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: 3 months on from the Old Firm game |
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31st August 2008, Rangers demolish Celtic at their own mhidden with a performance that should have set the psychology advantage for the season. Three months on, Celtic have won 13 consecutive matches in the SPL (including today's inevitable thrashing of Inverness Caledonian Thistle), while Rangers have won only 9, drawn 2 and lost 2. Celtic have character in their team. Rangers don't. Celtic have players with will-to-win. Rangers don't. Celtic don't have the best players in Scotland, but they have a team plan which works and they stick to it. Rangers chop and change their team and produce up and down performances. You feel that Rangers could slip up in any game at the moment. You just know Celtic are going to win every game they play in Scotland outside of the Old Firm matches at the moment. That's why Celtic will win 4-in-a-row. I would go as far as to say they already have. |
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Just from todays team alone let's count the crazy selection issues. - We have a half-fit central midfield player selected to play long before he is ready. To be honest he looks like he might never be ready again but that's another issue.
- We have poor right back with no left foot playing at left back.
- We have a journeyman centre back playing at right back, a man who despite his workrate is incapable of delivering a decent cross.
- We have a 38 year old centre half who should have been replaced during both of the last two close seasons.
- We have a guy playing left midfield who isn't physically fit enough to play at senior level, an absolute disgrace imho.
- We have what looks like a rough diamond, leggy centre forward playing wide right midfiled. A fish out of water.
- We have a centre forward who can't run, jump, hold the ball up or pass.
- We have another striker who I reckon might have been a decent player a few years ago but who is now completely finished.
And people wonder why Walter gets it in the neck from the fans! Go now Walter, you should have gone after Kaunus. |
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I don't think there's a Rangers fan in the world that would have picked that starting XI. I couldn't believe my ears when I heard it. The Rangers starting XI today, with the players we had available, in my opinion, should have been :- McGregor Broadfoot Bougherra Weir Papac Whittaker Ferguson Mendes Beasley Novo Boyd |
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Smith got away with his crazy selection last week so carried it on into this week. Remember that in the 2nd half last week we had 5 of the 10 outfield players playing out of their natural positions. There is no defence for this imho. |
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Guys don`t you think you are overreacting a bit? We can still win this league! Sellik wont get the lucky breaks all the time, There`s still a long way to go and i think we will be a few more twist`s and turns in the race. I certainly won`t be conceding the league unless sellik cannot be caught mathematicly. |
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Nope, not over-reacting, just being consistent. I think Walter or Bain should have resigned after the Kaunus debacle and the more I think about it I come round to the conclusion that it should have been Walter. He should have been screaming for the funds to sign Davis and warning Muray & Bain that he didn't have the resources to gaurantee qualification. Moving on from there he gets given (by being forced to sell in his defence) what should have been sufficient funds to put a team on the park capable of hoovering anything the SPL has to offer. Instead he spent 2/3 of his money on two players one of whom it seems he doesn't intend to play in his natural position and the other of whom he doesn't intend to play at all. I'm sick to the back teeth of watching teams with players out of position, I hated it during his first tenure and he's back to doing it now only with worse players. Walter gets huge respect for what he achieved in the past but, to be honest, I believe most his sucesses were down to that fact that C*ltic were a shambles and Rangers were capable of buying players of significantly higher ability than those playing for the other sides in the league at that time. There was always a feeling during those days that we should have been far better than we actually were, the annual underachievement in Europe underlined that. Walter has always strugled to set up teams to play attacking football as a cohesive unit. What he is good at is making teams solid defensively as illustrated last year. In his first term he didn't have to organise an attacking lineup because he always had one or two players who's individual brilliance would get goals while the rest of the team ensured they didn't lose any. Without the ability to get a Laudrup or Gasgoine on board he simply doesn't have a clue how to put together a balanced team which is capable of attacking and defending equally well. |
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gary, is it too much to ask that we have a left-footed player at left back ? Can anyone explain why Whittaker was picked ahead of Papac yesterday ? Can anyone explain why Aaron hasn't been given a chance to show us what he has to offer at first team level yet he is still being picked for the Spanish uder-21 side ? And how many times do we have to watch our team have to try and recover from a slow start to an away match ? I've been talking about this all season, how can't Walter see it ? |
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I have said before that Walter does not have a very good track record when it comes to playing young players and so it continues. I don't know too many of the younger players but surely there must be one or two who are natural right or left-backs who are worthy of a game instead of this continual policy of playing players in the wrong position. Strangely enough Celtic also follow this policy with the likes of Wilson and one or two others but they seem to get away with it. I thought we signed a guy called Velicka at the start of the season but he seems to have vanished without trace or is he another player who has caught the common Rangers disease of hamstring, groin or any other injury which seems to hit nearly every player we have signed in the last twenty-odd years. Novo might not be the greatest striker in the world but surely he has a grievance when he watches D'archville starting most weeks. Seven points is a lot to make up at this stage and we will need to have a very sustained run if we hope to make it up. Celtic have a much stronger mentality in my opinion which is going to prove too big a hurdle. |
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I understand that Velicka was given a close season after the season started. He had been playing non-stop for 18 months, and Rangers noticed he was jaded when he signed for us. (He did score the winning goal in one of the two games he's started this season.) So he was sent away to rest, and has only recently returned to playing reserve games, and noticeably has been scoring goals. I think we might see some more from him in the New Year. |
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