The Winter 2018/19 - Transfer Window Rumours and Deals - Thread

[buster. 5,198]

31 minutes ago, ian1964 said:

Hardie's contract runs out next year, he is 21 and is a goal scorer so a big decision has to be made by Rangers, I would like to see him given a decent run of games in our first team to see if he can do a job for us, however I can't see him getting that run in the first team, Lafferty isn't even getting that, but I would give him a chance, 21 years old, 6ft 2 and knows how to put the ball in the net.

IMO if we want to compete at the top end, we'll need a better first choice centre forward than Ryan Hardie.

 

As you alude to Ian, one of the big difficulties for us and any manager in charge is that there is seldom the luxury/opportunity of giving a youngster a decent run of games unless injury forces the situation or the youngster is exceptional.

 

 

 

 

Edited December 15, 2018 by buster.

[der Berliner 3,745]

IMHO, as I said before, our tactics ever since MW have wrecked a good few Rangers strikers prospects of making their mark with the club. Be that Hardie, Garner, Waghorn, Herrera, Dodoo or Cummings. We shoe-horned them all into a one-striker scenario that  may suit e.g. a Morelos, but not quite a few others, who a) weren't really used to it, or b) hardly get a consistent run due to one striker is being first choice. So if they come on for a few minutes or have a game every now and then, they usually didn't or don't hit the ground as some seemingly expect ... and are written off as duds. We see the same stuff with Lafferty just now. And we would see the same with Hardie, if he was here.

 

4-3-3 is a neat system every now and then, if you have the players and face opposition that wants to play football. A e.g. Ribery-Lewandowski-Robben trio will always work for Bayern ind the BL or in Europe. A Kent-Morelos-Candeias will and has consistently "failed" in the battlegrounds of Scotland. Yes, we scored loads of goals still, but how often have these threesome (or their subs) run against brick-walls in the SPFL, being easily mopped up and swamped by 2 or 3 "defenders" each. The longer the MW and now SG season wore on, the more adapt the SPFL defence came in nullify the threat of our attack line.

 

Yet, we persist in essentially a 4-3-3, hoping for the killer pass from young Ejaria or the odd perfect cross from Tavernier, or some magic by Middleton. People have - in this thread - asked for another quality striker to accompany Morelos. What for though, one may ask? We don't play two strikers ... when the team begs out for them. I have no doubt whatsoever that we would have posed a far greater threat to those rugged SPFL defences had we employed Lafferty and Morelos these last few weeks, and built the rest of the team according to opposition at hand - rather than throwing Plan A at them with a minimal change in personell. Where MW was hand-cuffed because of lack in numbers, we currently hand-cuff ourselves with playing (or having played) the Liverpool-lads each and every game no matter what.

 

So if you ask me, I'd say yes: go for that preferrably international striker in the window, but also get Hardie back for next season and someone like Cummings, who has (at 23!) more than 200 games under his belt in exactly the environment we need, scoring 90 goals and assisting 30 more. Use him and Lafferty against Killie, Accies and Co. and forget, for those games, on champagne stuff (that essentially never really occured all too regularly, if people would be true to their memory) always presented by McCoist, Hateley, Lövenkrands, Mols and Co.. Or try Hardie and Cummings, Lafferty et al. It is not dropping the likes of Morelos, but revolving squad and tactics to the task at hand, which we hardly see these last few months, unless injuries and suspension dictates it.

[Rousseau 10,636]

4-3-3 is the best formation in the game; it allows more attackers in the final third, and a three-man midfield providing more control. 

 

Isolated strikers is a problem, but only through a failure of execution. It's not a failure of the system. There should be three 'strikers' in the 4-3-3. 

 

There's a reason why Sir Alex Ferguson changed from a dominant 4-4-2 to a 4-3-3 at the turn of the millennium. 

 

4-3-3 should be our standard formation, which then gets tweaked depending on the opposition. 

 

[Rousseau 10,636]

 

[Rousseau 10,636]

I'd still use Pena. 

 

He's a unique player, with a valuable skill-set. 

 

He's not a complete midfielder, and he does have issues, but I'd use him until his contract runs out -- if we can't get rid of him for a fee, which looks unlikely. 

[ranger_syntax 4,325]

6 minutes ago, Rousseau said:

I'd still use Pena. 

 

He's a unique player, with a valuable skill-set. 

 

He's not a complete midfielder, and he does have issues, but I'd use him until his contract runs out -- if we can't get rid of him for a fee, which looks unlikely. 

Payoff plz.

 

Bringing him in to the squad on his huge wage has a high chance of being disruptive.

 

The cost of the payoff is a small price to pay when compared to the larger investment made in the rest of the squad.  To risk that much larger investment looks very foolish to me.

[der Berliner 3,745]

39 minutes ago, Rousseau said:

4-3-3 is the best formation in the game; it allows more attackers in the final third, and a three-man midfield providing more control. 

 

Isolated strikers is a problem, but only through a failure of execution. It's not a failure of the system. There should be three 'strikers' in the 4-3-3. 

 

There's a reason why Sir Alex Ferguson changed from a dominant 4-4-2 to a 4-3-3 at the turn of the millennium. 

 

4-3-3 should be our standard formation, which then gets tweaked depending on the opposition. 

 

 

4-3-3 ... has three "attackers" (not necessarily strikers) in the final third. 4-4-2 has four "attackers" in the final third, two strikers and two nominal wingers. 4-4-2 does not stop the full-backs join the attack either. We usually have the fullbacks further forward than usual, so have 2 CHs covering. In the days of MW and PC it proved fatal, as the CHs weren't of a standard high enough, nor did we have a DM able to cover. Now it is somewhat different, player-wise, but we still usually have only the CHs back and a DM covering for Tav and/or whoever is left-back. There is hardly ever any reason to "just" have three attackers in an area swamped by the opposition, with usually 2 of the 3 midfielders being more defensively than attack-minded.

 

Re Sir Alex - I actually pointed in that direction with my remark about Bayern (or the like). If you play in a league that wants to play football too, that system is all fine and well. Against the brick-wall stuff of the SPFL, it is not working as those three attackers can more easily taken care off than four or five. As we have seen time and again.

 

If we have some quality attacking MF to go with it, like a couple of Arfields, fair enough. But we don't.

 

[Rousseau 10,636]

19 minutes ago, der Berliner said:

 

4-3-3 ... has three "attackers" (not necessarily strikers) in the final third. 4-4-2 has four "attackers" in the final third, two strikers and two nominal wingers. 4-4-2 does not stop the full-backs join the attack either. We usually have the fullbacks further forward than usual, so have 2 CHs covering. In the days of MW and PC it proved fatal, as the CHs weren't of a standard high enough, nor did we have a DM able to cover. Now it is somewhat different, player-wise, but we still usually have only the CHs back and a DM covering for Tav and/or whoever is left-back. There is hardly ever any reason to "just" have three attackers in an area swamped by the opposition, with usually 2 of the 3 midfielders being more defensively than attack-minded.

 

Re Sir Alex - I actually pointed in that direction with my remark about Bayern (or the like). If you play in a league that wants to play football too, that system is all fine and well. Against the brick-wall stuff of the SPFL, it is not working as those three attackers can more easily taken care off than four or five. As we have seen time and again.

 

If we have some quality attacking MF to go with it, like a couple of Arfields, fair enough. But we don't.

 

Yes, that's why I had 'strikers' in inverted commas.

 

4-3-3 can have seven attackers.

 

Sir Alex and Man Utd were playing in a league that didn't want to play football; the 4-4-2 was ubiquitous. He was able to smash them with a 4-3-3.

 

I agree we certainly need more creative midfielders -- But, I don't think that precludes us from using it now; it's generally worked quite well. 

[der Berliner 3,745]

Thing here remains that we can easily go 3-5-2 or the like in the Premiership too, having two real strikers instead of one. Far too often we have situations in the area where lose balls are picked up by defenders rather than your lurking "natural finisher" (McCoist, Hardie, Garner, Cummings et al), as the midfield does not occupy spaces quickly enough. Holt did it in his first year, before being shuttled back into deep MF. Arfield is doing it now,  when he plays. Might still be a place for Pena, as it is his style of game.

[der Berliner 3,745]

Meanwhile, Sadiq has been sent back (SG aluded to that) and today ...

 

According to Italian journalist Gianluca Di Marzio, Sadiq is set to be loaned out to Perugia for the rest of the season.

According to Di Marzio a medical has already been undertaken.

Perugia would become Sadiq’s fifth loan club in two years after Bologna, Torino, NEC Breda and Rangers.