Is there anyone not worried?

We had a thread of about 80 pages laughing at their manager, signings and tactics without actually addressing our current squad, signings and finances.

Anyone that's suddenly had a wake up call only has themselves to blame.

Regardless of how shite they are, it's always best to be quietly optimistic.
 
Steven D said:
We had a thread of about 80 pages laughing at their manager, signings and tactics without actually addressing our current squad, signings and finances.

Anyone that's suddenly had a wake up call only has themselves to blame.

Regardless of how shite they are, it's always best to be quietly optimistic.
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Yip, they are confidently expecting to improve. They ain't shipping as many goals now. We have to hit the wake up button now.
 
ML9 said:
It's the 1-0's I can't stand, you have a choice to stick or twist. Today SG subbed Aribo and Hagi(stick) literally on the back of one of the best moves of the game that nearly led to our second between the two, and ultimately imo it removed any further goalscoring threat for us, as we opted to hold on, we didn't - again.

Fortune favours the bold.
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Gerrard said he subbed Aribo because he was on a yellow and couldn’t tackle anymore.
 
We are dropping points to utter dross, home & away & have zero points & zero goals in the Europa League, I am shocked that there is ANYONE out there who wouldn't be worried...!
 
We're not winning the league unless there is an improvement. It's that simple.

And there is a rebuild needed at the end of the season.
 
dublinbluenose said:
Yesterday was by far out best performance of the season and it was the finishing that let us down and two outstanding saves from Craig Gordon it has to be said,the double save in the first half from the corner and touching Roofe’s shot onto the post.
last season was a once in a generation season that none of us will ever see again.from my many decades watching Rangers this is what most league campaigns look like.i seen plenty yesterday that makes me think we have more than enough to win the league
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A very pragmatic and accurate take on it.
Although our subs and end of game management were yet again shocking.
 
The other issue I have is that it doesn’t appear Gerrard and Beale are able to improve things on the training ground or willing to explore different systems and formations in search of greater cohesion.

That’s also a concern because it begins to remind me of post Xmas 2019/20 when we just stumbled on blindly from one game to the next seemingly hoping it would suddenly click.
 
I’m worried but for different reasons than I was a month or so ago. A month or so ago we were terrible, not creating and playing without any tempo. That has changed since Lundstram has been introduced as the deepest midfielder. We are now playing with a significantly higher tempo and creating chances. My main concerns now are we aren’t anywhere near clinical enough and defensively fragile. I hope starting with both Morelos and Roofe on the park at the same time will see us score more.
 
HandsomeHead said:
The other issue I have is that it doesn’t appear Gerrard and Beale are able to improve things on the training ground or willing to explore different systems and formations in search of greater cohesion.
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I disagree with this. Our play has changed a fair bit the past few weeks. We’ve started playing a 4-2-3-1, with Hagi as the 10, and a focus on more central based play with the fullbacks sitting a bit deeper.
 
NDC bear forever said:
I disagree with this. Our play has changed a fair bit the past few weeks. We’ve started playing a 4-2-3-1, with Hagi as the 10, and a focus on more central based play with the fullbacks sitting a bit deeper.
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In all honesty I tend to view 4-2-3-1 or 4-3-2-1 as variants of the core 4-3-3 system we evidently favour.

The emphasis is always on retaining and recycling possession and pushing the wingbacks up as auxiliary attackers, but there’s a reticence to our play in the final third against low block defensive walls that we’ve never quite managed to work out and I think that’s in part the result of being a bit too wedded to that core ideology.
 
NDC bear forever said:
I disagree with this. Our play has changed a fair bit the past few weeks. We’ve started playing a 4-2-3-1, with Hagi as the 10, and a focus on more central based play with the fullbacks sitting a bit deeper.
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We started as a 4-2-3-1 yesterday and hagi was good, gerrard then switched to a 4-3-3 for some reason
 
I'm concerned, with a 2nd quarter of difficult away games to come cant see us not dropping a few points. With a defence that looks dodgy when under pressure, a team that some weeks despite in complete control dont create many chances and then the games that we actually do, we rarely close the game out with that killer 2nd goal.. Yes I'm definitely concerned. The optimism on here seems to be based on wishful thinking and hows it's a given we will recapture last seasons form eventually.
 
Im worried about our lack of quality up top. Roofe about the only one I trust. Morelos is way out of shape and his finishing is that of a 3rd centre half clearing the ball. People saying hes playing a different role, its a load of nonsense. He's not fit enough to run channels, roll defenders and run in behind. Its that simple in my opinion.
 
Too many big players just not finding their form consistently enough, it's been a stuttering season so far and yet we still find ourselves top of the league so I certainly am not worried as such but I do have concerns that if we don't turn this poor run of performances around it'll cost us eventually.

January is now becoming a massive month for us as far as transfers go, both in and out.
 
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Bowery Boy said:
If only football was that simple.
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I watched the highlights of brentford v chelsea last night and I would imagine Chelsea's wage bill is way higher.

I'll tell you this, they were hanging on and were extremely lucky to get out of there with the result they did. We may have a bigger wage bill, but we're way by signing the class of gazza, laudrup ect and even then we lost games to so called jobbers.

Nothings a sure thing in football and if it was the game would die on it's arse.

There will be some on here who remember hearts coming to Ibrox around this time of the season under walter and they gubbed us 3 -0, going on 5, yet we still won the league.
 
I'd be a lot more worried if we were not creating the chances. We have to be clinical in front of goal. We can't continue to create that many chances and miss sitters.

There's a lot of room for every player to improve. I'm confident this group will find their form - hopefully, sooner rather than later.

The reality is if we played as we did in the first half more consistently I'm pretty sure everyone would be more positive.
 
Since the season began I felt it was a fitness thing, lack of decent pre season for too many of them, but now I'm not so sure. Just can't put my finger on what's wrong.
 
si72 said:
You ought to take your head out yer arse.We have been abysmal for most of the season so far.Failure to beat absolute shite like motherwell and hearts at Ibrox and not keeping a clean sheet is unacceptable.Dress it up anyway you want.The filth are now 2 points nearer us and starting to pick up form whilst we have just stood still.
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Another one that thinks we’re ‘periously close’ to throwing away/losing something after 9 league games. Now, if it was 9 games LEFT of the league season I might agree with you and the rest of the ‘panty setters’ :)):))
 
Have been pretty worried since day 1 because our performances. Was hoping to keep the 6 point gap between us and the dhims till we meet them again.
 
barrheadbear said:
We haven't kicked our arses this season. Been shocking in all 6 European games.

Our league form has been little better than average. On our travels we fluked a result at Dens where we were fortunate not to be a couple behind in the first 15 mins.

I genuinely believe the only reason we are top of the league is down to the fixture list. If our 1st round of fixtures had been reversed with Celtics and seen us visit Tynecastle, Scumdome, Pittodrie & Fir Park as well as The Tony Macaroni and with Easter Road in 10 days time I have a horrible feeling we would be in a bit of bother.

In the next round of fixtures Celtic have all the better sides coming to them whilst we meet them on our travels.

I sense a nailbiting time between now and New Year and unless we hit some decent form I'll be surprised if we are still top by then.
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I quite agree with most of your post but the fact still remains we are still not ‘perilously close’ to throwing away the league as only 9 games have been played.

Did nobody read my post properly or the post I was replying to?
 
Not how I expected it to look with us drawing another home match.

We were outstanding in the first 45, absolutely brilliant, how you want any Rangers team to look, any season.

Still concern at our lack of nous with late set plays.
 
Me , I’m not worried because it does no good and the staff have the wherewithall and resources to make improvements . And if we don’t improve then it’s on us .

I do believe some fundamental adjustments could simplify things and imo simplification is wise when you have too many uncertainties you reduce them .
 
The filth play on Saturday, we play on Sunday.

There's a good chance the gap will be down to 1 point by time we play on Sunday.
 
StaunchEnclosure said:
It's football.

Last season was a one off.
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I think the stars aligned last season.

A magnificent effort from manager and players coupled with good fortune making us runaway winners.

But we won’t be as good or as fortunate again.

Also Celtic we’re never as poor as some on here thought, they had exactly the opposite type of season to us, where if something could go wrong it did.

But overall I still hope and expect us to win the title this year by 6/7 points from Celtic.
 
CaptainCourageous said:
Aye but Celtic are shit…

They’ve just gone to Aberdeen, Motherwell and won. We couldn’t beat two terrible sides in Hearts and Motherwell at home.

We aren’t scoring goals and this team can’t keep a clean sheet. Obvious concerns. Near on 20 competitive matches into the season and we are still miles off it.

I’m sure some will be along soon enough to come away with the usual talk.
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You are right mate. I have a couple of posters trying to argue that all is well and we were great yesterday?!
 
KensingtonBlue said:
People will bury their heads in the sand but truth is Celtic are only 4 points behind with a better goal difference, and that’s despite a horrific start.

We are our own worst enemy this season and are going to drag what should have been a comfortable title win into an ugly slog if we don’t wake up.

At the start of the season I said the only one that can beat us is ourselves. We’re doing that at the moment.
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What evidence were you using to make you think that it would be a comfortable title win?
 
I never thought this season would be an easy title with all teams dropping points but I do think we will still be champions at the end of the season, we might not win it until after the split.
 
babaji said:
What evidence were you using to make you think that it would be a comfortable title win?
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We went last season unbeaten. Over 100 points. We kept all of our key players and added some promising new additions.

Given last season was pretty much perfect a slight regression could be expected, but maybe to 90 points or so.

By the same token, Celtic were horrific last year and on top of that lost their 3 best players in Edouard, Ajer and Christie, brought in a no-mark manager and at best look transitional, at worst a rudderless shambles.

With all that being the case, how was a comfortable title win not a realistic expectation? Of course, it’s not panning out that way because our deterioration so far has been worse than I could have ever imagined. But there’s no excuses for it.
 
We've had a favourable run of fixtures and we should have put a run of seven wins together and be 7-10 points clear. Two easily avoidable %^*&-ups have caused us to drop 4 points in games we should have put to bed an hour before we conceded an equalizer.

What seems worse to me is like we've taken a step back to 2018-19 results. We'd win a couple of games and then drop stupid points after a unbelievable blunder, the management team shitting the bed with team selection or substitutions and/or the repeated pattern of not putting teams to bed before conceding late on.

Our top scorer after 9 league games is Roofe with 3 goals. Only three players have scored more than one goal in the league (Roofe, Morelos and Aribo). Quite frankly, that's utterly pathetic.

Honestly, I think we're sleepwalking towards the second round of fixtures with a bunch of injuries and absolutely nobody in form, which is concerning. Just look at what we have from 21st November to 2nd January:

Hibs (League Cup Semi), Livi (A), Hibs (A), Dundee (H), Hearts (A), St Johnstone (H), League Cup Final/Dundee United (H), Aberdeen (A), Old Firm (A)

The fact of the matter is, that's as tough a run of fixtures we could get in Scotland. Especially when you consider the turnaround time between the games.

We're not scoring sitters, we're conceding blunders, the management team have been doing bizarre shit all season (Before, during and after games) and we're not putting teams to bed. Alarm bells should be going off and no amount of "We're top of the league, don't worry about it!" is going to cut it any more.
 
TN8 said:
I genuinely have no idea how some people on here coped with the seasons when the league went down to the wire. We're in October and we're top of the league - anybody that's "worried" now might want to take a wee holiday when we get to the proper business end of the season.
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TBF back then we usually found a way. Now we find a way to throw points away and let's not forget our arses collapsing 2 of the past 3 seasons after the Winter break.

Different times and it's clear come January we are going to need a couple of first team players added to what we have now because we have so many off their game and so few you could give pass marks to thus far.
 
While it’s an imbalanced program so far in home and away im not so sure you can say we have had favourable run of games we have played 2nd in league in consecutive games albeit at home and we played Tim’s at home and took 7 from 9 points .

Aberdeen at this time do not look like being contenders but we have had them too at Ibrox .

It does mean we do will have a series of away against these guys but I believe we are better than them all and expect victories .
 
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We have to score the second because we’re always susceptible to a mistake or dodgey ref decision

We should have scored a second yesterday

Last season we eliminated the fine margins, this season those fine margins are becoming a barrier we‘re struggling to get over
 
dublinbluenose said:
Yesterday was by far out best performance of the season and it was the finishing that let us down and two outstanding saves from Craig Gordon it has to be said,the double save in the first half from the corner and touching Roofe’s shot onto the post.
last season was a once in a generation season that none of us will ever see again.from my many decades watching Rangers this is what most league campaigns look like.i seen plenty yesterday that makes me think we have more than enough to win the league
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Great Post.

Seems to be a lot of posters either didn't see, or have forgotten, what a title winning season could look like during Walter's reign.

Moaning about turgid performances? Oh you farkin better believe it. We still racked up the titles mind you!

And all played with the sort of squad that boasted an embarrassment of riches compared with what we and SG have at our disposal today.

As disappointing as the result was yesterday it was still probably one of our better games this season. Certainly, the manner in which we played has given me more optimism than any other game this season regardless the result.
 
We have been garbage all season and don't look like we can give anybody a drubbing. I thought things would have been sorted by now but it seems the players seem content to rest on last season's laurels.
The big test will be when we go Pittodrie, Easter Road, Tynecastle and The Chamber Of Secrets. Our results there will define our season.
 
MrStruth said:
Yip, they are confidently expecting to improve. They ain't shipping as many goals now. We have to hit the wake up button now.
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At least they’ve had several entertaining performances, OF aside I’ve not watched any games this season and thought afterwards we were great there.
 
HandsomeHead said:
As I’ve said a few times on here before, I expected a hangover of sorts after the efforts of last season so I’m not entirely surprised by our performances to date.

That level of consistency last year was never going to be sustainable unless we significantly improved the starting eleven, IMO, and we evidently didn’t have the money to do that.

So we have a lot of players that still appear to be suffering from the effects of the monumental effort they put into last season and I think that’s understandable in many ways.

The concern I have is that there’s a huge carrot of automatic CL entry awaiting the winners of the SPFL this season and we’re fortuitous at the moment in as much as Celtic have started even more poorly than we have.

Hibs and Hearts are a sideshow - it will come down to ourselves and the Yahoos so at the moment it feels like a race to whoever grabs form first.

There have been signs in the last two games that we are beginning to improve, but overall it was always likely to be a much closer run affair this year and I think a lot need to get their heads around that and bunker down for the long haul.
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First things first. Last season was always going to be a complete and unique one-off. A welcome and historic one, but there you go.

However, II don't think it's too harsh to say certain players showed what they could do, so I think it's fair to say they get judged on last year. The other question is maybe they have just peaked?

We keep hearing excuses for the captain. 'You know I don't think he's fully shrugged off that injury from last season etc,'. Well, he shouldn't playing then. His passing and crossing into the box this season, by and large have been abysmal. You drop him, especially when we have our best young prospect since Durrant and Ferguson itching to start.

How much time, how many games does the manager have to give a player before he gets back up to speed? Again, Alfie? Love the wee man, especially with what he's went through in this sh1thole. But with his inabilty or refusal to get ;stuck in' added to his apparent reluctance to score when a chance is most certainly on, means you drop him. Roofe has to start, but he doesn't have certain qualities that Alfie brings. That one's a conundrum.

Barisic doesn't have the pace to fly up and down the wings, so with him playing deep, there's another source of chances limited.

The main concern for me is that we should be at least eight points ahead of them, and we've blown that. Also, they've had a shitstorm of a start, losing their first three league away games, and we're basically one game ahead of them. That's my concern right there.

The thing is, they exist on hope, and that's three times this season, we've given them just that. A lifeline. Now, I don't think a title can be won at this time of the season, but we should have had a little insurance in terms of points, and that's been whittled away.

Bear in mind also, we've had a slightly easier quarter in terms of playing what has turned out to be our three hardest opponents at home. So a more testing second quarter awaits us shortly.
 
dh1963 said:
Last season we were scoring from all through the team and keeping clean sheet after clean sheet.
Now we need 20 chances to score a goal and almost every game we concede.
This Rangers team aren't winning the title unless we sort both ends of ths pitch. I wish I knew how to fix it, but anyone not worried is stuck in last season. We've played all the best teams at home, what will our results be like when we visit Parkhead, Easter Road and Tynecastle?
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I’m not worried. We’ve been down Helander, Jack and Kent. Roofe hasn’t really been in the team due to five game ban in Europe. Once we settle we’ll finally get out of second gear, and remember playing like this we are still top of the league.
 
artificialintoleranz said:
Great Post.

Seems to be a lot of posters either didn't see, or have forgotten, what a title winning season could look like during Walter's reign.

Moaning about turgid performances? Oh you farkin better believe it. We still racked up the titles mind you!

And all played with the sort of squad that boasted an embarrassment of riches compared with what we and SG have at our disposal today.

As disappointing as the result was yesterday it was still probably one of our better games this season. Certainly, the manner in which we played has given me more optimism than any other game this season regardless the result.
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Even last season they were still close to us going into the winter period.
With the Motherwell game we came perilously close to having only a 4 or 5 point gap.
Had they won the January match then our lead would have been chopped to 4 points.

As it turned out we extended the lead to 10 and then they dropped 9 points from the next 15 points and that was the end of it.

In Walter's last season to be fair we did win the first 9 matches in the SPL.
Then we drew 1-1 at home with Inverness and 2 weeks later Hibs beat us 3-0 at Ibrox.
We lost home and away to the tims before the final match at Ibrox finished 0-0.
Dundee United also beat us at Ibrox.
We had a draw in Inverness and Hearts beat us at Tynecastle.

The season before after 9 games we had dropped 8 points.
Three 0-0 results back to back and a 1-1 draw at home to Hibs.
When we lost 1-0 at Aberdeen in the 12th match of the season Mowbrays tims were 2 points ahead of us (but we had a game in hand).
14 games later (we dropped another 6 points in that spell) we beat them at Ibrox to go 10 points clear with a game in hand.

Season before that we won the league on the last day with only 86 points. 8 draws and 4 defeats.

As people always say, it's a marathon not a sprint. So if we are going to win the title there will be highs and lows.

The next round of 11 games will be very important. We are away to Tims, Hibs, Hearts, Motherwell, Aberdeen and Livingston.
 
wee bud's pit boots said:
First things first. Last season was always going to be a complete and unique one-off. A welcome and historic one, but there you go.

However, II don't think it's too harsh to say certain players showed what they could do, so I think it's fair to say they get judged on last year. The other question is maybe they have just peaked?

We keep hearing excuses for the captain. 'You know I don't think he's fully shrugged off that injury from last season etc,'. Well, he shouldn't playing then. His passing and crossing into the box this season, by and large have been abysmal. You drop him, especially when we have our best young prospect since Durrant and Ferguson itching to start.

How much time, how many games does the manager have to give a player before he gets back up to speed? Again, Alfie? Love the wee man, especially with what he's went through in this sh1thole. But with his inabilty or refusal to get ;stuck in' added to his apparent reluctance to score when a chance is most certainly on, means you drop him. Roofe has to start, but he doesn't have certain qualities that Alfie brings. That one's a conundrum.

Barisic doesn't have the pace to fly up and down the wings, so with him playing deep, there's another source of chances limited.

The main concern for me is that we should be at least eight points ahead of them, and we've blown that. Also, they've had a shitstorm of a start, losing their first three league away games, and we're basically one game ahead of them. That's my concern right there.

The thing is, they exist on hope, and that's three times this season, we've given them just that. A lifeline. Now, I don't think a title can be won at this time of the season, but we should have had a little insurance in terms of points, and that's been whittled away.

Bear in mind also, we've had a slightly easier quarter in terms of playing what has turned out to be our three hardest opponents at home. So a more testing second quarter awaits us shortly.
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Don’t disagree with any of that, Gub.

Re: Patterson - absolutely. Once upon a time you had a couple of poor performances, that was you on the bench for the next in line no matter who you were.

I guess it becomes more of an issue when it’s your club captain, but I really do think at this point in time the youngster actually offers more in an attacking sense and he should be given his chance.

Will he though? Probably not.
 
All this because Roofey hit the post and Alfredo couldnae hit a barn door , they go in its 3-0 with hearts getting an undeserved last minute consolation goal....some on here should grow a pair....
 
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