From my perspective it was more like a murmur that circulated the supporters buses and associations that resulted in reduced crowds particularly at Ibrox.

I don't think there is any question that they [SNP] have a few very vocal Celtic supporters in their midst. What we're debating here is whether or not there has been any impropriety by these cllrs at GCC. There is evidence to suggest that the decision to refuse the fanzone came from an intervention by three of these cllrs. It is extremely unlikely that we'll discover let alone prove the why of it. I'm as sympathetic as the next person to these postulations my problem with it is its just conjecture on our part. What needs to be done is exactly what Club1872 have done and that is as we now know to submit a complaint to the Standards commission. If procedures haven't been followed as they should have then there will be no avoiding it. There should also have been a complaint to the ICO from RIFC and or Sandy Robertson for the quite obvious data breach..

You cant in one breath say that The SNP are totalitarian, i.e. an autocratic diktat and then in the next say that the SNP's decisions are taken by individuals on an ad hoc basis. Thats absolute nonsense one is an existential the other is a universal.

In fairness he hasn't been the only poster that has championed that position. What I find astonishing and completely without irony is that at least two of the other posters cited that the SNP were totalitarian. Personally I couldn't careless about the SNP as apolitical party nor do I give a rats ass who votes for them but I do care that Rangers supporters are saying other Rangers supporters cant be True Rangers supporters if they dont think or vote in a particular way. That for me is the very definition of totalitarian.

Magnanimous? What is it that you want us to say exactly @barca72? As far as the incidents you speak about where violence has been used on our fans none of us disagree with you. Halliday being sent off was ridiculous I'm confident that every one of us feels the same about that too. There are a multitude of incidents that have happened that are simply moronic. Their team doing a lap of honour after a narrow victory at home against us and their team captain and others goading the tiny (800) Rangers support in a crowd of 58,000 is completely moronic, lacks integrity, sportsmanship, dignity or any class and probably should be examined by the CO for bringing the game into disrepute. But I'm not offended by it because they are fucking morons who know no better as far as I'm concerned.

I realise the question was for Bill but to answer your question. Nope it doesn't offend me nor does it hurt my feelings or make me cry either. As a matter of fact that type of behaviour is exactly what I'd expect from them. If it becomes a civil disturbance then it is entirely up to the police and authorities to address. Whether you or anyone else likes what they have to say is irrelevant all people in these lands have the right to assembly and that includes these Luddites too!

Hereing theres been an incident of crushing with 5 injured in todays home support at Park head.

Peak athletic performance is entirely dependent on a persons sleep cycle and can vary across the day by as much as 26%. EDIT: Its technical name is the circadian cycle and or circadian phenotype.

I can't disagree with anything you've said there to be honest. It's more or less exactly the way I seen the game too. We did invite them to come at us but even at that I felt comfortable about it. I think you're spot on about the lack of pressure on Tierneys position too and I'd like to echo here what I've said to the other guys on the pod a few times already. I know he's our captain but I feel Flanagan might have been a better option because as far as I'm concerned Tav can't play in an early 12 o'clock kick off. Tav offered us pretty much nothing down their left today and it wasn't because Candieas wasn't there because I thought Kent was doing all the work he would have done. In every early kick off I've seen him play in he's been slow to think and react and today he looked as if he was chasing the game.

Of course they would have thats the object of the game after all. But theres a big difference between pushing for a goal and actually scoring one. I personally think they could have played all day and not scored against our defensive set up. StuGer point is correct no one actually knows, including Stevie G, why the ref allows play on when the other officials are indicating that the ball has been fouled. Further on that, although IMO Ejaria didn't have a good game, I fully believe that if he makes a tackle on either Rogic or Ncham as they are breaking then Willie Collum would have sent him off. I have absolutely no doubts about that!

I don't care how many saves Shagger has to make thats what he's there for. They had two clear cut chances in the first half one from Eduard, and one from Nae neck. Second half they had none. Anything that came towards goal Shagger cleaned it up if our two CB's didn't. They pressed for free kicks, corner and high balls into the box like Motherwell did against us and with that ref they were getting them all day long (Goldson booked for a challenge on Christie on the edge of our box is a perfect example when it should have been Christie for simulation). They looked busy in and around our box but they never troubled us. We had them handled well and cleared everything they had to offer. They were absolutely knackered when they score from a 4 on 2 break away counter when the play should have been stopped just outside their box for a deliberate foul on Ryan Jack. I'm not saying we played brilliant scintillating football today. I'm saying we defended well and although they had a lot of shots, bobbles and scuffs they didn't really look like troubling us until that one incident. They know we're a different outfit and we're only going to get better. So aye mate we see things very differently from each other but hey thats football for you.