Ibroxholm

Gave away bad goals, lacked composure and as soft as hell. Don’t think we won a 50/50 challenge all night. Poor.

Recruitment has been poor particularly this summer (and last January). We need to tailor our spending to be successful in Scotland first and foremost which is not necessarily the same as what works in Europe. Think we have got dazzled by our relative success in Europe of the last 2-3years and forgot what our bread and butter is. Need to concentrate in getting strong, physical and aggressive centre backs and defenders. Forget about buying wingers whose main attribute is their pace (ie Sakala, Matondo). Get in at least one centre-forward who has a physical presence and can win his share of crosses thrown into him.

Would like to see Lowry given as much game time as possible when he fully recovers from injury. Such is the paucity of the rest of our squad, he is the one player I’d go out in a cold winters evening to watch. Offers something different, seems to have a lots of confidence and a bit gallus with it. He’s obviously still young and needs to be carefully managed to keep him on track and avoid the pitfalls that have befallen many other young hopefuls. Support needs to cut him some slack to, he’s young and will make mistakes and go off the rails occasionally.

We need to change our tactics significantly if we’re going to stay in contention because at the moment we look as if we could drop points in every away game. Fed up watching us fannying about playing it across the back and back again for the first 45-60 minutes trying to score the perfect goal and then getting caught out by the opposition by a simple punt/cross because our back line is not physical or dominant enough. We need to go all out at the start to finish the game as a contest as quickly as possible (like they do) to take the frailties of our defence out of the equation. Although it makes us a better team in Europe, we don’t need to play out from the back for most games in Scotland. The other teams will return the ball back to us soon enough, all the better if they’re doing it in their defensive third.

Deal seems crazy to me in current economic climate. Energy costs and inflation going through the roof with only the prospect of it getting worse and they’re committing themselves to a deal through to 2029. Why would you do that unless your beIng offered really big money (which patently they are not).

He doesn’t look to be very physical or aggressive to me (albeit my opinion is based on the briefest of sightings) but I’ll be happy to be proved wrong.

It’s a recurring theme with our foreign managers (Advocaat (after first two seasons), LeGuen,Gio) that they seem to be do well in Europe but their sides were/are not suited to the week in week out demands of Scottish Football. For all Walter’s shortcomings in Europe, he knew how to build a team to fight and grind it out in order to win Leagues. Gerrard knew it, to some extent, as well particularly when your playing them.

Given our budget, to spend supposedly 9m on two players that are not able to go straight into our first team and, on first impressions, do not look physical enough to play in Scottish Football, is indefensible.

Think as a support we need to cut him some slack now and hope last night was a wake up call. Yes, he’s petulant and moody at times and seems to have weight issues at times but he has never gave us any bother with his conduct outside of football, considering he is living in a foreign country and must take masses of abuse when out and about. Need to get behind him now.

Don’t know Frankfurt’s recent record in Europe but it can’t be much better than ours (although being German might boost their rating). Seems a bit much that a win in penalties in the Europa Cup final is the difference between pot 1 and pot 4.

Bit rich that. Some of Souness’s antics when he played would make Morelos look like a choir boy.

Just watched it. The goal I was thinking of was the BMG’s first, where big McCloy got robbed. We didn’t lose a goal from the penalty, McCloy saved it (made up for his mistake I guess). Despite the result, was an interesting watch, brought back a few memories. Lot more open, end to end and far less controlled than it is nowadays, enjoyable for it. Few tasty tackles going in as well with the players mostly getting up and not making a meal of it. Referee was a lot more lenient and bit more of a character than you get now. Laughed at big McCloy and the German goalie warming up together at the start and the first aid guy running on to put a rug around Sandy’s shoulders when he was down getting treatment (then hauling him to his feet before pulling the rug of him).

Haven’t had chance to watch it yet but thought this may have been the match where the player sneaked up behind big McCloy to rob him when he rolled the ball out. From your description, doesn’t appear to be.

Football pundit trying to be controversial to get a headline in the paper. Just don’t see the concern expressed over the goalkeeper position. Think our goalkeepers are just as good and better than anything else in the League. My concern is that, on paper, we look very lightweight which could be an issue in some of the tougher away fixtures where you have to win the battle before you get to play.

Step up in class against us today and thought we were well beaten. Guess only to be expected given the amount of money they have to spend compared to us. If nothing else, it brings us down to earth a bit after the Europa cup final and the West Ham game, we have a lot of work still to do to win the League back, never mind have a good run in Europe again. A pre-season friendly against a strong powerful Spurs team wasn’t the best place to judge but I’m a bit concerned already about the lack of physicality in our team. Not talking about our fitness but the number of times we lose out on 50-50 challenges and are strong-armed off the ball is slightly worrying. Noticed it in a few games last year against lesser opposition and it was really shown up today. None of our new players look particularly powerful physically and our two biggest signings, who we haven’t seen yet, look even less physical than the players they presumably will be replacing. Thankfully , our main opposition in Scotland are not the most physical either. However, I do worry that we may struggle to score goals against teams that sit back against us until Alfie comes back at least.

No, I haven’t used Seatsub this season and shows as 0 in my email. I’ll assume they’ve made a mistake, they seem to be making a lot of them based on this thread.

Email says my ST is about couple of hundred less than last season? The only thing I can think off for the reduction is, do they automatically put you on a concession rate when you reach 65. Or is that wishful thinking and they’ve just ballsed up the email?

Thought anybody could have been taken off but, in retrospect, it was a pretty intelligent sub. We were totally dominating at that stage of the game but producing few chances in front of goal. Seen so often in the past extra strikers thrown on for midfielders/defenders to try and get the vital goal and you end up losing a bit of control of the game. Think Gio deserves a bit of credit on this occasion as his decision won us the points.

We need to keep our heads and make sure we keep eleven men on the park as they’ll be screaming for everything as usual. Do that, and play anywhere near our potential, we’ll get a result.

Thought he looked a good prospect from the first time I saw him play in the youth ranks. Dare I say, he is quite Baxteresque in his style of play, confidence and composure on the ball (and before I get slaughtered, I’m not suggesting for a minute that he is, or ever will be, able to lace the great man’s boots). Long way to go, so many false dawns with young players, but hopefully he progresses to become a first team regular.

It seemed like an hour but well spotted.

One of the things that annoyed me the last hour of first half on Sunday was the number of times we made 50/50 tackles or interceptions and Livingston still came away with possession from the resulting break down in play. Saw the same thing happening for significant sections of the game tonight. Very early days in Gio’s reign but hope it’s not a recurring feature.

What a day, waited 26years for that payback. Glad to know it still hurts them.

Is the whole point of youth football not to find and develop the future Rangers greats? Performances and wins by the youth team are nice to see but don’t matter a jot if none of the players progress to the first team.

I do like Lowry. Appears to have a lot of confidence and style, very Baxteresque. Still young though and probably a long way of first team involvement at moment. Hope he continues to develop and improve and not just fall by the wayside like so many of our hopefuls seem to do.