bg1872

He's been decent. Nothing more. Angers are hardly a footballing superpower and if they are happy to loan him out I won't be expecting anything more than decent.

It's amazing the impact a wee nutmeg will have on people. It lets them ignore the fact he had more opprtunities to deliver the killer pass or unlock the defence than anyone else...and failed every single time.

The Livi game drained most of my optimism away. Today was probably the dregs of it draining away. All SG's talk about prioritising the league after the first international break is garbage. He is still quite clearly getting the players and himself all wound up for the EL. Domestic matches come 2nd. The biggest match for Gerrard this week was the Spartak match the other night. Until we are out of that competition you won't see the best of us domestically, which won't be good enough either. The sheep were there for the taking today and we couldn't make their goalie work. Gerrard rightly criticised the play in the final 3rd but didn't change it until we went 1-0 down and he panicked. We have too many players to mention who aren't up to it and a captain who isn't a leader. Gerrard deserves another 2 transfer windows at least due to the squad he inherited but the signs aren't good. I didn't think this season was ever going to bring us a title or even a cup, too much work needed done to the squad, but we should be doing better than 17 points from 27 and losing to a poor Aberdeen side in a semi final. Pedro had 16 points from 27 and lost to Motherwell in a semi final last season. That makes me question Gerrard. The Europa League is saving him from real heat but it shouldn't be. We are playing in a tournament that 90% of the clubs can't be arsed with and we are giving 100% in it. Does anyone really think that most of our players are desperate to win the Betfred Cup or even the league? I don't. They are happy to be in the shop window of big Europa League nights. Are they desperate to grind out the 3 points at Livi and Motherwell knowing the prize that could await in May? They don't give enough of a fuck. Hardly a winners medal between them so they don't know any different. A couple of decent performances against Rapid will get them a move to Brighton or Cardiff in the big league. That'll do them nicely.

I would rather we served up garbage in europe and gave a reaction in the league. Not the other way around. Gerrard said after the international break that our focus was the league so the players knew that. That makes yesterday even more worrying for me.

SG is fucking the tactics up away from home big time. Since Lafferty has came back he has set us up perfectly at home in the league, with one striker starting (Morelos started and Lafferty was on the bench against both Dundee and St Johnstone). The 3 away games he has shoehorned Lafferty and Morelos in the same team and we have 1 point from 9. If anything he should be playing them together against the dross at home because we would win anyway. He shouldn't be doing it away from home because we don't have enough of a grip on the game in the midfield and lack creativity, especially today and at the piggery. Yes we scored 3 goals at Fir Park but we were pinned in for the entire 2nd half and he left the pair of them on the pitch for the full game even though we had lost control and badly needed another body in midfield. It doesn't work playing them both on the road. It makes us easier to get at and less likely to create. If SG and the players "need time" to win at the likes of Fir Park and The Tony Macaroni then we have problems.

Reid, Petrie and Thompson will all have been calling at the same time. So whoever got through first.

Yep we already knew this but disgusting nonetheless. Glad he has spoken out on it but he should name Liewell.

Yeah you're right about a place for McCann. I don't think I've seen anyone deliver a better ball as consistently as he did. As for De Boer, one of my all time favourites. He always made something happen. Bags of quality.

How can you leave Rothen out?

Yeah I found RB tough. I didn't see enough of Gary Stevens. At LB I didn't want to leave out Davie Robertson but wanted a defensive LB in Papac and it was then a choice between Numan and Robertson for the more marauding LB.

I narrowed it down to about 40 players to begin with. Trying to cut that down to 23 and a balanced squad was hard work.

Seen this on Twitter earlier. I'm sure stuff like this has probably been posted before but here is my squad from when I started watching in the early 90s. Look forward to reading some more with players from different eras. Goram Klos McGregor Brown Porrini Numan Papac Gough Amoruso Weir Moore B. Ferguson McCall Gascoigne Albertz Van Bronkhorst Durrant Laudrup R. De Boer McCoist Mols Jelavic Hateley

Hope it's not a long prawn out affair with extra time as we have the piggery 3 days after the 2nd leg in Russia.

Had 50 on -2 at evens, was sweating a bit until Law notched.

Would give Ball a start in an otherwise unchanged side from last week. 5-0.