strider

The clause in his contract may only have been activated due to the fact Villa were in Europe. Or, as seems to have been intimated by Cuellar himself, it was done at his behest this time, as he fancied the move more than he would have to either Newcastle or Stoke.

There's another way to look at that. No manager he's had since he moved to Rangers, at either club or international level, has seen him as the answer when it comes to the crunch. In fact, the man who supposedly didn't like him the most played him in more big games than anyone else. He's 25 now, I'm sure, and has been at Ibrox for 2 and a half seasons. I'd say he hasn't improved in any aspect of his game in that time. In fact, some have went backwards. At his age, it's hard to see a massive improvement coming along any time soon. Please, no one compare him to McCoist. He's not even close. Plenty of sides, and some big ones at that, have moved that talismanic top scorer on and became better teams due to it. Boyd seems reluctant to learn, improve and work hard. As much as we all like to profess knowledge of the game, it's extremely difficult to justify saying we know more than any of the managers (Eck, Le Guen, Wattie, Burley) Boyd has played for in the last few years. Through actions like non-selection or comments on the ways he has to improve, all 4 have (or will do in the case of Burley, trust me) basically told Boyd he isn't good enough. Regardless of whether you agree or not, Boyd is NOT considered a first team certainty at Rangers. He must be the only player in this position that's somehow regarded as worth more than pretty much any first team player, and yet this supposed £3.5M striker doesn't exactly have a queue of big clubs waiting to sign him as that "senile old manager" Walter doesn't know what he's doing.............

No offence intended, but is that the sum of our ambitions these days?? No, we don't have much else to play for this season, but if we can't see some real progress in terms of the football played by the side, some development of the younger players we seem sure are worthy of working on, and a real vision of the next 5-10 years at Rangers in this season, it's an absolute disgrace. The club, the management team and the players should be bending over backwards to make up for tonight. Will they??

I've been a big fan of Beasley since he signed, and many a time bemoaned his absence whilst it seemed most forgot he even existed. He is by far our most intelligent attacking player. He won't try to take on full backs as he knows 9 times out of 10 he'll get by one player and be met by one or two more, especially when we play a slow game through the middle. However, when we hit a side on the break, watch his runs - he'll drag defenders out of position, or make a burst through the middle not picked up and really hurt the side. He set up and scored goals using this intelligence before he got injured. As for his build, he doesn't need to change a thing. One injury, a freakish one, and one that would have happened to someone just as big as Darcheville in any case. He wins free kicks, he has pace and agility, and he's stronger than he looks. If we ask him to "prepare for the British game" I can guarantee he'll lose most of that. Time we tried to play some football rather than develop human battering-rams like McCulloch. I've been convinced from the moment he got injured that we'd lost one of our best players, and yesterday (despite the lower standard of opposition) just heightened that belief for me. In the 4-5-1, our biggest problem is lack of width and pace. Remember how well we played when we went with Naismith and Burke wide and Cousin up front? Beasley would be perfect in that sort of set up - 2 wide players, a good striker capable of holding up and linking, and 3 midfielders willing to get the ball wide quickly and give them the chance to get 1 on 1 with the full back. At least DeMarcus knows when to take a man on and when to keep possession, and has a good workrate as well. I'm looking forward to his contribution next season, I'm sure we'd have done even better this season if he'd stayed fit. The fact he seems capable of hitting a decent corner is a bonus.

When this came to a head, at the Phil O'Donnell/Ibrox disaster time of year, I took an absolute mauling on FF for giving my opinion on it. I prefer the minue's applause for situations like yesterday. We only knew Tommy Burns as a football fan, or the vast majority of us did. He lived to be applauded, and I find this a fitting tribute. However, I'm not saying that those that stayed silent were wrong, which was the impression those that prefer silence gave about those that applauded. It is a celebration of their life, and I prefer that to mourning a death. I'd never feel comfortable with an applause for a disaster or loss of multiple lives, but I really do feel the applause is fitting for single cases like this. Each to their own, of course.......

We've played against some very good sides, and some very good (even world class) individuals in Europe this season, and our defensive record is still very good indeed. We should be more concerned about how we're going to get decent possession and create chances in this game. Zenit haven't really played a physical side like ourselves yet, and won't enjoy trying to break down our defence, but we have to give them something to think about, as we don't have the away goal threat to rely on this time. They'll be very wary of Ferguson, given Advocaat's influence, so hopefully the likes of Thomson, Davis and Hemdani will have more freedom to play.

my mate works for setanta and he said 4 players have been dropped including mccormack lappin hughes McCormack, Lappin, Hughes and Smith - could very easily be argued to be Motherwell's 4 best players. Any reason given for their non-inclusion?

We might care next season, as rumours have been circulating about a move to Rangers in the summer for Faubert. As for the "does Scottish football really have that bad a reputation" question, the answer to that is yes. No matter how well we do in Europe, and how well he plays, Cuellar won't be involved in the Spain squad. If he played that well for any side in the Premiership, he'd be called up instantly.

You'll be back ahead of me before you know it!

Yeah, it's me. I'm a regular on another site, but joined here due to playing football with the guys. Can't believe my mentor needs a mentor now.........

This isn't thunderhawk of Hattrick fame, is it?????

I'd be concerned if the likes of Fleck, Campbell, Lennon, Shinnie etc etc were only looking to make it at Rangers and no further. They should be aiming to make a big impact and move to a big club in one of the bigger leagues. Hutton has taken a step backwards in terms of club, but a massive one forward in terms of the league. If he does well, he'll be at one of the "big 4" before long. Given Ferguson's penchant for signing players from fellow EPL teams that have proven themselves, Man Utd may just come calling soon enough.