DMAA

On 02/08/2021 at 10:10, Bluedell said:

Don't think I'd have him in the top 5 at Rangers.

Roofe played a massive part in our title win last season. The highest goals per minute in the team by a mile and we’ve barely even seen him fully fit. Sadly I don’t expect he’ll ever get a very long spell without injury at Rangers though. 

Fivethirtyeight’s rankings have us in 49th and them in 54th, so really closely matched. Interestingly we have a marginally better offensive score and they have a marginally better defensive ranking. 
 

For comparison, Young Boys are 50th, Slavia 74th (strange) and RB Salzburg 19th. 
 

Fivethirtyeight give stats some weight as well as results I believe so are a much better gauge than UEFA rankings. 

They put PSV out of the Europa League last season and then Arsenal put them out, 1-3 loss at home followed by 1-0 win at the Emirates. 

I think people are underestimating them. They won a much better league than ours by 26 points last season and made the UCL. 

They are very much on a high. Having said that I thought there wasn’t much between any of the teams we could have drawn, I’m glad we avoided Salzburg but Olympiacos were probably the 2nd hardest teams of the 4. 

2 hours ago, Rousseau said:

I thought Gerrard summed the game up quite well.

 

We started strongly, then the mentality changed and we kept taking too many touches, slowing and over-complicating the game. 

 

Then ended strongly.

 

It's just that middle part where we need to find the easier solutions.

Scott Wright scoring is a big positive for me from today. Similar to Kent from a couple of seasons ago in that he could do with adding some numbers to his game to gain some confidence and build on it. Scoring a goal like that in the opening game could be a big confidence boost.  
 

Over to you Andy Halliday. 

21 minutes ago, Rousseau said:

No Kelly. 

 

Not happy. 

 

Looks like Fashion up top, Hagi back to his #10 role - or perhaps dovetailing with Aribo?

I still think he’ll be going out on loan. People have gotten carried away with preseason games but he didn’t exactly excel at Ross County last season. Needs to do more at a similar club this season IMO, far more profitable than being 6th choice here. 

This selection shows a lot of confidence in the strength of our squad. Big opportunities for Sakala and Bassey in particular. 

Buzzing for the start of a new season. 
 

There are many warnings from history of teams dramatically falling away after a hugely successful season, we don’t have to look past ourselves for those. But I just don’t see that happening here. Our squad still looks very strong, and they still look in total disarray.
 

In 2000, Celtic appointed Martin O’Neill who had been very successful in England.   He spent £20m on players who had proven themselves in a much stronger league than ours, and players who were tailor made for Scottish football in terms of their physicality.
 

In 2021, they have appointed a guy who has no experience of British (or even European) football and appears to play a style of football which is known to be very risky in Scotland. His two main signings so far are 5 ft 7 and 5 ft 5 and have no experience of British football and questionable pedigree. A couple of Sheffield Wednesday youths barely merit a mention at this stage. Their latest signing Starfelt is the only signing they’ve made so far that I think will notably improve them, and even then from the stats I’ve seen he is nowhere near as physical and commanding as Helander. 
 

All that to say it’s great to be starting a new season filled with confidence and just looking forward to watching us play competitive games again. 

2 hours ago, Ted McMinnime said:

No expert on this but is the B list not all the players who have been developed by the club since youth? Can Patterson not be drawn from that list?

Yes

Good luck to George. I always liked him for how comfortable he was on the ball, but he lacked something defensively. 
 

A few years ago we were letting go starting 11 players for peanuts, or nothing at all. It is testament to the recruitment team that we are now selling a 5th choice centre back for reportedly upwards of a million plus add ons. I think they have got good value for money too. 

22 hours ago, Bill said:

The other word is that Derby don't have any money.

They don’t, very unlikely IMO. 

Real still put out a team of talented players and it was the manner of the win which was pleasing, not just the result.

I’m feeling better about the beginning of the season now. It has been strange having so many first teamers missing in preseason. And even yesterday we started the game without arguably 3/4 starting players in Aribo, Jack, Roofe and Morelos. And some of those who did start haven’t had a run of games, so it was pleasing to see that they handled a more demanding fixture just fine. 

I’m just anxious to get the close of the transfer window now. We have some excellent players who, if we keep, we will surely win the league again. But we look strong enough to cope with the loss of one big player. 

3 minutes ago, compo said:

I would see if anyone would be interested in paying a de decent fee for Hagi and try and hold on to Kamara. 

These things aren’t really in our hands. If Kamara was the one we had bids coming in for then he would be the one to go because we aren’t going to deny people the chance to triple their wages and play in a big league, it’s purely a matter of making sure the fee is acceptable to us and then finding a replacement. 

On 29/06/2021 at 09:58, Rousseau said:

I thought I'd make this a pre-season megathread, for all things pre-season. 

 

I'm expecting more from Itten this year. He made cameos last season, but nothing consistent, so I'd like to see him take a step up and push for a starting spot. 

 

I'm worried about Patterson. He's more than good enough to play. But, he has Tavernier ahead of him... I'm concerned he's not going to get the games he needs to help him progress. 

 

I do hope a youngster can make an impact pre-season. 

 

We're still short in midfield, so I'd like to see some signings in that area. 

 

In that vein, I'm curious to see how Nnamdi Ofoborh gets on (No-- I didn't look up the spelling... ?). 

I think the biggest question for us over the next 6 weeks is who we have to sell. If the Veerman rumours are true, that would suggest we are selling Kamara. I dread the thought of selling Kamara, but Veerman looks outstanding. 
 

If we can retain our main men though it’s all about staying focused, avoiding complacency and getting fit fast because we have recruited smartly so far and already have a strong squad. 

From a 5 minute look at Malmo, they don't seem very strong at all. In the transfer market they wheel and deal, they obviously don't have much money. They are top of their league but they concede a lot of goals for a team top of the league. Bizarrely, they are 11th out of 16 in their league for goals conceded. And only scraped past Riga in the previous qualifier, 2-1 on aggregate. Despite that, they are well into their season so it's a potential banana skin for us.

PSV or Galatasaray for Midtjylland. 

I’ll settle for that draw. A much better draw than Ferencvaros I think. 

It’s been a strange preseason so far due to so many first-teamers missing games. Assuming they are fit, hopefully Kent, Morelos, Barisic and Helander will play in the next game. 

14 hours ago, JohnMc said:

I don't think he should be in the squad, I don't think Gilmour should be either. Both clearly have huge potential but neither have played anything like enough first team football to warrant a full international call up.

I'd rather have Patterson than Liam Palmer who is mediocre and qualifies only via a grandparent born in Scotland.

2 hours ago, Scott7 said:

Sure. How many times?

This isn't a Scottish election. The highest standards are maintained for Gersnet polls.

On 17/05/2021 at 09:39, Frankie said:

For me, it has to be James Tavernier.

 

Whilst I've easily picked an XI of possible winners, the captain has really stood out this season for me. Yes, he unfortunately missed ten games through injury but it says a lot for his fitness and mental strength that he was able to return and play an important part in our final five games of the campaign.

 

I appreciate the calls for various other players but if we take away some understandable recency bias, then Tav sticks out for his defensive improvements, his attacking play, his taking of responsibility and his overall leadership of the side which stands up to the kind of scrutiny we usually reserve for Rangers legends of the past.

 

Well, James, you're in that company now for me and few of this current squad deserve it more.

This for me, and recency bias is working against Tavernier. For me, when they performed at their best has to come into it. Tavernier was the best player in the league when we were in a real battle for the title. Celtic only dropped 2 points in their first 9 games before we beat them. That loss caused them to briefly fall away but then they rallied in December before, yet again, a loss to Rangers killed their momentum. Only at that point did many Rangers fans allow themselves to believe we were going to win the league. Tavernier's performances were a huge part in pushing us ahead of Celtic when they were still very much in the title race. Good form in recent months is great but of less value than when the pressure was really on, in my opinion. Of course, I don't begrudge votes for any member of this squad and believe there is strong case for many of them.

Pretty depressing what has happened in this country since Saturday. The faux outrage is off the scale. 2014 has changed this country for good. 

7 hours ago, Rousseau said:

I would rather see Kelly -- who has done well at Ross County -- get a game as a Davis replacement. 

I was hoping this would be the case when he joined RC at the beginning of the season but I'm afraid it looks very unlikely now that he'll make the cut with us.

He has only played more than half an hour 14 out of 36 league games with them, and many (if not all) of those appearances were due to injuries to others.

It has been a similar story with McCrorie, I had hoped he was ready to step up but his season with Livingston hasn't gone to plan at all.

Kamara would definitely be one of the hardest to replace.