Pool Q

Celtic fired up, but Rangers look pretty rotten. For all they've been talked up in the media, with the 'Stevie G' love in in full flow, they are a side that have drawn 2 of their first 3 league games this season and the gap look every bit as big as last year. Rangers can only hope it is going to be one of those days, where a team create chance after chance but somehow can't score. Should be 3 nil by now really, huge chasm in quality between the two sides.

...now Djoum’s tackle today, that was a red card.

It has been a bad transfer window for Celtic, and Rangers are clearly stronger than last season. But If Rodgers can’t win the league with the squad of players he has (no doubt strengthened a bit in January) then he’s not a very good manager.

Hearts. Teams around us in the league. Brentford (lived there, and had a season ticket years back). Then coupon.

He’s got a point about how the panel operates. The red card decision itself was marginal, somewhere between a harsh red and a lucky yellow. Had it been rescinded I don’t think many would have complained (although in all honesty the damage was already done to Killie in the game itself). It’s the closed doors nature of the process, and the partial rulings that have been made that really need sorting.

I’ve met him umpteen times, like all of us he is complicated. Played cricket against him, he was always pleasant and approachable afterwards. Also been at a few sportsmen dinners he was at. At one I ended up at the bar with him and a few others drinking into the wee hours. He was great company, telling story after story about football and his other exploits. At another one I was at a table he was at, everyone there (bar me) was as a Rangers fan. That time he played to the audience, was a complete stereotypical Hun, it was embarrassing to hear some of the stuff he came out with and how it wa lapped up. I ended up leaving about half way through, it was that bad.

Motherwell unlucky not to win it, impressed with how they went at Rangers. Good game to watch.

£250k though.

Morelos, Naismith and Brown should all be on the wrong end of bans. Anyone with an IQ above that of a dung beetle, and any sort of ability to be objective, can see that. The SFA have dug themselves into a hole here through mixture of cowardice and incompetence.

Naismith benefitting from the SFA being afraid to take action against Brown.

Surprisingly comfortable win against a very average Celtic team. Enjoyable start to the weekend.

Well I hope your faith is justified, not least as I’d love to see a Scottish side (particularly a non OF one) knock out an EPL team.

If I were putting a bet on it (which I’m not) it would be on Celtic and Rangers going through, and Hibs and Aberdeen missing out. All four ties could go either way though.

Lafferty’s agents demand showdown talks according to our ever compliant and manipulable media. Showdown? Lafferty is a Hearts player, whose wages are paid by Hearts. Rangers have offered less than half his market value, and in any case probably can’t afford the fee. £500k+, paid in full, up front, and they are most welcome to him. Otherwise he remains a Hearts player.

Something approximating to his market value.

For the kind of money offered so far they should be told to fuck right off, but for an even half way sensible offer they can have him. Scored goals last season but only really turned up for about one game in three. And he really is a wank, never been that keen on him being at my club. Much better fit at Rangers.

I still go to half a dozen Brentford games each season, there are some poor teams in the Championship. It's is a more physical league with bigger players but the quality is often pretty low, no better than Aberdeen, Rangers, Hearts, Hibs or Steve Clarke's Kilmarnock. Cairney has looked good for Fulham but (as with his team mate McDonald) looked decidedly average and pedestrian against Costa Rica. It will be interesting to see how Cairney and Armstrong fair in the coming season.

I wouldn't disagree with any of that. At the same time I've had the 'something not quite right about him' thought after every interview I've seen him give since his reappointment.

As Parkie and DBTA say above, absolute wallopers.

I was in the boozer pre and post game today with a fairly well known journalist. According to him the rumour mill is that a substantial investment will announced in the Huns from China. Apparently Gerard was hanging back on signing up until he was confident the money would be forthcoming.A central part of the deal was the involvement of some of Liverpool’s youth coaches, particularly the guy that went to São Paulo for six months. Rangers will essentially be one of Liverpool’s feeder clubs. Just passing this on, absolutely no idea how accurate.

😄 It feels like this is as much about selling season tickets and generating revenue as anything else. Like those who have appointed Gerard, I have no idea if he will be a good manager or not. It is the very definition of a gamble, and may be as much about placating the support after the dry humping by Celtic as anything else. Little if anything ever appears to be properly thought through and planned by those running Rangers. The past 48 hours have brought to mind the various quotations about fools not learning from mistakes and the definition of insanity etc. Time will tell, but the suspicion is that it is going to happen again, and too many in the Rangers support seem to be going along with it.

The Scottish media really did jig themselves into a frenzy over this guy when he signed. Clueless.

It will be Rodgers, I’d say it should be between him and Clarke. The problem is that while Clarke has done a pretty amazing job in a short timescale, in a sense he hasn’t actually achieved anything yet. The skelping from Aberdeen at the weekend doesn’t help his case either. Rodgers has (relatively) huge resources but to be fair he can’t really do a whole lot more with them, domestically at least. It’s an easy call to give it to him, but quite possibly the right one too. The media would love it to be Lennon of course, but can’t see he has done enough to be ahead of Rodgers or Clarke. Robinson deserves huge credit for cup success but not making the top six is bordering on the piss poor considering he has been in place for a while. Thing is, all of this may look different in a month or so, particularly if Motherwell win the Cup or someone has a really strong finish to the league.

Hopefully.

.No it isn't, if it were it might be vaguely funny. But I don't believe for a second that Limmy (or this clip) has that level of self-awareness.