DMAA

Well done on the analysis. This is what we need more of. I really hated when Caixinha and our players would come out with vague excuses for not performing. The favourite one is always "we just need consistency". If you can't find consistency it's because you're not good enough! This analysis is really good, and it's very exciting that it's Rangers you're talking about and not Man City. I'd be really interested to hear who's ideas are at work here. How much of it is Murty, how much Johanssen. Celtic's defence is pretty poor but they defend by keeping possession. Their possession stats are way higher than ours, crazy high. And I think that's the big reason they concede so few. A big part of our strategy will need to be about winning the ball back quickly and effectively. This probably means getting right on top of Scott Brown and not allowing him to dictate. We'll need to be able to keep the ball well too, moving it around without losing it. Otherwise they will stop us scoring by keeping the ball off us like they have with everyone else.

I'd actually be tempted to bring in Holt and move Docherty to the central attacking midfield position. That way he would be right on top of Brown. With Holt and Docherty in there they wouldn't have much time on the ball in the middle, and Goss would be freed up a bit from the physical side of the game. Very unlikely I suppose, but I do wonder about the wisdom of playing with 4 attacking players against Celtic. Maybe that would be showing more respect than we need to I'm not sure.

Murty has a selection headache. Cummings is such a quality finisher it's going to be hard not to start him. We really need to be clinical against Celtic. They don't concede many at all, they don't gift you many clear cut chances. So you need to takes the ones you get, and you probably need to score what are more half chances than chances. I'd start him ahead of Windass if Murphy is back for those reasons.

And pace in defending! James Forrest is Celtic's fastest player and he's now up against Halliday instead of John. I think that's a worry for us.

I'd caution against being too confident for a few reasons; Celtic only need a draw This is huge thing. If Rodgers has any common sense he will take full advantage of the fact that they do not need to win the game but we do. He can ask his team to bide their time, don't take too many risks and wait for our pourous defense to open up. However there's a decent chance Rodgers doesn't have this common sense and will set up to attack out of pride. We on the other hand need to win, and if we're stuck at 0-0 for too long we'll start to take risks and throw men forward. The prospect of us pushing up and taking risks and Celtic playing on the counter is not a good one We're at home Should be an advantage but it isn't. There's something about the psychology of playing at home that just isn't working well with this group of players. Whether it's the big sighs for misplaced passes or just the sheer expectation I don't know, but the fact is this group of players have been worse at home than away by some margin Murphy may be out Murphy is a huge player, not just in terms of his ability but what he offers to our system. He is unique in the squad in terms of what he offers the team and how he fits in Halliday at left back He's been good in the last couple of games but that's what you'd expect from an attack minded left back in two 4-1 wins. He hasn't been tested in a game where our full backs are under the cosh and for me he will not be as good as Declan John at this For me it's all about taking our early chances (before we need to take any risks). We will almost certainly have good chances in the opening half hour. If we take them then the fact they only need a draw isn't a big a problem. However if we aren't clinical and spurn our chances they can take full advantage of that and start to punish us on the counter as we start to take more and more risks as the game goes on.

I too think it’s too early to say. I think people were a bit unfair to get on his back when he was thrown in as caretaker and lost to Hamilton and Dundee. He had inherited a team who weren’t producing and he hadn’t had any time to get to know the team and fix what was going wrong. Since then (December onwards) the signs have been good. He had 4 big tests in December and passed 3 (Hibs away, Celtic away, Aberdeen away). Lost Killie away. He deserved a lot of credit for those results because they were with the same team Caixinha had. Post transfer window there have really been 3 big tests and 2 have been passed (Aberdeen and Hearts at home). Lost to Hibs. However aside from those 3 tests there has clearly been a lot right about the side which suggests Hibs was a blip (and let’s be honest they had a huge stroke of luck to get a penalty from nowhere). Looking forward to seeing how the rest of the season goes now, lots of big tests still to come.

"When I was at QPR I was told I wouldn't fit into the way the manager wanted to set up the midfield and the way we were playing at the time.” If it’s a matter of style rather than just match practice and quality then we may be in luck. Might mean we could snatch him for about £2m in the summer.

To be honest I think they’re entitled to as long as a significant minority of our fans keep singing about “****** blood” and the pope at our games

Holloway has always been a bit mad. But it does kind of change things because now we know he really rates him. Doesn’t look like bluffing because he didn’t have to go so over the top about it. Looks love we’ve been priced out.

Surprised they’d want a game so soon before the old firm. It’s another chance for injuries and niggles with not long to recover. Less time to prepare for the game too.

We’ve also become the top scorers in the league again, this time with a 3 goal cushion. And aren’t far off 3 times Aberdeen’s Goal difference now (27 vs 10). Celtic’s game being postponed is the kind of luck we can do with.

Apart from his yellow card. He was caught on the wrong side of his man and hauled him down in a dangerous position. I think it’s unfair to draw conclusions because we don’t know how Cummings would have done in the goalscoring period of the game. He came on when the game had gone pretty flat, and then we lost Murphy. Couldn’t agree more. What a player. And you’re right I would say Goss and Docherty are our strongest pairing. Though Dorrans has a claim ahead of Windass for me, at least at home. I hope Alves will work his way back to full fitness. Tbh I’d much rather him in ahead of Martin Martin is decent but he was solely at fault for the goal. He’s not good enough in the air. And Alves’s long balls are great. We saw one of them last night. Excellent technique. It will be good to see him playing in a strong Rangers side.

And one mitigating point on the ref, he at least gave the free kick that led to the goal when all the BT pundits were saying Davidson got a touch, despite the replays clearly showing he didn’t.

There’s real quality in this side now and that’s why we’re winning consistently. Poor results for us over the past season and a half were put down to “lacking consistency”, when they should have been put down to lacking quality players and tactics. Goss, Docherty and Murphy are quality and they’ve made a huge difference. Morelos is quality too even when he doesn’t score. Great to watch these players just now. Wish there was a way to sign Goss in the summer, only 22.

Really good stuff. Docherty does a great job in the middle. He’s the kind of guy you hate marking you, rapid and strong. You just can’t get more than a few yards away from him. Fantastic assist from him too. Team looks very organised and with good shape.

You’re right, it’s something that benefits the top club above all. They have the funds to buy players like Allan and Christie who they don’t need, and the Hibs or Aberdeen they face will then be different to the Hibs or Aberdeen everyone else faces. And those teams are then disadvantaged when they face the loaning club because they have at least one very big change to make to their team and strategy for that game.

I think there's truth in that Craig but I'm not sure it has quite as much to do with it as you suggest. I think Aberdeen have a winning formula that we hadn't found. They play basic yet effective football that scores goals. I would be especially interested to see how many headed goals they have scored this season and last compared to us. As for the disparity between their results against 4th-12th and 1st-2nd, there must be a lot of reasons. One simple one to partially account for the Celtic losses is that they can't play their best player against them, Christie. Their attacking play revolves around him in the rest of their games, it's a huge change to adjust to when they play Celtic. It didn't help that Shinnie was suspended either for that last one having been an ever present. Personally I think Murty's very good big game record plays a part in their poor results against us. We don't know how he does it but he does. After all Aberdeen had a 50-50 record vs Warburton and Caixinha. It's only fallen apart for them since Murty's been in charge. They would claim the double header in November was due to the McInnes saga of course, and that probably did play a part though it obviously wasn't the sole reason as they claim.

It's hard to believe how much better they have been than us against the rest of the league. If you discount their games against us, they'd be 9 points ahead of us! If you discount their games against Celtic, they'd be joint top with them. If you discount games between the three teams they'd be 4 points clear of Celtic and 10 points clear of us. They've only dropped points against a bottom 6 side twice all season, and one of them was Motherwell who were top 6 at the time and high flying. Only 1 loss against a non-old firm side to our 6. Hopefully this disparity between our ability to beat the 4th-12th sides no longer exists - as we're starting to hope - and we will get 4 in a row ahead of the game against Celtic, and with that new found winning formula finally open up that much needed gap with Aberdeen.

Alves coming in for John sounds good, but the change in formation would be bad for Murphy and Candeias. We've been making very good use of the wings so this would be to big a change I think. I'd hope Wallace can manage even 45 minutes but we'll see.

I hope Lee Wallace is fit enough to start. He could easily be subbed if he was struggling.

I think our chances are pretty slim. Every good performance will push his price up. QPR are struggling majorly so would likely give him a chance when he returns. Only getting relegated would increase our chances I think, because then their already bad finances would be so desperate they'd likely be open to good offers. As for Goss himself, he must be loving life at Rangers but for an English kid like him he'd never trade starting games in the Championship for Rangers. Playing in the Championship is a very big step closer to playing in the Premier League and that will be his ultimate goal. Would he trade being a backup in the Championship for starting for us? Surely! So here's hoping Holloway makes a poor decision and because of their poor finances they'll take a decent offer.

I wonder now if Mark Allen (or someone on the board) took a gamble and refused a discounted transfer fee in January (say £1m) and instead gambled on a loan with the option of making it permanent at the higher price so that we could save face and say we got our money back (as the papers reported). If so, that gamble hasn't paid off as there's no way they'll be paying £2m for him after seeing what he's like. Especially because Caixinha probably won't be there to buy him. A chunk of Mark Allen's work in the summer will be finding somewhere for him to go to offload his wages. Recuperating the transfer fee we paid or even half of it isn't going to happen, which is a big blow to our finances.

Interesting wee article from the Scotsman today on the best defenders in the air. Good to see Alves topping it, but I was disappointed to see Bates at 9th despite being 6 foot 4 and this being considered one of his strengths. Celtic's two main centre backs in top 5. They've still got the edge at corners in my opinion and it's something we need to look at for future defensive recruitments. https://www.scotsman.com/image-gallery/in-pictures-most-aerially-dominant-centre-backs-1-4696723/4696724/img14696722

I'd like to see Cummings tested there against a bottom 6 side. His long shots would add a new threat from outside the box. However Dorrans seems an ideal player to have there when he's back? I guess Dorrans and Docherty could be interchangeable betweem centre mid and attacking centre mid. Dorrans at home and Docherty away maybe when his legs are more useful on the break. On a different topic, I'm surprised at the number of strikers Murty has on his bench. Miller, Cummings and Herrera. We only have 6 outfield subs, that's half the bench covering one position in our formantion. The other three were Alves, Halliday and Holt. 3 more central players. For me MOH would offer a different option off the bench. Pace for the closing stages of a game away from home when you're maybe playing on the counter. And even Kranjcar can feel a bit hard done by (though I'm not a big fan). He would also cover a different position and is a different type of player. And I think we should have a policy of having at least one youth player on our bench if possible. Murty is stuck with Herrera and Miller and that's not his fault, but they just seem to get on the bench automatically even though they are not very good options to have imo.

Exactly. If your threat is coming from one side then they will sometimes have off days, or just come up against what is also the opposing team’s strong side. When you have a threat on both sides you can more easily exploit the opposition’s weaker side. As well as just being far less predictable and more dynamic.