DMAA

2 minutes ago, Whosthedado said:

Likes of Gersnet etc will be next 

I think Gersnet will hold up very well to any scrutiny. Certainly far stricter on naughty words than some forums. 

2 hours ago, ian1964 said:

 

It’s a shame they felt they had to resign. Good to hear the record are in a panic though, shameless hypocrites.

8 minutes ago, alexscottislegend said:

A genuine British socialist and unionist Labour Party would, I suspect, hoover up a huge amount of current SNP support

I’m not convinced by this at all. They can’t see past the fact that a large amount of the political decisions affecting us will continue to be made by Conservatives if we remain in the UK. 

19 hours ago, 26th of foot said:

Finally, after the last independence referendum there was a study into the voting intentions of Scottish football clubs supporters. Rangers supporters registered 40% in support of independence, the highest of all clubs. We used to have a number of posters on Gersnet who supported independence but they have largely withdrawn hors de combat. A pity I say. I want to know the mindset and debate only makes all of us stronger.

The reason for this is pretty simple. The left cannot bear the ongoing Tory rule in the UK. Labour have only been in power for 13 of the last 42 years (30%). Of course that was with their most right wing leader of all time. What’s worse, they have just suffered their biggest defeat since the 30s.
 

Even going way back as far back as 1922, the left’s time in power only rises to 35%. That is the single biggest issue for the independence supporting Rangers fans I know. They want a socialist utopia because they can’t put the blasted Guardian down. 

1 minute ago, Frankie said:

By the way it's worth noting that we've brought in the better part of £1.5-2m for Edmundson and Jones so every penny helps.

I had actually just started typing a response to myself saying we have actually done an ok job of managing the wage bill in that we brought in only 4 players but moved on 9 including loans, including decent wages in Katic, Edmundson, Stewart and Itten. You could count Murphy as Hibs presumably didn’t cover his whole wage last season. 

41 minutes ago, Rousseau said:

It's not as overstocked as it appears, IMO. We need two for every position, so the only 'extras', I'd say, are Kelly and Arfield. 

It’s only centre mid I feel we are. It partly because of the seniority of the players and their wages, we seem to have a concentration of wages in midfield. Across the defence we have low-wage backups. In the attack, maybe slightly less so but still reasonably low-wage backups. 
 

In midfield we appear to have hefty wages on our bench. Assuming we play Jack-Davis-Kamara, that would be Arfield, Lundstram, Bacuna and Aribo on the bench. It just seems such an inefficient use of wages to me. I am assuming Kamara extends and gets the hefty pay-bump he deserves. 

11 minutes ago, Frankie said:

I think the acquisition of Bacuna is an interesting one as I'm still not entirely sure where he'll play. He's also the only fee we've spent.

 

I'm also comfortable that Sakala and Lundstram will contribute as the season goes on.

Forgot about Bacuna ? I don’t understand our thinking at the moment in midfield. Gerrard had been talking about quality over quantity but again it doesn’t really look like that’s what we’ve done. We are now well over-stocked in midfield. I count 8 players to 3 positions. 

It is an underwhelming window largely because the expectations were raised when Gerrard said he was really excited ahead of the transfer window and there were big things planned or something like that. 
 

Sakala directly replaces Itten. Sakala certainly adds pace but he will have to prove himself. 
 

Lundstram directly replaces Zungu. I think Zungu was better at the defensive side of the game, Lundstram is another who can maybe contribute with some goals/assists like Arfield. 
 

Despite that, Celtic have had a catastrophic window and you have to take our window in that context because our financial environment the same. They appear to have balanced the books by downgrading their squad. We have maintained a strong squad but almost certainly have a higher wage bill than them now, maybe even significantly higher. 
 

I’m confident ahead of the season and, again, the biggest risks to our season are injuries to Helander, Barisic, Jack and Roofe.

4 minutes ago, Gonzo79 said:

Is there a summary of ins and outs anywhere?

@der Berliner won’t be impressed. 

After the signing of Sakala we looked overstocked up front to be honest. We look overstocked at centre back and midfield too, Katic will surely secure a loan? Looks like Hadjuk Split are interested, that would be a decent move. In centre mid I've no idea, but we have 8 seniors midfielders to 3 midfield positions, something has to give surely. There's no way McCann signs in those circumstances. I think we lack a good tackler in our midfield.

19 hours ago, JohnMc said:

Didn't he leave under something of a cloud last season? We should get a development fee for him now. I remember when Dylan McGeoch left us for them, he was going to be the next big thing. We got £100,000 for him apparently, still the highest transfer fee anyone has ever paid for him. More recently Liam Burt joined them, also a player a lot was expected of at one time. I hear he's a regular in the League Of Ireland now, so that's pleasing. 

If he's willing to join them then I'm happy he's away. 

I find this a very frustrating one. He was well known to be from a Celtic background but we all said that didn't matter, yet there was a feeling of inevitability about this. He has been a big player for us through the youth teams and had the better of Celtic throughout, yet the second I heard he had left Rangers after a fall out I knew he would end up there. Hopefully he’ll amount to nothing, by all accounts there are serious red flags regarding his attitude. 

Deeney much more likely to be heading to Celtic. They are desperate for a striker, we are pretty well stocked.

9 hours ago, rbr said:

The great debate just now about what player is out of form etc etc , we as fans tend to go on game by game-basis when rating players , apart from that pair  of arseholes I had to sit beside last night who gave every player it right from the first whistle , where as managers and coaches tend to look at the bigger picture and how things tend to even themselves out over the course of a season .

 

we don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes or in training, we either trust our management team or we don’t , some fans seem to have reached def con 12 already .

Gerrard was more frustrated at the players who aren’t performing for him in his press conferences than anyone on here tbh, questioned their dedication at the moment and said something along the lines of he’ll be going with the in-form boys at the weekend, so it’s not that he isn’t seeing what we are or agreeing with it. Some people do go too far (the worst normally in the stadium itself), but equally some don’t seem to be able to handle fans validly criticising some individual performances. 

4 hours ago, Gonzo79 said:

Kent has always had dips in form.  Some fans just seem to forget about them though.  He was awful for spells last season, so much so that I couldn't believe SG persisted with him.  

He is a very hot and cold player. When he’s on form he is great, when he is not on form he is so poor. The opposition last night was really weak and he still couldn’t beat a man or create anything. It was a good chance to regain some confidence.

I’m hopeful that the competition from Wright will do him good this season though and I’m confident Gerrard will use that. He has already started to, last season he would very rarely sub Kent when he wasn’t at it but it’s been different this season. And I thought he hinted that Wright will start at the weekend in the press conference. 

9 minutes ago, Rousseau said:

I'm hoping Lundstram is just needing time. 

 

Wright had 6 months, in a league he's familiar with, to get to this stage. 

 

Even Hagi had a long-ish settling in period. 

 

I was always quite clear that Kamara was a good player, but there were a lot of criticism in his early period. 

I'm just worried about Lundstram's fitness. He has looked sluggish, not mobile and a bit lazy. It seems a longer term issue going by reports from Sheffield United. Not a signing I was excited about but I still believe he will do just fine if he can get himself fully fit.

6 minutes ago, Rousseau said:

Hagi has impressed this season. 

 

I think he's always had the tools, but always looked weak, to me. I think he's really bulked up; he can hold off players now. 

 

If he adds goals to his assists, he'll be a good asset -- one which is hopefully sold for £20M plus! 

I was delighted to see his hunger and aggression last night. A lot of our fans didn't take to him before now, I think he is winning a lot of them over by playing like that. I would love to see him make himself a regular this season but he has strong competition.

6 minutes ago, Frankie said:

Rotation is inevitable in busy periods but tricky to apply.

 

Looked like Kent took a knock first half so has to be Wright to start on Sunday and manager will fancy a rest for Hagi as well. Fortunately, Roofe comes back for County and Kamara also with the midfielder also available next Thursday. Bacuna might find himself called upon fairly quickly this weekend with Lundstram under pressure early in his Rangers career as we'll need Aribo next week too. Sakala would be useful at the weekend but not sure if he'll make it.

 

We have the best part of 30 first team options but finding the right blend from game to game isn't as easy as it seems.  What I would expect though is a better attitude from every single one of that squad, no matter who is picked.

 

 

Kamara and Roofe returning is massive. Bacuna is an interesting signing and after tonight I think we’re all glad to have another option. Ryan Jack is also reportedly very near a return. I think things will get better soon but it is concerning when the old firm game is fast approaching. 

We have Celtic coming up so the gaffer has had to decide which players to try to get up to speed and persevere with and which ones to give a chance to. He gave Bassey a chance tonight and eventually gave Wright one too. Of course he might still intend to play Barisic on Sunday and then again the following Sunday. These aren’t easy decisions to make and we do need to rotate. 

Pressure was off, in a strange way, once we down to 10. 

3 minutes ago, CammyF said:

As an aside, Hagi has been immense tonight 

One of the few who looks like he thinks he needs to earn his place in the team. 

Wouldn’t mind Patterson coming on

39 minutes ago, CammyF said:

But you felt the need to single him out

It’s live match thread. Absolutely nothing wrong with making a comment on a single player every now and again. I felt he had been particularly poor. 

This is a very poor side we are playing, still no excuses for not hammering them and this might just tempt them to open up a bit. 

Lundstram is just so slow on the ball. Incredibly poor from him tonight. 

2 minutes ago, CammyF said:

He ain't the only one.... 

I didn’t say he was