DMAA

I miss the days when a striker’s main job was to score goals. It has been a big missed opportunity having our best goalscorer on the bench, he should have played alongside Morelos far more in recent months. 

Lack of goals in our front 3 has cost us again this season imo. Celtic 1st choice striker got a hat trick on his debut and had been the most clinical striker in the league pre-injury (120 mpg), their 2nd choice striker has two hat tricks to his name and now has the best goalscoring rate (90 mpg)   Roofe has 100 mpg but that's with several penalties. Morelos is 7th in the league on 193 mpg. Kent has 2 league goals this season so is on 995 mpg. Compare that to Abada on 205 mpg or even 261 mpg for Jota. I believe it's primarily what has cost us and it has been my worry for a long time. 

The difference between us at the moment in the league is that they have turned 3 draws into wins. It isn't just a mentality thing, they signed players who have a knack for finishing and a knack for being in the right place at the right time. Their scout reports showed exactly that by the way. 

Anyway, onwards to Thursday. 

We've been so poor in this final third I don't see why Diallo doesn’t get a chance. It would have been a bit of a free hit as we were doing nothing anyway, and he does have the ability to create something. 

Rudderless. No style of play whatsoever. 

Very poor. I still think we badly miss a fully fit Helander. But offensively we just offer so little. They must be thinking this side don't look any better than lower mid-table in Portugal. 

Yeh not the best performance but what an achievement to reach this stage. Well done to everyone. I’d like to see Roofe get more opportunities, I’m not sure why he’s had so few. 

Good to see subs being used. With Morelos on a yellow we should be looking to use Roofe or Sakala too. 

The forward players have all been very wasteful again.
 

But again this is crazy, we are wide open and why? We know 3-5-2 works and stops that. 

Just now, Bill said:

Kamara asleep at the goal. Bassey posted missing at the Greg’s save. Bollocks defending

Kamara is one of the players who struggles with this kind of atmosphere, he has looked rattled from the start. 

I just can’t understand why we are playing Russian roulette here. Switch to 3-5-2 asap for flip sake. 

Does anyone else think we should be going 3-5-2? In both the Dortmund and Red Star game we suddenly looked rock solid when we switched to 3-5-2, after looking incredibly vulnerable in 4-3-3. We didn't lose our attacking threat either. It's a no brainer for me tonight with a 3 goal lead away from home.

Something like,

                    McGregor

          Sands Goldson Balogun 

Tavernier                            Bassey

                Jack    Lundstram

                        Aribo

               Morelos      Kent

Three clean sheets in a row…😬

2 minutes ago, Frankie said:

Thought the captain had one of his best games for the club

Totally agree with this. Very consistent. I thought Ryan Jack was great too, hard to believe how little he has played given how well he performs when he comes in. 

Fantastic result! Really incredible. 
 

Have to say it was a very strange game though. We’ve scored from 3 pieces and were actually very wasteful in open play, and really rode our luck at the back until we switched to 3 at the back. 
 

Some fantastic performances out there. A few had good games but really tired and I don’t understand GVB’s reluctance to use his subs and get fresh legs out there. 
 

I’ve managed to squeeze a few complaints in there as usual but you have to be very happy again tonight with an amazing performance and win. 

Yesterday another big McGregor gaffe, massive let off. Why on earth hasn’t he been dropped. 

Lowest xG since Parkhead

Pass % lowest since Pittodrie

So it was as bad as it felt.

9 hours ago, Bill said:

I hope I'm wrong but I'm beginning to feel an old familiar foreboding about a manager who insists on repeating the same mistakes and shows no inclination to change, as if dogged intransigence will eventually fix everything.

 

It's a rare event when Aberdeen come to Ibrox and win but at this rate they just could.

It would be very Rangers if we allowed an Aberdeen side this poor to stop us from

winning the league. As things stand, that’s where we are with 4 points dropped against them. 

For context; Hearts, Dundee United and Aberdeen have all been to that ground and come away with higher possession than we had tonight (56%). St Mirren had 55%. Looked like a bottom half clash.

Luckily we were playing a very poor football team tonight.

We can't complain about tiredness when we won't use our subs. At the very least Sakala should be on.

Just now, Frankie said:

The pitch is dreadful and I get a few players will be feeling the effects of a lot of game-time but we simply have to be a lot, lot better than this. To sit so deep and allow St Johnstone so much possession is asking for trouble. Manager should be going berserk right now.

What really concerns me is the lack of control. 57% possession isn't good enough. I think if you compared our possession to Celtic's, or to our's last season, there would be a pretty big difference. We just aren't playing like champions at all.

An early goal and not a shot on target since. Looks like a St Johnstone-Aberdeen game to be honest. Still no signs that we are improving any time soon.

Disappointed in Gio’s reluctance to mix it up. 

17 minutes ago, alexscottislegend said:

Aye and we know whose fault that is.

We are currently 9th in the country coefficient, but 19th for this season because of the Conference League.

The Conference League more or less eliminates the possibility of a small country with a couple of big teams overtaking big countries in the rankings again. So the automatic Champions League spot will only be possible for two seasons max I think before we tumble down the rankings again.

7 minutes ago, alexscottislegend said:

Aye and we know whose fault that is.

Well it’s primarily the rest of the league’s fault rather than Celtic. We are a 2-team league but we have 3 passengers as far as the coefficient is concerned, the conference league gives our rivals a shot in the arm because they have stronger teams finishing 3rd-5th. 

That's a very good draw. There were a couple of better ones but you really can't complain about that. They have been pretty average in Europe this season and they're second in their league.