DMAA

1 hour ago, buster. said:

Tav is a SPFL player whose main attributes are not defensive.

What EPL team that would consider Tav, (ie. middle to bottom league position),... wants a full back who isn't that good a defender ?

I hear you, but actually that kind of full back is more popular than defensive minded ones even for struggling EPL teams. I agree he's not a £10m+ player but I don't think £8m is ridiculous. But I'd definitely take it because his value will only depreciate from here on in and to reject a bid like that (if it was to come in) would be a gamble.

I do agree with @Tannochsidebear but on the other hand I can't help but think that we need to be selling our top assets for big money in order to rebuild this club. He is 27 and possibly at peak value but he's approaching the age where your value falls off a cliff and people are only interested in a loan/bosman. I think Gerrard has been brilliant and talking up our players and I trust him to get good value whenever proper bids do come in but I think we need to be aiming to sell when big bids come in and put faith in our recruitment department to improve the squad with the money. 

10 hours ago, ian1964 said:

 

Whoever wrote that was just winding us up and should be reprimanded. Would never happened with anybody else winning 3-0. Their website site called it a “pretty clear penalty” despite being nothing of the sort. 

52 minutes ago, buster. said:

Getting beaten by Kilmarnock isn't as big a deal as in years gone by. Apparently they got the most points in the top flight during 2018 and they have the best pound for pound manager in the League. They CONSISTENTLY do a lot with very little.

Very little. I had a look at their starting lineup against us and the quality is so poor it's incredible Clarke is able to get points on the board with them at all. Can't help but wonder what he'd have done with us. 

Burke is 35 and S Boyd 32, Power picked up from the Conference and Dicker and Jones from League 2. Tshibola and Bachmann League 1. Findlay, O'Donnell and Brophy are ex Celtic youth and Taylor ex Rangers youth (he looked very good). Talk about a shoe string budget!

I find it very unlikely he's going to abandon the diamond after one game. It's important to note Barisic didn't even make the bench against Kilmarnock too so the chances of him starting are low. I don't think the diamond was the problem against Kilmarnock. The 4-3-3/4-2-3-1 hasn't worked 6 times away from home this season so it can hardly be held up as the solution to what went wrong on Wednesday. There's something to be said for McCrorie being brought back in for Davis though because we need to be able to defend high balls because they'll be raining them in on us. If we go with the diamond I would drop Kent too for Candeias or Middleton but he seems to be a favourite of the manager so very unlikely.

11 minutes ago, MacK1950 said:

 

If as is now known to be the case why did we not just bring back Alnwyck instead of adding to the wage bill,the guy never let us down when called on to play in the first team?.

Bringing Alnwick back from loan would add far more to the wage bill. This guy will be on pennies compared to take Alnwick's wage back on just to be number 3.

This guy is a number 3 to allow McCrorie to go on loan. He is not a replacement for Wes. 

One of the strangest signings we’ve ever made. It’ll be a great trivia question in a few years time. 

Good for them to get some first experience under Jonatan Johansson and it's a real test for Dallas who is older than Rudden and needs to show he can score goals at senior level too. By all accounts he's been banging them in for the academy teams.

https://rangers.co.uk/news/headlines/loans-for-mccrorie-dallas/

38 minutes ago, ian1964 said:

 

Morelos up to his dirty old tricks again. Proud of O'Donnell for not rising to it. 

9 hours ago, craig said:

Every stage of the season is crucial, suggesting otherwise makes no sense.

That doesn't mean it isn't a disadvantage to start the season and after the winter break with 3 of the first 4 away games being away. I raised this at the beginning of the season but everyone thought it was irrelevant because at that time people still thought we were invinceable. The first few games at the beginning of the season and after the winter break are huge. You've got new players playing together in a new system and you want to create a fear factor while you still have a clean slate. 3 away games in our first 4 both times has made it very difficult for us to ease new players into our system and get their fitness levels up before sterner tests whilst Celtic have had 3 home games in their first 4 games both times. 

6 minutes ago, les186 said:

McAuley looks very uncomfortable on the ball so it was left to Worrall a lot to try and distribute the ball and he ain't too good either. Need to try punting the ball down the channels as a variation for Kent and Morelos to run onto, not down the middle as Defoe is tiny.

Agree with that. I had high hopes but McAuley looks past it, a good backup but not good enough to start. And agree with the long balls. When we played them it seemed to give us a chance to pen them in and win possession back in very good positions. We didn't have to play long ball early on but it got to a stage where it was needed because as @Rousseau pointed out something wasn't right about our movement and shape further back and to be fair Kilmarnock were marking up very well and were aggressive when anyone took the ball.

18 hours ago, Gonzo79 said:

I'd say playing Kent as a number 10 tonight suggests I have been right since May.

 

We need a creative midfielder.  

 

Until we get one, we'll win f*ck all.

It offers scant comfort right now but there seem to be plenty "number 10s" coming through the acadamy for a change. Josh McPake in particular looks brilliant. Kai Kennedy looks very promising too. 

7 hours ago, buster. said:

Spent a fair bit of cash on the central defence this season and we seem to have one fairly solid and consistent defender out of it

I think it's too early to write Katic off. His dad is apparently unwell and is a big part of the reason he hasn't been playing. Gerrard will make sure Worrall learns from that mistakes and if he moves the ball on quicker in future the rest of his game is pretty good. 

8 minutes ago, der Berliner said:

I concur with Barisic, but Tav is far too ineffective going forward, by his standards, and Candeias does a lot (as in: enough) of backtracking to allow for dropping the captain.

Tavernier puts chances on a plate for our strikers all the time, as the assits stats show. His cross which Morelos hand balled in was sublime last night, it was a shame it was just a yard ahead of him. He is also brilliant at linking up with the midfield. For me, Tavernier is title winning quality and Candeias isn't despite being a good player to have.

11 minutes ago, der Berliner said:

McGregor

 

Goldson - Katic -Halliday

 

McCrorie - Jack

 

Candeias - Davis - Kent

 

Defoe - Morelos

3 minutes ago, buster. said:

McGregor

 

Goldson - McAuley - Katic

 

Tav............McCrorie.............Barisic

Davis...........Arfield

 

Defoe.....Morelos

I honestly don't think CB is a strong enough position for us to have 3 on the park, especially considering we haven't had our best ones available all the time. I think we're stronger with Jack, Davis and Arfield retaining their places and sticking with 2 CBs. And I agree with Frankie that we're very unlikely to ditch the new system after one failure after presumably a number of weeks of working on it. I honestly think the game would have been so different if it wasn't for Worrall's blunder because it turned the game on it's head.

22 minutes ago, buster. said:

I don't think Davis and Defoe are the answer for that problem.

 

#creative midfielder_10

I think both of them improve us. Despite lots of chances last night Defoe was the only one who scored. Kent had the whole goal to aim from from 10 yards out and about 5 seconds to steady himself and still hit it straight at a Kilmarnock player. Defoe is a predator and I think he'll be great with Morelos. Davis's quality on the ball was instantly noticeable last night despite probably being unfit.

Agree 100% a creative midfielder would be brilliant but we don't seem to have any target. Not so much as a whisper about anyone apart from the Everton boy who has gone elsewhere. Kent was in the no 10 role last night and he causes problems with his pace and running and creates space for others in doing so but he doesn't have the really important abilities you want in that position at all; great first touch and techinque, passing, link up play, long shots and finishing. I'd be tempted to allow Arfield to play there because in contrast to Kent he is very good at most of those things, not least finishing.   

12 minutes ago, Frankie said:

Goldson is by far our best centre half.  Not necessarily on the ball but just in terms of pure defending.

I'm not actually saying he's isn't our best all round defender. He wasn't in a few games and that had me a bit worried at the time. He's defintely the best on the ball. 

8 minutes ago, Frankie said:

Goldson and/or Katic may come back into the side for either centre half and Barisic may decide he's available this week too which would be useful.

I criticised Goldson's defensive ability after a couple of games where he made big errors but there's no question he is easily our best CB on the ball. After last night's showing I think most are hoping we can see a Goldson-Katic partnership asap.

45 minutes ago, Rousseau said:

RE: "The midfield three (outwith Kent, who had a roaming role) were not properly positioned to find each other; I felt they were all isolated. "

 

I was so annoyed I switched it over to the Man City game, and although it was a slightly weakened side, you can see every time a midfielder has the ball, there are always options on the ball. Their structure is perfect: they're always 10 yards away from each other, staggered proportionally across the pitch.

 

It means they have lots of options and easy passes to move opponents around, to work the space. 

 

When I look at us, too often there is just no options on the ball. The attacking midfielders go forward too early, meaning Jack has sideways passes to make, and the defenders start dithering. 

 

We have to build the ball up through the phases. 

The strange thing was when we were in the ascendency early in the game I thought we had great spells of intricate triangle passing which was creating openings and causing Kilmarnock major problems. It looked like we didn't need the wings because we were getting through them in the middle. However all it took was possession being cheaply given away a few times (by Kent I'm afraid) to take the wind out of our sails and give them some confidence and suddenly we couldn't get the ball out of the defence. At that point we played a few long balls which actually almost got us back in control of the game in their half because Killie's defence had Rangers players all around them. For some reason we reverted to passing at the back which eventually led to Worrall's mistake. 

5 minutes ago, Frankie said:

But to then not close down Jones properly was almost as inexplicable as Worrall's brain fart in the first half.

Absolutely. Gerrard was badly let down last night by those mistakes. 

4 minutes ago, Frankie said:

We can talk about player a or b until we're blue in the face but the fact was it was a poor team performance.

 

As usual Killie were well organised, sat deep and pressed at the right times.  Meanwhile, we looked like a team trying out a new system after a four week break: we were sluggish, lazy at times, didn't take responsibility, our passing and shooting were woeful and our decision-making again bizarre.  Yes, two individual mistakes (Worral and Kent I think) cost us the goals against a team that never really looked dangerous but too many players had an off night and the same old failings were again evident.

 

The manager also has to take his fair share of the blame as Defoe and Davis both looked well short of fitness; more so Defoe whom, goal aside, did absolutely nothing.  The other side of the coin does say we need to play them to get them fit but using both from the start and for most of the match was an unnecessary gamble that didn't pay off.

Agree up till the bit about Davis and Defoe. I think they could have just been removed earlier. Defoe is being slated but he was doing very well when we were playing well. And nothing came in his direction for ages after that. 

Gerrard

'There was a temptation to keep the same team (that beat Celtic) but then if we lost having done that the accusation would have been that we were predictable given they had so much time to work on it,' said Gerrard.

'People will look at the formation and personnel and blame me, which they can, that's no problem.

'But if we don't give Kilmarnock two gifts tonight we win the game and people would be saying well done for changing the system.

'That's football.'

2 minutes ago, BlackSocksRedTops said:

Is it possible? Both ultimately do the same thing

I don’t think we need to throw the baby out with the bath water. It was working very well until the game was turned on it’s head and the momentum swung away from us. We had lots of opportunities to score, unlikely almost every away game this season, and should have had more goals. 

1 minute ago, Gonzo79 said:

Jack is never an advanced midfielder.  His attempt at a shot tonight verified that.

I agree he shouldn’t be shooting but he’s actually quite good as a box to box player. Kent’s shooting wasn’t any better tonight again.