DMAA

Yeh I do too tbh. Hopefully he learned a couple of things from the old firm. A bit of a curveball but I wonder if Sands could play as he is more of a defensive midfielder than most. You have to think about off the ball abilities for this game.

Although it's a free hit, in some ways this is still a test of sorts for GVB. I guessed before the old firm that GVBs Rangers wouldn't be as compact and as solid as Gerrard's and it certainly seemed that way. Gerrard's failures were largely an inability to consistently do the job against smaller teams. In his final season, he overcame that hurdle in the league, though it remained in the cups. His successes on the other hand were largely his ability to perform very consistently against good opposition; old firm matches and Europe. I expect Dortmund will be looking to put this game to bed in the first leg so that they can rest good players in the second leg, but a good manager would still find a way to make things difficult for them so I'm keen to see how we do tactically. Looking at Dortmund's results, they score a lot but they concede like a mid table/bottom half side. Stopping them from scoring will be near impossible but it seems we need to make sure we have a counter attacking threat because this isn't the defensively solid Dortmund of a number of seasons ago.

His stock seems low at the moment, it would be a good time to go for him.

The game was going to be different in the second half to be fair. In-game changes were absolutely essential after about 10 minutes to stop them slicing through us down the right hand side but they weren’t made and we paid the price.

By the way, I would like to see Gerrard’s diamond against them. CCV started almost all their attacks with incisive passes to Juranovic or Abada. If we had two strikers we could cut that out at source. It would present other challenges but it might have worked better than the wide 4-3-3 anyway which was absolutely disastrous with one pass repeatedly getting them into a promising position on the right and Kent in no man’s land.

I think Jack deserves a MOTM to his name.

100%. They were very well coached, and we hadn’t done our homework. There’s individual responsibility in there too, experienced players being drawn to the ball like moths to a flame.

No man of the match thread? (I know)

He mixed it up, he played the christmas tree formation too with Kent and Roofe tucked in. Same in Europe, it made us difficult to break down.

We have 3 centre mid positions. If you go with say Ramsey, Aribo and Jack you have Kamara, Arfield, Davis, Lowry, Lundstram and Sands on the bench. Compare that to only Scott Wright and Sakala (a centre forward to trade) covering the wing positions. One position clearly has stronger competition than the other.

Yeh I'd thought of that. Sands and Bassey are both fairly well suited to playing either side of the 3.

I was just watching the game back there and there was a move which absolutely summed up what I said pre-match about GVB's system. Under Gerrard, Kent would tuck in and block the passing channels and Celtic really struggled to build attacks. In this move, the ball is with Carter-Vickers, Kent is wide (in no man's land), Carter Vickers passes through to a centre mid who then plays it out to Juranovic who is now miles away from Kent (who is still in no man's land watching the ball), Barisic is also ball watching and is drawn to Juranovic and leaves Abada to run off him and he then receives the ball in acres of space and gets the by-line and they nearly score from the cut-back. Individuals do need to take responsibility but tactically, you have to wonder what they talk about before games and how GVB didn't see that coming.

It’s a day for opening cans of worms

I was just angry that with total control of the second half we still couldn't score. It added to the humiliation that the score remained 3-0.

I've no idea what his plan is. Ramsey has provided even more competition where we already had strong competition whilst we still don't have enough competition on the wings. Roofe has to start when he is fit but he's not a winger so will the system be changed to accommodate him? A 3-5-2 based system would do that, and also get more out of our full backs. A 4-4-2 based system would too but we have way too many centre mids to play it.

Haha, I can't get on board with that at all. Would have denied them the clean sheet, a 3 goal win and given us a bit of hope for the final 20 minutes or whatever it was.

We have this problem with Ramsey, Jack, Roofe, Arfield and soon Helander. All are at risk of being rushed back.

It isn't much of a consolation but Ryan Jack. He was pulling us back into single handedly and was inches away from scoring a worldie. He had no help at all from the attacking players.

He deserves that after last night tbh. Ross County I put squarely at McGregor’s feet though. GVB can’t legislate for two inexplicable goalkeeping gaffes in one game. Never mind the one from Bassey.

When I looked at GVB’s record, it just didn’t merit the level of excitement for me. It seemed based on who he was as a player, which I am always very wary of. One incredible season followed by several average ones (maybe even a little below average). He has time to turn this around though so I’m not writing him off by any means, there are just some worrying signs there, and they have it together, so there isn’t much room for error now that we’ve handed them a 7 point swing in 2 weeks.

I'm just concerned that GVB isn’t as good a manager as Postecoglou, and I’m not saying that just after last night I was cautious about GVB from the beginning. Even new additions to their team look like they know exactly what their role is and how the system works. I'm just not sure I've seen anything like that with us. There's a long season ahead and hopefully the new signings + the returning players (Jack, Roofe, Helander) can give us a boost.

Not dissimilar to Nacho Novo

We have a very frustrating lack of competition in the wing positions. Kent’s competition is Sakala (a CF) and Scott Wright. That is literally it. We barely have a chance to mix it up.

He should have started. Reputation over form as usual.

My biggest worry tonight isn’t the players but the manager. I said before the game I was concerned GVB wouldn’t learn lessons from Gerrard and wouldn’t set up as compact. Gerrard’s Rangers wouldn’t have shipped 3 goals like that tonight. It felt like one manager schooling another.