pete

The thread has been taken down I think so probably crap.

Rumour on FF that Gary Mckay Stephen pre-contract deal has been done with him.

Just when you think it is time to stop for a breath you realise the next game is tomorrow already. Villarreal have come and gone with a 0-0 draw and poor Daniel Candeias undeservedly getting sent off for the second time in a few weeks. Again a referee invented a story to cover up the cock-up he himself conjoured up. Funnily enough Rangers have ended up with a one game knockout fight with Rapid Vienna and our mission is clear. We must win or the Europaleague will be in cold storage until next season. Anyway that is for another day the Europaleague has to take second place as we have to fly into preperation mode for our big game against Hearts at Tynecastle. What a massive match this game has turned into for us. Due to Celtic playing Aberdeen in the League cup final Rangers have a fantastic chance to go top of the league. Yes, Celtic will have a game in hand but it is points they have to win and it puts just a little bit more pressure on them to do so. It will be great to see all the grudging headlines on Monday pronouncing us league leaders, We will of course have to flick through three pages of Aberdeen v Celtic and use a magnifying glass to see the headline. Their game in hand will also be well highlighted you can put your bottom dollar on that. Before we are that far though we have the difficult task of getting a winning result at Tynecastle. Hearts have been in poor form of late only taking just one point from their last four matches, losing 2-0 in their last game against relegation fighters St Mirren 2-0. When Rangers stride into town though all the form books go out the window. Teams seem to find a bit of extra fight that they had lost in the games running up to our game. In Hearts favour, they have had some reasonable games against Celtic of late beating them 4-0 last season and 1-0 this season at Tynecastle. They have since lost their two main forwards in Kyle Lafferty, who was transferred to us, and also Steven Naismith to in jury. The ex-ger was the leagues top scorer before he was injured and was also first pick striker for the Scotland team. The Hearts manager Craig Levein, is a manager who builds his teams on being hard to beat rather than a full out attacking machine. I don't think anyone will forget his 4-6-0 formation when he was the Scotland manager in a must win game. I doubt he will play that on Sunday but he will certainly have his team organised and well drilled. That does not mean they will park the bus in a ten man eighteen yard block, just that they will play out from a solid defence. With the Rangers players having had that difficult game on Thursday in their legs, Steven Gerrard may look to freshen things up a little. In his press conference he emphasised the point that Daniel Candeias would at least have fresh legs for Sunday, so I would imagine that makes him a starter. I think he may bring back Eros Grezda and give young Glenn Middleton a rest on the bench. Grezda looked to be starting to show some good form and scored two goals in the 7-1 thrashing of Motherwell before being dropped back to the bench for the last two games. Strangely he has not even appeared as a substitute as he was starting to show some good form. I doubt Gerrard will drop the fantastic in form Alan McGregor and I will guess that Tavernier and Goldson will keep their places. I expect McAuley to return to the team in place of Worrel and with Borna Barisic fit again after a two month lay-off he will come in at left-back. Left-back has been a problem position for us of late with Halliday and Flanagan being pretty shaky to say the least. Flanagan almost gifting Villarreal a goal on Thursday if it was not for McGregor making a wonder save. The other position worth discussing is the central midfield role. With Rossiter,Jack, Ejaria, Arfield, Coulibaly and McCrorie all with their hat in the ring. I would be surprised if Gerrard dropped Ryan Jack or scott Arefield for this one so that leaves a choice between Coulibally or Ejaria for me as I don't think the others will start. Ejaria missed out on Wednesday while Coulibaly excelled against Villarreal so that is a really difficult choice to make. I think Gerrard may go with the slightly more attacking Ejaria to try and play in the Hearts half but my own choice would be Coulibaly as I feel Ejaria flatters to deceive and slows the game down by his twisting and turning on the ball. We saw how Villarreal can slice through the midfield with quick one touch passing and that is what I miss with Ejaria. I think Gerrard will go with Ejaria though. The team I think Gerrard will play is: McGregor Tavernier McAuley Goldson Barisic Jack Ejaria Candeias Arefield Grezda Morelos. I personally would go with Coulibaly. We have not been top of the league since 2011. It has been a long wait so hopefully that wait comes to an end on Sunday and we return to where we belong. Onwards and upwards. C'mon the Gers!!!

I totally agree that there should be a safe standing area for people who prefer to stand but where people pay good money for a seat to sit and watch the match they should sit down it is as simple as that.

Ok. I have started writing something.

2 Celtic wins against Rangers and the 3-3 draw from 1995. It seems they don't see any of the Rangers wins against Celtic as Classic. Funny I can remember a few. https://spfl.co.uk/videos?pl=PLAmNSUlUap5s9P9HtzxwdgLmjS6_yXOGI

Does that make them less of a supporter? Maybe they work most weekends or can't afford a season ticket.

I will answer. It is common knowledge among the people who follow the youth that Jimmy Sinclair the old head of youth would only go for large strong players and therefore we lost many young talented players. The style of football he wanted to play also did not match in with the current Rangers Philosophy. He put coaches in place to teach his methods. That is why he was replaced.

We do not and should not know that yet the guy is only 18.

Graham Murty comes over as a really nice guy. He didn't do well in the manager's role though.

I agree with you to an extent but if you take it to when we had 11 players McGregor had two good saves but Arefield and Goldson both missed a sitter so really the chance count was pretty even at that time and we were getting slowly stronger. i even think we had evened up the possession count at the end of the first half.

No we haven't taken 40million to Seville yet.

Is that a bit like saying I like my wife to do her talking in bed? I prefer to hear her snoring at least I am not getting nagged.

Great idea mate and I would certainly donate to that. You should put up a post on FF and Rangers media for the best result.

Are there any offers to write a preview for the Hearts game to be up for mid-day tomorrow.

They used to send vans round with a huge scanner on it. Somebody on here said it was a scam and just a frightening tactic they didn't actually do anything.

We don't want to do anything now in case they give the card to Morelos instead who made the second foul. I would rather miss Candeias than Tav or Morelos. This statement is just another cop out of I made a **** of it. It seems referees can make it up as they go along.What about the big defender squaring up to Morelos and fouling him in nearly every tackle. What about the guy that took out Flanagan. he was also on a yellow card. We played against 12 men last night.

Koeman said that as well that he trusts his back-room staff to make a decision like that.They work as a team.

I have just read this and wrote similar in the Beale thread. I don't think that is Gerrard I think it is Beale, Just on a funny note. In the game Germany v Holland with Germany 2-1 up and minutes to play, a note was passed on to the field by Ronald Koeman telling Virgil van Dijk to move up to the strikers role. van Dijk scored the equaliser with virtually the last kick on the ball. When Koeman was asked about the note telling van Dijk to move forward he said "I didn't write it I just had a quick look and passed it on. I had nothing to do with the decision but we had to try something."

I read a small bit of his blog on defending and you can definitely see his influence in how we defend. How we choose our moment to apply pressure and when to just regroup. He has also written blogs in playing with 10 men moving to a 4-3-2 formation. That was also to see last night with Middleton moving more central. That then forces teams to move down the wings which you again could see last night. Villarreal wanted to play with a diamond through the centre but we set up to match them on that and forced them down the wings. They brought on wide players to try and make use of that but to no avail.

He seems to do a lot of the tactical and coaching side of things. Here is his website for people who do a bit of coaching. Some good tips. https://michaelbealecoaching.com/

Coulibaly was nearly back to the form he had at the beginning of the season so Ejaria may struggle for Sunday as well.

Morelos worked his socks off and got absolutely no protection from the referee from that big clogger that was marking him.

The supporters were absolutely fantastic last night. A real 12th man!

And three wise men.