Disappointed with today's result but some players much improved

Professor Yaffle

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Pretty gutted we didn't win that game today.

Very much in control for 70 odd minutes and should have been out of sight.

Hearts offered very little until the last quarter of the game.

Did we tire or did our subs not work as planned? Annoying whatever it was and some of our finishing was appalling and the flap by our usually reliable keeper to gift their goal shambolic.


That said I felt Aribo, Kamara, Lundstram and Hagi looked decent and sharp and contributed to our best play.

Also Borna doesn't look as off the pace as he appeared to be a few short weeks ago

There's so much more to come from our team and as soon as Kent, Jack and Helander return we will be in a better place.

Still puzzling why we are not scoring freely or keeping clean sheets yet we remain top of the table in what's been a strange season so far.

It was almost an enjoyable game with some promising play but again we let points slip away that hopefully don't cost us in May.

Right. MOTD is on. Enough from me.
 
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Pretty gutted we didn't win that game today.

Very much in control for 70 odd minutes and should have been out of sight.

Hearts offered very little until the last quarter of the game.

Did we tire or did our subs not work as planned? Annoying whatever it was and some of our finishing was appalling and the flap by our usually reliable keeper to gift their goal shambolic.


That said I felt Aribo, Kamara, Lundstram and Hagi looked decent and sharp and contributed to our best play.

Also Borna doesn't look as off the pace as he appeared to be a few short weeks ago

There's so much more to come from our team and as soon as Kent, Jack and Helander return we will be in a better place.

Still puzzling why we are not scoring freely or keeping clean sheets yet we remain top of the table in what's been a strange season so far.

It was almost an enjoyable game with some promising play but again we let points slip away that hopefully don't cost us in May.

Right. MOTD is on.

Can't disagree with any of that. It's fine margins for me. Alfie sticks that chance away and 90% of this board are waxing lyrical about how well we played, save two or three ropey moments in the second half.

Sticking chances away is without doubt the biggest problem right now. Motherwell abd today saw over 50 attempts but only 2 goals. That's simply not good enough.
 
It speaks volumes that of the 4 players you specifically name, two of them were subbed with 15 left and the arse dropped out of our game as a result (albeit admittedly we were worse second half in general).

Would have done a straight swap of Roofe for Morelos and left at least one of Hagi or Aribo on personally, Morelos was having one of those days he has from time to time where he could have played there for 90 hours and not found the net so why keep him on?
 
I'd disagree with one point , 2nd half we were poor , still made a few chances but overall 2nd half wasn't near good enough
 
[QUOTE="Paisleyprod, post: 9946315, member: 354"

Did we tire or did our subs not work as planned? Annoying whatever it was and some of our finishing was appalling and the flap by our usually reliable keeper to gift their goal shambolic.
[/QUOTE]
We've struggled to create chances most of the season, but when we do play we'll and create chances like today, we never take them.
Hearts were poor today.
 
Today, with an on form striker, we win that 3 or 4 - 1.

There was an obvious drop off in tempo from about 60 mins, yet we still created chances to kill the game.

Game management let us down massively in the last 10 mins. You don’t need to be playing well to kill a game of football, how many teams come to Ibrox and do it effectively.

Helander, Kent and Jack will be massive coming back in.

Yet, still top of the table.
 
I feel,I’m a realist when it comes to my team, the notion that we go out there and hammer everyone week in week out isn’t one I go with. Today we played a high flying Hearts team and made them look fairly ordinary. Any other day we would have scored a barrowload of goals if our players had taken the chances we created. The goal we conceded was from a rare error from our fantastic keeper. Aye it’s a worry we are not taking our chances and also not finishing off teams and it will have to be one of those that the squad has to get out their system soon but I have to agree with the OP I though a lot of our guys were looking better. Added to that we are getting real key guys fit and back into action in the next couple of weeks in Kent and Jack.

This season I honestly think opposing teams have improved. Hearts, Hibs, Dundee Utd etc may all take points from Rangers and Celtic but I believe watching both halves of the old firm we will win more of these battles than Celtic will.

We are nowhere near panic stations yet. I think we could easily go on a nice wee run at some point and just pull away. We are playing some decent stuff and we just need it to click
 
It speaks volumes that of the 4 players you specifically name, two of them were subbed with 15 left and the arse dropped out of our game as a result (albeit admittedly we were worse second half in general).

Would have done a straight swap of Roofe for Morelos and left at least one of Hagi or Aribo on personally, Morelos was having one of those days he has from time to time where he could have played there for 90 hours and not found the net so why keep him on?
Yup...you could see Alfie looking over thinking...I'm hooked here as Roofe was waiting.
 
Pretty gutted we didn't win that game today.

Very much in control for 70 odd minutes and should have been out of sight.

Hearts offered very little until the last quarter of the game.

Did we tire or did our subs not work as planned? Annoying whatever it was and some of our finishing was appalling and the flap by our usually reliable keeper to gift their goal shambolic.


That said I felt Aribo, Kamara, Lundstram and Hagi looked decent and sharp and contributed to our best play.

Also Borna doesn't look as off the pace as he appeared to be a few short weeks ago

There's so much more to come from our team and as soon as Kent, Jack and Helander return we will be in a better place.

Still puzzling why we are not scoring freely or keeping clean sheets yet we remain top of the table in what's been a strange season so far.

It was almost an enjoyable game with some promising play but again we let points slip away that hopefully don't cost us in May.

Right. MOTD is on. Enough from me.
Agree with pretty much all of that. The standard of performance was far better for the first half and parts of the second than it was v St. Johnstone, Dundee, Motherwell, European games etc. That is progress. We were taking more shots and looked like we had more ideas than we have done in most games this season.

It's a massive downer that that performance ended up getting us a disappointing result via a bad late goal. But there was a difference today. In previous weeks it's been a generally lethargic performance that led to us scraping 1-0 wins or dropping points. Today the problem can be pinned down to a few very specific issues:
- too many shots off target - and today, a lot of that can be laid at Morelos' feet. I can think of 5 or 6 opportunities that he completely squandered.
- defensive lapses and poor decision making.
- one mistake by McGregor
- not covering posts at corners

Today was a dreadful outcome given the game should have been over. But we have seen an improvement in the general level of performance from what we were seeing before the international break. We now need to keep that up and fix those other problems asap so we don't see any more results like today.
 
Agree with most of the OP. Don't agree on the Borna part though. He looks a shadow of his former self to me. Looks scared to try and beat a man & hearts kept getting in on his side in 2nd half cause he's tucked so far in to centre of defence basically. I'd be resting him and bringing Bassey in for a few weeks.
 
This midfield needs to stay for the next few games. It functioned well today.

Up front is the issue - too many safe or mistimed/places passes. Neither signing in this areas has improved us (or even set as a starter). It makes the idea to loan out Itten even more bizarre.
 
Agree with most of that OP. Esp
Pretty gutted we didn't win that game today.

Very much in control for 70 odd minutes and should have been out of sight.

Hearts offered very little until the last quarter of the game.

Did we tire or did our subs not work as planned? Annoying whatever it was and some of our finishing was appalling and the flap by our usually reliable keeper to gift their goal shambolic.


That said I felt Aribo, Kamara, Lundstram and Hagi looked decent and sharp and contributed to our best play.

Also Borna doesn't look as off the pace as he appeared to be a few short weeks ago

There's so much more to come from our team and as soon as Kent, Jack and Helander return we will be in a better place.

Still puzzling why we are not scoring freely or keeping clean sheets yet we remain top of the table in what's been a strange season so far.

It was almost an enjoyable game with some promising play but again we let points slip away that hopefully don't cost us in May.

Right. MOTD is on. Enough from me.
Especially the 4 players you highlighted.

Strongly disagree about Barisic. Thought he was poor throughout. Hearts were getting some space down the left hand side in the 2nd half. He was also lucky in the 1st half when he fell asleep at one point.

The form of him and Tavernier is a massive massive concern and a large factor in our overall reduction in chances and goals.
 
Subs didn't work. Management seem oblivious to blatent issues during the game.

Hearts had free reign down our left. Kamara was missing yet they bring on bacuna for Wright and need to move him to the right within 5 minutes of coming on making the situation worse.

Tavs distribution was breaking down play over and over and was caught out of position 2 or 3 times because of it. Patterson should have came on but we did nothing to sort it out

Not sure what the plan was with Davis. Midfield was left unbalanced with gaps all over
 
Lundstram was the best player on the park but was noticably not as influential when Davis appeared on the park.

The Aribo sub was a pretty surprising decision by SG given he was one of better performing players and for me Morelos should've been the one going off with Hagi.

Hagi remains his usual self - some lovely touches, some poor decision making and giving away countless fouls. His lack of pace hinders him and in turn us when he's played in the front three.

Full backs - A real problem. Given they are so crucial to our set up, both of them underperforming for whatever reason is a concern. The right hand side of Tav next to Goldson looks shaky as hell right now
 
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Pretty gutted we didn't win that game today.

Very much in control for 70 odd minutes and should have been out of sight.

Hearts offered very little until the last quarter of the game.

Did we tire or did our subs not work as planned? Annoying whatever it was and some of our finishing was appalling and the flap by our usually reliable keeper to gift their goal shambolic.


That said I felt Aribo, Kamara, Lundstram and Hagi looked decent and sharp and contributed to our best play.

Also Borna doesn't look as off the pace as he appeared to be a few short weeks ago

There's so much more to come from our team and as soon as Kent, Jack and Helander return we will be in a better place.

Still puzzling why we are not scoring freely or keeping clean sheets yet we remain top of the table in what's been a strange season so far.

It was almost an enjoyable game with some promising play but again we let points slip away that hopefully don't cost us in May.

Right. MOTD is on. Enough from me.
I agree with you mate in all of that. Thought yesterday we actually played the best we have all season except for the finishing.

I find the constant Borna bashing a bit weird as you say for me he’s been getting better every week, I came accross a snip of an interview he did back in Croatia last week while he was away which he said he’s been struggling to get back fit as the back injury he had was quite bad, and trying to fix it fast for the euros caused him other problems and I think that’s shown in his performances at the start of the season. He also said 56 games is way more than he’s ever played, so I imaging Bassey will get games. It’s just a shame we don’t have 5 subs anymore as I think that will really cost Calvin & Nathan game time as we won’t use a sub for a fullback unless it’s necessary.

I think some players tired (Kamara for me looked like he dropped off towards the middle of the second half) and as has been said on plenty threads, the manager got his subs wrong.

The thing is McGregor made a pretty uncharacteristic error for their goal. It was a fluke, and Tav had left his man completely free to score.
 
Agree with most of that OP. Esp

Especially the 4 players you highlighted.

Strongly disagree about Barisic. Thought he was poor throughout. Hearts were getting some space down the left hand side in the 2nd half. He was also lucky in the 1st half when he fell asleep at one point.

The form of him and Tavernier is a massive massive concern and a large factor in our overall reduction in chances and goals.

I think Borna misses having Kent in front of him.
 
I think Borna misses having Kent in front of him.
Fair point and quite possibly he does. Although, even before Kent's injury, Borna's form was a big concern imo.

Both full backs probably miss Jack the most, as he gives exceptional cover to both of them.
 
One positive from yesterday and the last couple of games is that our team performances have improved, now we just need to be clinical in front of goal. The performances have been an improvement over the first month and a half of the season which is some progress. Hopefully soon we start to see the effects of performing well by taking our chances.
 
Agree with most of the Op but definitely think Hagi could have offered more. First half totally dominant, 2nd half first 20 mins again on top but last 25 was pretty even. One thing I noticed towards end of the game we struggled to stop crosses into the box by not getting close enough to the opposition
 
Bit unfair on Borna I feel
After the substitutions I thought he was left exposed on too many occasions by his team mates.
It allowed Hearts to get back into the game.
We’ve spoken about this a bit recently where I sit.

Davis/Kamara used to tuck in and cover when he was going forward. This doesn’t happen anymore, so it’s probably affecting him going forward as he knows he needs to get back, why don’t we protect our fullbacks anymore? Have we got cocky and think we don’t need to? Or is it people not following instruction?
 
I thought we played very well first half and, mostly, alright second half. Ironically though, our better chances came - and went - second half.

I think we can all look back on the subs and agree Gerrard got them wrong. Roofe for Morelos was the obvious change to make. Though maybe Gerrard was looking back to the Hibs game and how effective they were together when Roofe came on then? Hagi, I thought, had tired and I’ve no quibbles about him going off. Wright too had run his race, but should maybe have been replaced by Sakala (though I can’t recall if he was away during the break).
 
Agree with the summary OP. A promising performance for long spells undone by missing genuine grade A sitters and a howler from our usually reliable keeper.

In terms of positive performances, I thought the middle 3 and Hagi were the standouts. Hagi gets stick because he’s not constantly doing something but he’s got some touches and moments of vision that nobody else in the league can produce. Would like to see him and Aribo switched but thought the pair of them were linking well together and was mystified they both came off at that moment in the game. I heard Gerrard saying the fact Aribo was on a yellow was a consideration but you can surely take that risk if he’s playing in the front 3.

Bacuna has been taking some stick but he put us through on goal twice in the short time he was on. Maybe the wrong choice of sub but that’s on the manager and not the player IMO.

In terms of concerns, Alfie was rotten. Arguably as bad as I’ve seen him play. He must have recognised Gordon and had PTSD of playing against them in the Murty era. Biggest concern for me is Tav and it pains me to say that. I do think that with Patterson breathing down his neck, any Tav performance is going to be viewed as slightly poorer than it actually is and any Patterson performance the opposite way. Thought Tav was fine first half yesterday but second half I thought he looked very low on confidence, which is never something I would usually level at him.
 
We can't turn up for 45 minutes to an hour every game and then try to coast games out at 1-0.

Thought we learned that years ago when Kilmarnock, Hearts, Motherwell & Aberdeen would regularly sucker punch us after we play well for an hour, miss chance after chance after chance, tire out and our complacent defence gets panicky, make mistake after mistake, invites pressure and we concede.

We also can't make the choice to "rest players for big European games" when we're only 1-0 up. Everyone knows we need a two-goal lead, otherwise we inevitably get sucker punched. I have absolutely no faith in this defence to see a game out at the moment. So the management team have two options:
  1. Get the two-goal lead and immediately freshen things up, because the opposition will actually come out and play at 2-0 down in order to try and salvage something.
  2. Substitute the players that are missing chance after chance/not creating so that you get the second goal.
It's so basic an idea it's amazing it hasn't sunk in with the management staff after 3 years.
 
Pretty gutted we didn't win that game today.

Very much in control for 70 odd minutes and should have been out of sight.

Hearts offered very little until the last quarter of the game.

Did we tire or did our subs not work as planned? Annoying whatever it was and some of our finishing was appalling and the flap by our usually reliable keeper to gift their goal shambolic.


That said I felt Aribo, Kamara, Lundstram and Hagi looked decent and sharp and contributed to our best play.

Also Borna doesn't look as off the pace as he appeared to be a few short weeks ago

There's so much more to come from our team and as soon as Kent, Jack and Helander return we will be in a better place.

Still puzzling why we are not scoring freely or keeping clean sheets yet we remain top of the table in what's been a strange season so far.

It was almost an enjoyable game with some promising play but again we let points slip away that hopefully don't cost us in May.

Right. MOTD is on. Enough from me.
On the money.
 
It's the same old problem that doesn't get addressed by the coaching team.

We have a shot shy midfield who should be chipping in with 8/10 goals a season each.

That is the problem when you look at previous players like Albertz, Van Brockhurst, Barry Ferguson, Ronald de Boer etc.... midfielders who scored goals
 
Agree with the summary OP. A promising performance for long spells undone by missing genuine grade A sitters and a howler from our usually reliable keeper.

In terms of positive performances, I thought the middle 3 and Hagi were the standouts. Hagi gets stick because he’s not constantly doing something but he’s got some touches and moments of vision that nobody else in the league can produce. Would like to see him and Aribo switched but thought the pair of them were linking well together and was mystified they both came off at that moment in the game. I heard Gerrard saying the fact Aribo was on a yellow was a consideration but you can surely take that risk if he’s playing in the front 3.

Bacuna has been taking some stick but he put us through on goal twice in the short time he was on. Maybe the wrong choice of sub but that’s on the manager and not the player IMO.

In terms of concerns, Alfie was rotten. Arguably as bad as I’ve seen him play. He must have recognised Gordon and had PTSD of playing against them in the Murty era. Biggest concern for me is Tav and it pains me to say that. I do think that with Patterson breathing down his neck, any Tav performance is going to be viewed as slightly poorer than it actually is and any Patterson performance the opposite way. Thought Tav was fine first half yesterday but second half I thought he looked very low on confidence, which is never something I would usually level at him.
Agree with everything you say here.

Our midfield performed very well and had our front players done their job we would have been totally positive about this performance.

Our defence is a nightmare though. Coasting then brain farts in the crucial periods. Also no accounting for macgregors mistake albeit the hearts players dragged our defenders out of the space the ball was aimed into hence his flap at it.

Desparately need a fit Kent and Helander back.
 
I always find the balanced approaches and measured commentary, usually appears on FF the following day.

Well done for actually posing this on the day of the game. It beats a lot of the knee jerk reactions where everybody including the canteen staff at Auchenhowie get it.

And I say this, as one who is concerned about our inability this season to put matches to bed.
 
We could all see that unless performances improved we would be dropping points
The strange part is that performances have began to improve & we are still dropping points
I though at times (especially first half) we played really well & was good to watch
But,again we still seem so uncomfortable playing on a 1-0 lead as the game nears the end
Yes, we missed chances in what could & should have been a comfortable victory & yes we again gifted the opposition a goal But for me it is how we approach the latter stages of a game when e are only 1-0 up which is wrong.
We were dominating yesterday but again as the game moved on (for me anyway) we chose to change how we were playing & that is what eventually cost us. I know Hearts needed to try n get something out if it at 1 down but I honestly think it was our attitude that allowed them into the game as much as them suddenly to have a go.
We ended up neither dominating the game ( as we had been) or hitting them on the break, how we approached the latter stages of the game seemed to unsettle the entire team with there looking like no real game plan to how we were approaching / seeing out the game
That was down to management changes & players who had started the game with great confidence now starting to lose that winning mentality.
 
I always find the balanced approaches and measured commentary, usually appears on FF the following day.

Well done for actually posing this on the day of the game. It beats a lot of the knee jerk reactions where everybody including the canteen staff at Auchenhowie get it.

And I say this, as one who is concerned about our inability this season to put matches to bed.
Thats kind of you to say.

I think the knee jerk posts where every man and their dug was getting it possibly prompted me to write the post and at time of writing my anger at not winning had subsided enough to do so :)
 
We could all see that unless performances improved we would be dropping points
The strange part is that performances have began to improve & we are still dropping points
I though at times (especially first half) we played really well & was good to watch
But,again we still seem so uncomfortable playing on a 1-0 lead as the game nears the end
Yes, we missed chances in what could & should have been a comfortable victory & yes we again gifted the opposition a goal But for me it is how we approach the latter stages of a game when e are only 1-0 up which is wrong.
We were dominating yesterday but again as the game moved on (for me anyway) we chose to change how we were playing & that is what eventually cost us. I know Hearts needed to try n get something out if it at 1 down but I honestly think it was our attitude that allowed them into the game as much as them suddenly to have a go.
We ended up neither dominating the game ( as we had been) or hitting them on the break, how we approached the latter stages of the game seemed to unsettle the entire team with there looking like no real game plan to how we were approaching / seeing out the game
That was down to management changes & players who had started the game with great confidence now starting to lose that winning mentality.

Let’s be honest for all our good play that was straight out the McInnes / Clark / Scottish fitba playbook…..keep it tight for 75 mins then throw on the the disruptor.

Inability to put the game away is costing us and is very similar to the first 2 seasons,
 
First half is the best Rangers have played in front of a crowd since the last 25 against Braga.

It was intense with real quality and intent on the ball. In every position.

Seen plenty of title seasons tossing in 90th minute levellers in games we shouldve won 3 or 4. Harry Curran. Prunty.

What I will say is it feels familiar under the current management team. There’s a clear pattern of gifting needless set plays late in 1 goal matches domestically. We didnt concede from any of them last season.

Robertson couldnt wait to give the foul on Tav. Hand was up before he’d even looked to check advantage.
 
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I think we were dominant for large parts of the game and it looked like Hagi playing as a number 10 and Aribo on the right of the front 3 was getting the best out of both of them.
It looked to me though after we scored Aribo dropped into the midfield 3 and Hagi went wide and we looked a lot less threatening.
 
Lundstram certainly looks a good player now.
Once again though, we played well for a large part of the game but we certainly struggled when Hearts had a go later on. It was really a 2-0 game but we missed several very good chances. We are 1 point ahead in the league after 9 games so I am confident that we will improve and win the league, Kent, Jack and Helander to come back. One thing I've noticed this season is that Tav isn't bombing down the wing so much which confuses me. Alfie played well apart from his lack of sharpness in front of goal. Keep the faith.
 
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