NixonRFC

St Johnstone have actually won 3 since 2014, they've only won 3 trophies in their whole existence and they've all came in the last decade.

Just seen he's meant to be getting €5.2m per year, good luck to the boy, made for life with that two year contract and will still be under 30 when it's finished, you'd get sectioned if you didn't take that.

Players couldn't care less what team it is though. They just want into the EPL and everything that comes with it.

I think Jack is a shoo-in for Servette next week so would agree I can't see him playing tomorrow.

I'm looking forward to the game, I think we saw glimpses the other night against Servette, particularly when we were 2-0 up that our speed and movement is on another level when we're playing with a bit of confidence, I can see us battering Livingston tomorrow. I know we can still look nervy and disjointed when things aren't going to plan but I don't see us having too many issues for this one, 4-0 and a good wee confidence booster for the players.

Must say there's an underwhelming feeling after that, fancied us strongly tonight and thought we'd take 3 or 4 off them, we played well at times but for most of the second half we were far too slow and predictable. Having an extra man for 30+ minutes and not putting the tie to bed is very frustrating, particularly when they offered absolutely nothing in an attacking sense all night.

Cantwell is inconsistent, he's made a bit of a career out of it so far, if he wasn't then he wouldn't be up here in the first place, he looked good last season, no denying that but I think a lot of us were expecting him to dip at some point. The end of the season probably came at the wrong time for him as he was more than likely playing his most confident football in a couple of years, I've got no doubt he'll be back to his best again soon but will also fully expect him to go through another dodgy patch in a few months time. It's upto Beale to coach that out of him and maybe dropping him on Saturday was his way of showing him that he always has to earn his place, although us putting on a pathetic show without him wouldn't have done his argument any favours if that was his logic.

I think that's the system or a hybrid version of it everyone played about 100 years ago, the 325

When Rangers lose, there's always an autopsy, I think the criticism is just and merited but I also think there's reasonable explanations too. The meak manner in which we rolled over and died was unacceptable, the lack of self belief on show, particularly after going behind was hard to watch and was always going to be a magnet for critics and rightly so. When you sign so many players though you run the risk of taking time to gel which is what we've seen in pre-season and into the real stuff now too, the pitch too is always likely to be a leveler, I know people will point to the tims record the last season and say they had no problems but they were a settled side who played all out attack and this Killie team looks stronger than last seasons squad so I don't think we can use that as a marker for this season just yet. These new boys still don't understand what it's like to play for Rangers yet, I remember when Aribo came into the team, everyone knew he had ability but he was miles off it at the start of the season, he quickly learned and developed at an alarming rate, I think we'll see the same growth with these players too but we need to show a little patience and faith in them, it'll be hard enough for them to settle if the fans are on their case from the get go. The most frustrating thing for me is the lack of an identity in this team, I'm not quite sure what style of play Beale is trying to implement, again I know that's a hard one to be overly critical about when he's signed so many players but I thought he had stumbled upon a system last season that looked like it could work and expected him to build on that but it seems like he ripped those plans up and is starting from scratch again. I think fans are entitled to be critical but I also think we need to be a bit realistic here too, this wasn't going to jel straight away, these things rarely do, so I think we have to show a bit of patience and hope over the next few weeks we begin seeing a style of play take some kind of shape, but if all we get is the same turgid football then we shouldn't be shy in letting everyone know this ain't on.

Can you imagine how unfit he'll be now? Couldn't keep himself in shape when he was training with a pro club every single day, scary what he's upto when left to his own devices.

I believe we'll win the league every single year, not only are we well off it almost every year hut they're sweeping up every trophy available as well, if they had one good season in the CL their team would get raided, much the same as what happens when they don't do well in it, the just reinvest and the end result has been groundhog day for us.

You're talking about a guy who jumped from us to them back to us, and when the shit looked like it was going to hit the fan financially, he couldn't get out quick enough then when he wasn't good enough for England, he was happy to come back when we got to a semi decent level, of course he's a fucking judas, however being annoyed about what he said is in injury time is just daft.

People keep saying they're not out of sight but that's just a comfort blanket we all need to use to keep ourselves semi sane. Since we got back to the top flight they've won 5 trebles in 7 years, and they won a double in one of the other years, 17 trophies out of a possible 21 and we've only managed two in that time, that's as out of sight as it gets.

Pretty sure it's against FIFA rules too or at least it was in 2011, I remember Walter Smith saying he never knew a thing about it and blamed Jimmy Bell 😄

Double Post

It's been a good season points wise, you can't deny that, four games to go and we're still in with a chance of finishing on 96 points, which would mean we'd only have dropped 18 points all season, that's league winning form most years, think the only time a second place team got near that figure was in 2003 when we won the League on goal difference. The problem is they've been relentless and looking at our point tally, they've had to be.

I've still got PTSD after that game at the end of 2017/18, genuinely thought they would take 10 off us that day, five down in the 50th minute, getting out of there with no other damage was a result in itself as embarrassing as that is.

This game is massive for Beale, he needs to show his team can beat them and if he can't do that when they'll have their flip flops on then he'll be running a tightrope at the first sign of any trouble next season. Whatever the score though, I hope the social media team don't go over the top with a win though, four year ago we beat them in the last Old Firm game when it was a dead rubber and the twitter account was giving it "Glasgow is blue" and all that pish, two weeks later they were winning another treble, it just makes us look tinpot going mental about winning a glorified friendly while they rack up trophy after trophy.

Mentioned this last week but given who his old man is, I wouldn't be surprised if he would be advising him away from us, different times now granted but Allan Johnston's career came to a shuddering halt with us, he let his heart rule his head when he signed with us and I think he probably feels his boy will be making the same mistake too. If Tavernier wasn't producing such incredible numbers and it was just based on defending I'd back myself to get the jersey if I was a highly rated young pro but if you're factoring in the fact the guy you'd be competing with is the captain, is a fitness monster and is good for 30+ goals/assists a season then I think the chances of getting too much game time in that position decreases dramatically.

I was really annoyed at McCoist for signing the players he did but could understand why he did it, just felt it was more about self preservation than anything else, most of the boys on the bus were always going on about building a young team, one of the best in Scotland and taking it through the Leagues, giving them time and space to develop and sprinkled with seasoned pros, the higher the standard we went the better the pro we would sign... But McCoist was terrified for himself and in fairness probably for the club and us too in that if we drew the tims in the cups in any of the first two seasons, we could've been on the end of a 7 or an 8 and no Rangers manager wants to be on the end of a record defeat to them, so I could understand it even if it reeked of being a shitebag.

No arguments on the quality quality but it was under £11m, (I'm not including Cantwell or Raskin as we're talking about last summer). It was clear Morelos and Kent weren't re-signing, the fact McGregor did re-sign after the Scottish Cup final fiasco, we were ready for life without Goldson then he re-signs out the blue, it just felt like we were kicking the can down the road a year at a time when we would've been at our most attractive we've been since 2000.

While I'm not disagreeing with you, we can only base these things on hindsight, no-one who was involved in signing Ridvan last summer would've been thinking this is a waste of money, we got him in so quickly after selling Bassey you have to imagine we'd been scouting him for a while although I remember all the talk if him being 'highly saught after' so maybe his agent made us think if we don't act fast we'd lose out on him.

Begs the question why bother signing him last summer at all then, everyone knew we needed a big summer last year, and in doing the bare minimum we were always just kicking the can down the road to this summer.

I don't know what happened last summer, it was on Gio's watch though so that blame will always fall on that guy. What I struggle to get my head around though is Van Bronckhorst played at the very highest level with Arsenal, Barca and Holland, he played in the most exciting Rangers team in my lifetime, he knows exactly what it takes to succeed at the highest level of football and more importantly, he knows what's required here. I find it hard to understand the logic of him not wanting us to be as fit as possible, surely the methods he was using would've been to get peak fitness out of the squad and would've been a tried and tested tactic, something obviously went badly wrong but I can't see it being down to him not believing his methods were for the best for our players.

He's no fit and just finding his feet at the moment, will be expecting a lot better from him after a full pre season under his belt and a quicker more positive midfield around him.