DMAA

18 hours ago, Rousseau said:

I would actually argue his transfers have been pretty good -- although you could question the outlay, and an inability to replace core players, which has only been an issue recently, IMO -- whereas it's his managerial appointments that have been less than adequate. 

 

I liked, and still do like, Claude Puel, but I think he suffered from comparisons to Koeman and Pochetinno, which were outstanding appointments. I could see the reasoning behind Hughes, but it didn't work out -- it maybe should have been a short-term appointment, to avoid relegation, which he did, and then get someone else in. 

 

I do think Hasenhuttl was a very good appointment, though. 

 

Your last point is spot on, IMO: I think having someone to implement the latest working methods and technology, building on from the basic structure that Allen implemented is absolutely key. I'm drooling at the thought of our very own 'black box'... !!

Thanks for that, I haven’t kept up at all with Southampton but I had a look on their forum and they were talking about £250m being wasted on poor signings on his watch, exaggeration no doubt. I still think he sounds like an excellent appointment and will have a far better chance of success in recruitment here. We don’t get overcharged the way EPL clubs do when dealing with European clubs. 

1 hour ago, rbr said:

He’s not very well thought of by the Saints fans , in fact they have been wanting rid of him for months going by their forums . 

Yeh when you look at their signings the past few seasons and consequent league performance you can see why. They paid circa £16m for that guy Celtic have taken on loan for example. I’ll choose to believe he’ll be a success at our level though. He has a wealth of experience and contacts and Ian up to speed with all the modern working methods used at the top level. 

Looking over more of the comments here, do people honestly think we can improve on Tavernier with our budget? This talk about replacing him, with who? A right back who will be brilliant going forward and flawless defensively? Why hasn't Gerrard thought of that before! Perspective has gone out the window.

His contribution to the team is overwhelmingly positive, and that includes his defensive contribution. He very occasionally costs us a goal and I would suggest he costs us fewer than all the other defenders. Every single one of them have cost us goals this season, yes even Katic. it's just that the goals Tavernier costs us tend to be high profile like the second goal last night and the pass at Parkhead. And by the way Morelos has had countless brain farts in front of goal in big games and small but escapes the scrutiny that is applied to Tavernier.

We are only a few days into October and he has already contributed 7 assists (leading the team again after contributing 20 last season), which is more than wonder boy Kent managed all of last season if you only include the real ones. He is certainly not on top form yet he is still racking up the assists and a big part of a defence who are conceding very few this season, equal to Celtic for the first time in a very long time by this stage of the season. I would be more inclined to replace Goldson with Katic than replace Tavernier with anyone.

12 hours ago, Frankie said:

I think the criticism is fair. He made two crucial errors in a game we were very comfortable in. 

 

Yes, we have to look at his overall contribution and that is usually good but, this season at least, he has been poor so people are right to question his form at the very least. 

 

 

Of course, it’s just that some of the comments are too far. He is a very good player who costs us goals occasionally. We aren’t going to get better than him with our budget, it’s as simple as that. 

Knives are out for Tavernier. Perspective needed. 

Gutted. I know it’s easy to start having a go at players after we lose a game but we’ve got a few underperforming in there. Goldson lacks aggression, he gives his man too much space for my liking. Ojo just looks a very young player. We know he can score from nowhere but you have to wonder if he should be keeping his place as a stick on starter. Tavernier obviously made two big mistakes.

All in all just gutted we couldn’t hold onto a lead. We moan about rubbish teams making it hard for us to score by parking the bus most weeks but we don’t seem to be able to do that ourselves when we have to. 

12 minutes ago, Bill said:

I bet we don’t sell in January. 

It would need to be a crazy bid early in the window and that won’t happen. I think he is still worth more to Rangers than to potential suitors. 

As my avatar suggest I absolutely love the man. My favourite goals are his header at Elland road, his back post header vs Celtic when he did the high knees celebration (can't remember year?) and his 1998 header at Parkhead. A rare talent. 49 goals in 51 games at his peak in 92-93.

I noticed after the final whistle the headline for our game was initially something very negative sounding like “Rangers win as Feyenerood spurn glorious late chance”. So basically Rangers win due to a blunder from

the opposition. By the time I refreshed this was changed to something much more positive but I can’t help but wonder what is going on at PQ. 

1 hour ago, Uilleam said:

Might one toss the incompetent "prosecution" of Mr Craig Whyte into the mix?

And Charles Green. How on earth you can get away with signing deals which so emphatically and explicitly injure your own company and benefit the other company is a mystery to me. There is no chance he had no personal financial incentive for signing the deals he did with Mike Ashley.

It’s ok, the SFA have been inspired by UEFA’s tough stance on fan behaviour remember 

Lyndon Dykes is a good player and one to watch, very tall for a forward and can run with the ball. Livingston have started well but in all honesty this should be bread and butter stuff for us. An increasingly rare Saturday afernoon home game too!

It's a bit of a funny one though because we find ourselves with questions marks over the lineup and more rotation than we'd normally be comfortable with. Barisic comes back in with Flanagan out. Centre back is anyone's guess after the OF. Jack who has been an ever present probably drops out, Aribo has played on Tuesday and travelled from Kiev so might not be at his freshest, Kamara probably does come in having not played much for us and Kent is possibly forced to start as he finds surprisingly little competition for the spot with only Ojo really challenging for it.

I'm wary of Goldson becoming a scapegoat but I'd be happy for Helander to get his chance and to come in for him. In the forward areas I wish we could fit in more attacking players really as we could do with more goalscorers starting and less neat and tidy possession players.

A really strange link from the off that made no sense at all. We've already got 8 centre mids if you include Halliday and Polster. And he can have all the flair in the world but given the fact he hasn't played regular football in years I'm not sure you'd want him in the trenches of the Scottish game with you in a tough physical away tie. I think we've learned from Kranjcar.

50 minutes ago, Gaffer said:

I've seen a lot on twitter about us and Marchisio?  Is there a joke I missed out on or something?  It seems to imply we were signing him, but clearly that's never going to happen so I wondered if it was something funny.

To be honest he's had a serious injury in each of the past 4-5 seasons. He made 9 appearances last season and they were mostly subs before being injured. If true it's a roll of the dice.

1 hour ago, ian1964 said:

 

 

Wes Foderingham - 2020

Allan McGregor

Andy Firth - 2020

Jack Alnwick - 2020

Filip Helander - 2023

Connor Goldson - 2022

Nikola Katic - 2022

George Edmundson - 2023

Borna Barisic - 2022

James Tavernier - 2022

Matt Polster - 2021

Jon Flanagan - 2020

Glen Kamara - 2023

Andy Halliday - 2020

Andy King - 2020 (loan)

Scott Arfield - 2022

Ryan Jack - 2021

Jason Holt - 2020

Steven Davis - 2020

Greg Docherty - 2022

Joe Aribo - 2023

Ryan Kent - 2023

Jamie Murphy - 2021

Jordan Jones - 2023

Eros Grezda - 2022

Brandon Barker - 2022

Sheyi Ojo - 2020 (loan)

Alfredo Morelos - 2023

Jermain Defoe - 2020 (loan)

Greg Stewart - 2021

That's actually not very many players at all with their contracts expiring this season. This will probably be the end of the road for Halliday and Foderingham.

3 hours ago, Bill said:

I will be a minor miracle if either Rangers or Celtic reach the CL group stage in the next five years. Those days are probably over under current formats. The impending start of a two-tier Europa League will almost certainly reserve CL for a few elite clubs and they might even break away altogether.

Far from it Bill. The route to the groups isn’t that hard, barring a very unlucky draw. Look at Celic’s route the few times they made it in the past 6-7 years, best team they beat was an Astana or Rosenberg. And then look at the years they didn’t, teams who put them out were of a similar level and had smaller budgets than both Rangers and Celtic. UCL qualification is still very possible as things stand.  

2 hours ago, 917 said:

If either Rangers or celtic are relying on Champions League qualification these days, then they are in trouble. I think both target the Europa League groups. It is a better competition for the fans anyway.

No the winner of the league targets the UCL groups. It’s a huge financial reward and Rangers’ best chance at overtaking Celtic. Celtic have been relying on it and it’s why they’ve had to cut the cloth when they haven’t qualified. 

1 minute ago, Bill said:

I think the board faces a threat of losing financial momentum if Celtic reach ten in a row and still going.

The biggest thing that affects this is Champions League Group qualification, the income from that is a game changer for Rangers and Celtic but we can't keep relying on them messing up. This is the biggest potential prize from winning our league at the moment. Player sales are big too and we continue to lag them in that department too. We're lucky that at the moment their expenditure is huge otherwise their advantage over us could be bigger.

17 minutes ago, Bluedell said:

I understand that it's £6.5m plus up to £1m of add-ons plus 20% sell-on clause of any profit made, but not on the full proceeds.

I’ve never heard of this before, it is being reported and a standard sell on? If it is a standard sell on we’d only make a profit if sold for more than £9m. But like Bill I think this is very much about this season and signing a player who can hit the ground running and doesn’t need time to adjust to British football and settle in to Glasgow. And at his age you have to assume the business case was that it’s £7.5m for a player who could be here for 6-7 seasons. 

Saw that a Leeds source had apparently said that they bid £7m for Kent earlier in the window but they walked away during negotations and moved onto other targets. That would maybe explain why the price was so high, if there hadn't been any offers I'd have expected the price do be a good bit lower.

6 minutes ago, JohnMc said:

If our main problem is a lack of cutting edge then surely a new striker is a good idea? It's funny whenever I mention a new striker people assume he'll be the 3rd choice, why couldn't we buy a new first or second choice striker? Defoe doesn't have a full season of 90 minutes every week in him at his age, in my opinion, Morelos will pick up suspensions and both could pick up injuries. We'll be playing two games a week until Christmas, we can have all the wingers in the world but if we don't have someone to score the chances we'll be kicking ourselves. Perhaps Gerrard feels Kent or Arfield can play up front. 

It's just that it's possibly the strongest position on the pitch for us with Morelos and Defoe both starting the season scoring freely. Compare that to Jones/Ojo/Barker at LAM, Flanagan/Barisic at LB.

I felt at the beginning of the transfer window that the Kent position would be our priority and after a few league games we still seemed to be lacking a bit of quality there. When Barisic seemed frozen out I thought left back was our new priority but then we found out on Thursday that he was anything but frozen out. 

14 minutes ago, Bill said:

But the more we do it together, in a spirit of positivity, the better we'll do. Support the strong, encourage the weak.

Does this even apply to Tavernier Bill? ? ?

4 minutes ago, JohnMc said:

 I wish we'd spent the money on another centre forward and a better left back, but I'm in the minority on that I think. 

Kent started last season erratically but finished strongly, let's hope he finds his form quickly. I'm one of those who felt he often flattered to deceive, and whilst exciting to watch he didn't provide a final product often enough. His signing is a gamble, but hopefully one that will pay off. 

My thoughts exactly. Gerrard has shown faith in Flanagan and Barisic here.

1 minute ago, Bill said:

I think it was the "Personally wouldn't have Ojo near the first team, i'm not a fan, don't know why, just really not a fan" from post #4

 

Maybe regular appearances, goals and assists isn't what we're looking for from a midfielder.

Yeh I saw that, I had made a comment yesterday about Ojo looking like he's struggling with the physical side of the game a bit too. But that doesn't take away the fact that he's shown he can create and score goals. As I say he can learn a bit from the way Kent approaches the game (with aggression), and Kent can maybe learn a bit from him and Jones too and get the ball in the box earlier sometimes. 

12 minutes ago, 917 said:

Our squad probably has a bigger net value than theirs now, and that probably counts for collateral with the likes of Close brothers. If needed, we could bring in about 50million from Tavernier, Kent, Morelos, Katic, Goldson, Aribo, Ryan Jack..

Not until we win the league and do well in Europe. We haven't even won a cup yet.