The Ghost

I suspected it would be more going by the inflated prices in the Championship. If it was only us interested or within the Scottish market, I would agree. QPR’s salary structure may be an issue too. Depends what motivates the player more.

What would his approximate current value be? Him playing so well could be alerting other clubs down South and we can’t really compete in terms of transfer fees and salaries at the moment.

He’s a long way short of Goram but still has a lot of improvement in him. Goram had unnatural instincts and an innate positional sense that puts him a class apart from most keepers.

I think this is a good move. I believe he’s gained us many more points than he’s cost us. He’s pretty solid and reliable just now, with the odd wobble admittedly, but is one of the best keepers in Scotland just now and has scope for considerable improvement with experience and a stronger defence to support him.

Genuinely no good reason why we won’t. We’re not favourites but no-one should be dismissing our chances. When this group of players click, they are very difficult to play against. The build up and finish to the Windass goal last week is as good as you’ll see. We need to do it more consistently but we have the raw talent to do it.

If a player scores a hat trick, it makes it difficult to justify dropping him for the next game when there is no outstanding replacement available. Windass has been scoring regularly recently and has probably earned a place in the starting 11. I agree that changes probably should have been made earlier on Saturday but the players we had on the park should have been able to lift their game, at home with a huge support, and turned that game around. Again, I think we had good spells that looked as if a goal was coming and when you see that it’s a tough choice when to ring the changes and risk disrupting that.

Possibly. They can only do so much and may have a better Tactical awareness but if the players are unwilling to fight, there will be upsets along the way. In any case, we’ll never know.

Those teams don’t need chequebooks because their players raise their game and battle for every ball while ours try not to get their shirts too dirty and don’t make any significant effort until we’re one down with ten minutes to go. How many times over the last couple of seasons have we seen us have a significant possession advantage but not converted that into goals while our opponents have made the most of their limited opportunities and punished us. That’s the player’s doing, not the manager’s.

There’s definitely too much emphasis on the difference a manager makes. He can organise a team to its strengths and change things to counter an opponents threat but a large proportion of the responsibility sits on the players shoulders. If a player doesn’t have the ability or the strength of character to keep the motivation and determination levels high, there’s not a huge amount any manager can do. We don’t have the resources to have a full scale clear out so it’s trying to do the best with what we have. At this point, we seem to have a number of players who are too easily subdued, unable or unwilling to dominate opponents and lacking the inherent home-bred pride and tenacity of a typical, toughened SPFL player. Without the chequebook to buy success, even Walter Smith would struggle with what we have.

I wouldn’t normally have anything positive to say about him but I know Neil Lennon gave a talk for a Mental Health Support Group that a relative of mine with Bi-Polar Disorder attended. She said that he spoke very humbly about the troubles he had and praised the support given to him. I did view him in a slightly different light after that given the spotlight he was living under. Still a nasty wee bigot though!

Nice touch at the end there sharing the trophy.

Haven’t seen finishing like that for a while but glad that Taylor got to go out on that stage. He deserved it and is a genuine sporting legend. Cross will be round for a while and fair play to him.

What a finish. 5 treble 18’s in a row then double 16.

Makes the score line look better. Not sure it’ll phase Cross though. He’s looking very impressive.

Hitting 3 out of 4 and with a 110 average, that’s unbeatable.

Cross not missing. Not much Taylor can do.

How did Cross win that?

Would’ve been nice to see a 9 darter.

Good darts from Cross. Not going to plan for Taylor just yet.

Wonderfully kind and generous thing to do! Hope you have a very happy and healthy New Year.

I do like the Dude and he’s done nothing wrong. Just pointing out a very interesting comparison in an initial series of managerial results. He just gets slaughtered by the same people with the same arguments. Why wouldn’t we want a pro-Rangers viewpoint in a national newspaper? celtic fans still refer to it as the Daily Ranger. It’s just simple-minded nonsense. Hope to hear more from him.

On the plus side, some of that 16 hour night shift will be during the day.

Unbelievable. Thought he’d blown it. MVG missing the doubles to take it. I’d fancy Taylor in the final. overall, it’s been a good day!

With the darts to take it.

At least Cross got to within a dart of doing it. MVG looking calmer and more focussed.