*****The Official Malmo FF v Rangers thread*****

[Swagger 7,889]

4 hours ago, bluenoz said:

A lot of knee-jerk stuff on here (I'm never surprised). Barisic will be back to his best soon. I have no doubt.

As for Lundstarm, I wasn't buying into the hype based on a very average resume but the posters giving him plaudits on the welcome thread are now slating him. I'm somewhere in-between. I think he could get himself a bit more fitter but he has many good attributes.

I didn't like the trio combination in midfield tonight. Too many side passes.

The midfield was brutal. Kamara is a huge miss 

[writingranger 1,412]

Some really poor play, particularly ball retention. Players are not yet up to speed and hagi, aribo and kamara were really missed.

[Imodium 410]

It was a five minute spell that we switched off, bar that we done alright. Hopefully it’s the kick up the arse we need and we learn from it. Lundstram needs to be told that you don’t turn your back on a player taking a shot at goal!

Malmö are a decent side and could see their fitness levels were higher than ours with their pressing over the 90. Lacked creativity throughout the match and was too passenger like at times. Morelos was a big loss and even him at 80% should get the nod next week.

Davis scored from nothing and has put it right back in the tie thankfully. Also well done Scott Wright, could well be his year as his confidence and fitness grows.

[plumbGER 24,518]

Kamara and Morelos were the 2 players we missed the most imo. When teams press hard Kamara can hang onto the ball and get us out of trouble. Morelos threat on the break is much better than Itten.

[stuart1994 4,302]

One thing we get when Kamara and or Jack plays is the ability to carry the ball from our half into theirs, never got that tonight, too many sideways passes. Also the second goal is criminal, they’ve just scored against the run of play from the first half, just keep the head keep calm and keep the ball for five minutes and Tav plays a lazy as fuck ball into midfield and bang we’re 2-0 down. Also as poor as we were defensively last night especially in the second half we were equally as poor in the final third, for all the control of the ball we had we created next to nothing.

[stuart1994 4,302]

Just now, plumbGER said:

Kamara and Morelos were the 2 players we missed the most imo. When teams press hard Kamara can hang onto the ball and get us out of trouble. Morelos threat on the break is much better than Itten.

Morelos’ ability to hold onto long balls and keep it or win a free kick to get the team up the park is unmatched at the club. 

[Ivybank 4,573]

Bought a big strong player who Gerrard said we needed for midfield as an alternative to what we had ,and he turns his back on the ball like a girl for the first goal ,shitebag😪

[The Godfather 71,715]

9 minutes ago, Ivybank said:

Bought a big strong player who Gerrard said we needed for midfield as an alternative to what we had ,and he turns his back on the ball like a girl for the first goal ,shitebag😪

He's only just in the door, agreed he was poor but trust the gaffer as he's proven all of us wrong dozens of times on players. 

 

[ShanksRFC 3,867]

Lundstram looked miles off it at that level, I'm not giving up on him just yet as he still doesn't look fit but alarm bells are ringing a bit already.

[plumbGER 24,518]

15 minutes ago, stuart1994 said:

Morelos’ ability to hold onto long balls and keep it or win a free kick to get the team up the park is unmatched at the club. 

And his ability to wriggle free by a wee nutmeg or strength is something Itten will simply never have. His strength looked better last night to be fair but there is just so much lacking from his game compared to Morelos.

As you rightly pointed out, Kamara and Jack are great at getting us from the defensive to the offensive by carrying the ball. Kamara has a tremendous ability to fend off 2 or 3 players and emerge from tight spaces leaving players behind. Jacks ability is more his reading of the game and the knack of popping up in critical areas of the pitch to win the ball back, he has added more to his game offensively since Gerrard arrived and is a huge miss.

[GersInCanada 7,775]

It was a poor performance yesterday but it was only our second competitive game of the season. We looked rusty. They looked ready. We were understrengh. They created little and we had lots of possession but did nothing of note in the final third. 

Thank goodness for Davis. Now we have to turn up next week but this tie is far from over especially if Alfredo is back. 

[MurrayWilson 3,369]

35 minutes ago, ShanksRFC said:

Lundstram looked miles off it at that level, I'm not giving up on him just yet as he still doesn't look fit but alarm bells are ringing a bit already.

To be fair he looked pretty good a couple of year ago at a much much higher level in the EPL. If youre  not yet fit and youre playing against a team 13 games into their season its gonna show. Same with the rest of the team.  It cant be exaggerated what a difference that makes. Two weeks ago we played real madrid who were behind us in pre season and that showed.

[southcoastbear 1,639]

Just dont get the amount of negativity going about.

Admittedly we were far from at our best but we are still well in this game and we have the second leg is at Ibrox.

Sure we will need to improve but I certainly wouldn't bet against the manager achieving this.

[rabc10000 5,061]

1 hour ago, plumbGER said:

And his ability to wriggle free by a wee nutmeg or strength is something Itten will simply never have. His strength looked better last night to be fair but there is just so much lacking from his game compared to Morelos.

As you rightly pointed out, Kamara and Jack are great at getting us from the defensive to the offensive by carrying the ball. Kamara has a tremendous ability to fend off 2 or 3 players and emerge from tight spaces leaving players behind. Jacks ability is more his reading of the game and the knack of popping up in critical areas of the pitch to win the ball back, he has added more to his game offensively since Gerrard arrived and is a huge miss.

TBF to itten I don't think he will ever be a lone striker, looks like the type who would need to have a partner up front with him.

[YoungBill 46]

A few stealing a wage last night and nothing to do with them being fitter and more into their season. 

All about the attitude and there were a few shrinking violets, which Steven also mentioned preseason. They came at us hard and fast with a plan and we failed to respond.

Malmö are far from world beaters. We have a great opportunity to qualify, so with several changes and a change in mentality, we can do it. We do the same as last night, we’re out.

[southcoastbear 1,639]

2 minutes ago, rabc10000 said:

TBF to itten I don't think he will ever be a lone striker, looks like the type who would need to have a partner up front with him.

Itten is about 6'3 and I've seen more meat on a butcher's pencil, I'd guess about 12-13 stone.

Lad could put on a stone or two without losing any pace  in fact would increase his all round athleticism.

[docspiderman 1,220]

1 hour ago, ShanksRFC said:

Lundstram looked miles off it at that level, I'm not giving up on him just yet as he still doesn't look fit but alarm bells are ringing a bit already.

I was very surprised that being a possession based passing team we went for him. I have seen nothing in any of his games for Sheffield Utd over the last 3 seasons that suggests he would be a good fit for us apart from a bit of strength. 

[Prso's headband 35,342]

Having settled on it am sure a said at half time I felt like Malmo were giving their best whereas we were really rusty. I think it was clear there was about 14 competitive games between the teams as well. 
 

However by the end they looked terrified of conceding a goal and offered absolutely nothing for the last 15-20mins they were camped in they’re own half. I’m still confident of going through, ideally in 90mins, providing those individual errors won’t happen again we should be ok. Their first goal the first pass was the only bit of quality they really showed throughout the game. We have more in our locker and with a tough game on Saturday that’ll surely bring us up too speed

[Parma99 116]

That was about as bad as we could play last night. We're just not at the stage yet where we can be missing that many first team players and still go away and beat the champions of another country. And lets not kid ourselves, Malmo are as poor a team as we could hope to play in this competition.

Nothing against Itten, he tries hard but you can just see he doesn't quite have the quality. You could imagine in training that Goldson and Helander dominate him. We are a totally different animal with a fully focused Alfie up front. Hoping that's what we see next week.

And if anyone ever doubted how important Kamara is to this team, last night spoke volumes. Selling him for 8-10 million would be a huge mistake, even if we don't make the CL groups this year.

[Parma99 116]

1 minute ago, Prso's headband said:

Having settled on it am sure a said at half time I felt like Malmo were giving their best whereas we were really rusty. I think it was clear there was about 14 competitive games between the teams as well. 
 

However by the end they looked terrified of conceding a goal and offered absolutely nothing for the last 15-20mins they were camped in they’re own half. I’m still confident of going through, ideally in 90mins, providing those individual errors won’t happen again we should be ok. Their first goal the first pass was the only bit of quality they really showed throughout the game. We have more in our locker and with a tough game on Saturday that’ll surely bring us up too speed

They were dead on their feet towards the end. I have no doubt they will be terrified next week and if we get an early goal then they will collapse.

[plumbGER 24,518]

26 minutes ago, rabc10000 said:

TBF to itten I don't think he will ever be a lone striker, looks like the type who would need to have a partner up front with him.

He's always been that type of player, maybe they thought they could coach new attributes to his game but it's not working out too great so far.

[RockwellGers 14,684]

I didn't watch the game but I'm hoping a loss at this stage will galvanize the players and provoke a reaction. By the sounds of it we were at our worst in Europe for quite some time, and will not want to repeat that. In my mind we'll be super motivated for the second leg and will blast our way into the next round.

On another note I really like this away strip, although wasn't sure at first.

[Number5 2,109]

That goal was massive.

I would fancy us to qualify especially with another 90mins under our belts and another week conditioning for the players.

We were shocking but wouldn't expect a repeat of last night again next week.

Malmo are pretty shite and we had a horrible 5mins.

Some of the responses on here are fucking brutal after 1 poor game, like last season never really happened and everyones shite again! 

Roll on next week when we murder these by 2 or 3 and everythings great again!

[BlueboyG 5,229]

Game just came too early for us, too many slack passes and poor balls into the box, I don't think another week will change our sharpness drastically but can only hope we up our game big time.

[BlueThunder 8,452]

I’ve rewatched the second half. The early brain farts aside, we were pretty much in control are never really threatened. How much of that came as a result of their 2 goal cushion remains to be seen.

However we shouldn’t forget that Malmö are in control of this tie. They’ll do whatever they can to protect that 1 goal lead. A goal for us next week could be a long time coming so I hope the fans are patient.