It feels like we’ve gone backwards

Bilkypark said:
One of the problems is the ongoing situation of a shot shy midfield.
The onus is always on Ryan Kent to create and if he doesn't we struggle to score goals.
So far Scott Wright hasn't progressed either and Hagi blows hot and cold in most games.
Kamara is scared to shoot also in games
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Last season Aribo scored a cracker and said afterwards he had been instructed to shoot pretty much on sight. He doesn’t do it enough, as he has the ability and scored a few crackers. There was one last night he was inside the box and had the chance to shoot but tried to square it and it got snuffed out.

Wright hasn’t been given a run of games yet but due to the way he plays seems to get caught an awful lot but doesn’t seem as robust as Kent.

I agree with your assessment on Hagi, a bit like Aribo I don’t think they have a “set” position.
 
Angrybluebear said:
Last season Aribo scored a cracker and said afterwards he had been instructed to shoot pretty much on sight. He doesn’t do it enough, as he has the ability and scored a few crackers. There was one last night he was inside the box and had the chance to shoot but tried to square it and it got snuffed out.

Wright hasn’t been given a run of games yet but due to the way he plays seems to get caught an awful lot but doesn’t seem as robust as Kent.

I agree with your assessment on Hagi, a bit like Aribo I don’t think they have a “set” position.
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Aribo is the most one footed footballer I’ve ever seen, It’s almost unbelievable that footballer with his ability cannot use his weaker foot at all.

Not sure if we’re talking about the same opportunity, but about 16 yards out he had a free shot at goal and done the usual - chop onto his left, slow it down, slow it down and pass it 4 yards.

It’s frustrating.
 
Bum chin said:
We've certainly not improved
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Man City and Liverpool haven't improved since their respective cruises to the title with record points, goals etc such as we had last season. They aren't standing still or suddenly shite teams because of that though. Improving on near perfection is realistically impossible and we've faced a host of issues from before, during and after preseason that we didn't really encounter last season, such as international tournaments, key injuries, key players with covid, no proper full first team preseason, new players to gel in and proper Rangers level expectancy from fans instead of hope. We will still win the league this season, and at least 1 Cup imo. However, we won't be as convincing in doing so as last season, but then I never expected us to be so no problem with that.
 
We've got our top level. Maybe we can improve slightly but not much.
It's all about the money now and bringing in players of an upper calibre.
 
RossTaggart91 said:
Getting beaten by Lyon who spent millions and are arguably a Champions League class side is going backwards? Laugh my ass off !!!!
We will NEVER be at Lyons level so take European games as a bonus and enjoy seeing some good opposition for goodness sake.
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wrong attitude. Lyon weren't all that last night
 
In hindsight we ought to have cashed in on two players , and refreshed squad ! Hindsight is an attribute that arrives too late !
I fear we will lose Goldson and Kamara for zilch !
 
RossTaggart91 said:
Getting beaten by Lyon who spent millions and are arguably a Champions League class side is going backwards? Laugh my ass off !!!!
We will NEVER be at Lyons level so take European games as a bonus and enjoy seeing some good opposition for goodness sake.
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Did you forget we got humiliated by Malmö twice who have spent less than us in the last twenty five years than we have in the last 3 ?

They have spent over £1million three times in their history, their record signing £1.35million ten seasons ago !

We were also made to look distinctly average against Alashkert. It’s not all about money, as our performances against the likes of Benfica and Porto showed.

Had we played against either of them last night we would have been on the wrong end of a 5-0 so for that reason yes we have gone backwards.

One solitary win, 1-0 to Alashkert, in our last 7 European matches, that is going backwards at great knots
 
Angrybluebear said:
Did you forget we got humiliated by Malmö twice who have spent less than us in the last twenty five years than we have in the last 3 ?

They have spent over £1million three times in their history, their record signing £1.35million ten seasons ago !

We were also made to look distinctly average against Alashkert. It’s not all about money, as our performances against the likes of Benfica and Porto showed.

Had we played against either of them last night we would have been on the wrong end of a 5-0 so for that reason yes we have gone backwards.

One solitary win, 1-0 to Alashkert, in our last 7 European matches, that is going backwards at great knots
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Your realise those last 7 matches include 2 from Champions League qualifiers and 2 from the last 16 level right?
 
We lacked that bit of quality last night that can win us those sorts of games. Lyon didn't totally dominate us but had quality when needed.

But that sort of quality costs alot of money.

Last night was basically a freebie, I thought Roofe should have started instead of Lundstram and have a go at them in the 1st half. A least you know Roofe will look to shoot.
 
mac2310 said:
Your realise those last 7 matches include 2 from Champions League qualifiers and 2 from the last 16 level right?
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yes Malmö were in the Champions League qualifiers.

We also outspent the other 2 teams, Slavia and Alashkert, but aren’t supposed to compete with Lyon them because they spent more money than us.

where is the logic in that ?
 
Angrybluebear said:
yes Malmö were in the Champions League qualifiers.

We also outspent the other 2 teams, Slavia and Alashkert, but aren’t supposed to compete with Lyon them because they spent more money than us.

where is the logic in that ?
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And now Malmö are in the Champions League groups, so clearly good enough. Lyon were also in the semis of the Champions league 13 months ago and 6 of those players were playing last night. Slavia were a very experienced European side also. Money isn’t the factor, I never mentioned that. Reaching the ceiling of our current level is. 4 years after Progres, if our European ceiling is last 16 and being beaten by clear Champions League level teams and the highest seed in the tournament, I think we are doing pretty well and certainly not backwards.
 
Like a few people were saying in towards the end of last season and start of this one - a few players seem to have topped out at a title charge. They loved the tension of the run of games towards it, they loved the celebrations, they loved being part of that achievement… they don’t have any idea how to adapt to being the Champions and leading rather than challenging.

We didn’t refresh the squad with players who were better than what was in the team already, we didn’t bring in someone who can lead the rest in the approach required for defending the title.

Rangers are still the best footballing side in Scotland and have more than enough to be at least a strong challenger this season but we needed something very different coming in this summer to what we got IMO.

I still believe that at the heart of it, a couple of players expected offers to come in over the summer and when these didn’t happen then it has affected them in the period so far. With no big sales then there’s not budget to go for better/more experienced players so a bit of a chicken & egg scenario.

Aside from anything else - that Lyon side are a good footballing team and scored two goals from very little, they were straight on it it and we will do well to play a better opponent this season. That was far from a poor performance from Rangers last night - a couple of lapses granted but we weren’t shown up or found toiling at all.
 
mac2310 said:
And now Malmö are in the Champions League groups, so clearly good enough. Lyon were also in the semis of the Champions league 13 months ago and 6 of those players were playing last night. Slavia were a very experienced European side also. Money isn’t the factor, I never mentioned that. Reaching the ceiling of our current level is. 4 years after Progres, if our European ceiling is last 16 and being beaten by clear Champions League level teams and the highest seed in the tournament, I think we are doing pretty well and certainly not backwards.
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You replied to my post that was in response to a poster highlighting Lyon spending millions !

Lyon were in the Champions League, are now in Europa league so clearly they have gone backwards too ?

For what it’s worth I suspect Malmö will finish bottom of their group with less than three points, they are no where near CL or even EL last 32 quality.
 
Angrybluebear said:
You replied to my post that was in response to a poster highlighting Lyon spending millions !

Lyon were in the Champions League, are now in Europa league so clearly they have gone backwards too ?

For what it’s worth I suspect Malmö will finish bottom of their group with less than three points, they are no where near CL or even EL last 32 quality.
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I appreciate what you are saying but Malmo beat us home and away and it was a very costly defeat from our perspective.
It has to be acknowledged that they were in the season and probably in October/November they would not beat us.
However, these qualifiers come at the same stage every season.
The difference in the last three years is that we were battle hardened by the third qualifying round and everybody was fit.
That was not the case this season.
And as has been said elsewhere, I think a number of players were not expecting to still be at the club.
 
BrooklynBlue said:
Some are determined to write this team off. It’s a little sad.

Injuries, Covid, staggered per-season, temporary loss of form - it’s early in the season yet we’re top of the league.

I think I’ll give it a while longer but agreeing we’ve gone backwards.
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I've not really posted cause tbh, I'm gutted about last night and there's enough negativity without mine.

But every club is facing similar issues, there's times when McGregor and Alfie were the only two who looked like they wanted to be here. We may not have gone backwards but we haven't gone forwards. And that in itself is a worry.
 
We don't seem to look up fjr any games we are playing, no matter the level of opposition.
Seems like players are just going through motions.
 
I thought we weren't going to keep players and let them run down their contracts anymore.
Gerrard told us we were in for an exciting transfer window.

Instead we've got Goldson running down his contract and an arguably weaker squad than last season (it's definitely not stronger). We're heavily reliant on a couple of players who are right at the end of their careers and have got too many similar type players in midfield.

It's frustrating to watch us on the pitch this season, we seem to sleepwalk through games and that is just about enough in the SPL but we've been woeful in Europe. I'm hoping something will light the fuse and we'll get last season's form back again, but in the meantime I agree we appear to have stagnated on and off the park.
 
Coisty09 said:
I appreciate what you are saying but Malmo beat us home and away and it was a very costly defeat from our perspective.
It has to be acknowledged that they were in the season and probably in October/November they would not beat us.
However, these qualifiers come at the same stage every season.
The difference in the last three years is that we were battle hardened by the third qualifying round and everybody was fit.
That was not the case this season.
And as has been said elsewhere, I think a number of players were not expecting to still be at the club.
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Yes going in to Europe later doesn’t really help with our current domestic fixture list schedule.

The league cup was revamped to help the clubs in Europe, it’s done the opposite.

We should all be playing the group stages allowing you to take it as serious as you want and getting competitive games. Or start the season earlier and not try and cram 7 games in during December when pitches can’t recover.

Even when we played Dundee Utd they had an advantage they had played more competitive games than us.

Sometimes it’s better to go in the first round qualifiers and get game time against the diddies, didn’t work against Progres though, although to be fair we played our last game of the season 21 May and were in Euro action June, with our first league game 6 August !
 
Gerz1872 said:
The Lyon team who aren't at Leverkusen's level got to the champions League semi final 2 seasons ago . Leverkusen haven't been at that level recently anyway, i'd say Lyon are the best we've played since Gerrard took over
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That champions league semi final team has long gone & i don't see them getting to the final never mind winning it.
 
How could we realistically improve on last season? It was a once in a lifetime league campaign if we are being honest.

Europe has been poor so far, granted. And i dont include last night in that as Lyon are just a good few levels above us. We have been unlucky with injuries and covid, which again the fact it never really affected us last season was a bit of a miracle.

Signings could have been better, but again we don't have money to splash. Qualifying for the CL would have seen us sign a quality player but the fact we have held onto all our top players was a bonus in itself.
 
kirkiebluenose said:
We haven’t signed players that improve our first team it’s as simple as that for me
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We’ve banked on the mentally challengeds rebuild not being able to happen within one season and by God do we need to have got it right not winning the league this year would be worse than them winning 10 in a row last season.

Financially we need that Champions League money never mind player trading that will happen as we need fresh faces and move players on before it gets stale.
 
I noticed Malmo pulled in an enormous crowd of 5,000 versus Juve the other night. Big team, eh? What the f#ck were we doing going out to that shower of shite? Pitiful.
 
I think we have peaked.
We are capable of winning all the domestic trophies and of reaching the last 16 of the Europa League.
This season, if we finish 2nd in the EL group and win the title then I would say we have had a successful season.
I think that the only way we can have higher aspirations is if we get into the CL next year and several years after that which is possible but not a guarantee.
This season if we win the title again I would be happy with that.
On Thursday's match, I think Lyon are a better team than us and if we were to beat them we had to bring our A game which we didn't, however we gave them a run for their money especially in the 1st half.
I would say that we shouldn't wish for too much in the current football environment.
 
Gaz030191 said:
We are looking a bit stale and need to find our energy again.

Despite that we're still top of the league, and I have full faith the management team will find a way to get things back to a higher standard again.

I believe Lyon will beat every team in the group.

Get a result (draw or win) away to Sparta, beat Brondby at Ibrox, and suddenly we'll be on at least 4 points, second in the group and in a fairly comfortable spot going in to the remaining games.
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I'm glad we've got them in the last game. They will rest players as I'm sure they will have already qualified.

They as a club will be keeping in touch with their league for a cl place.
 
Angrybluebear said:
Did you forget we got humiliated by Malmö twice who have spent less than us in the last twenty five years than we have in the last 3 ?

They have spent over £1million three times in their history, their record signing £1.35million ten seasons ago !

We were also made to look distinctly average against Alashkert. It’s not all about money, as our performances against the likes of Benfica and Porto showed.

Had we played against either of them last night we would have been on the wrong end of a 5-0 so for that reason yes we have gone backwards.

One solitary win, 1-0 to Alashkert, in our last 7 European matches, that is going backwards at great knots
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I completely agree the Malmo result was not great however we also have to remember they were a good number of games into their season. If we had played Malmo last night with that same performance also from last night I reckon we could have been in the CL groups. We weren't bad at all last night in my opinion but a moment of sheer class was what pretty much bested us. That 1st goal was a thing of sheer beauty (the angle I seen it from in GF2). It just shows the levels we are up against in this new format. There is hardly a bad side in Europa now with the shorter format. Our main goal this year is NOT Europa League. Anyone who thinks it is is on crack. I am (for once) enjoying being able to go to Ibrox and not be a stressed out mess and just enjoy a game as Europa is basically friendly games to me this season. Fair enough go far in the competition but if we don't win the league, well we are pretty much handing THEM 30 million. I'd happily lose every Europa game if we were guaranteed 56!
 
DavieM said:
I thought the warning signs were there in pre-season. We needed to get through that Malmo tie by hook or by crook and came up short against 10 men at home against a very average team.

That was surely a signal that this season was going to be a bit of a grind and thus far it's been that and more.

Why we never looked to sell one of our assets and refresh that squad in the summer is maybe looking like the wrong decision now as certain areas of our team are crying out for something different and indeed better quality. That midfield is clearly not working out.
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The Malmö tie still sickens me tbh.

Losing the tie is one thing, but the manner in which we lost it, plus against 10 men, really fucking pisses me off.
 
The_Hammer1990 said:
The Malmö tie still sickens me tbh.

Losing the tie is one thing, but the manner in which we lost it, plus against 10 men, really fucking pisses me off.
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It’s done. It’s been and gone, get over it! Truth be told, we could have taken a few morale sapping batterings had we qualified to play Europe’s best midweek. Things aren’t going our way right now but we’re top of our domestic league and can still make this a season to remember.
 
My own view would be that having competition fir places is great, but is it really competition if you always refer back to the established player?

This isn’t to say that the established players don’t deserve to play, but:

McCrorie comes in, hasn’t conceded a goal, and is automatically back to 3rd choice.

Patterson comes in, plays really well, and automatically loses his place to Tav,

Bassey starts the season fantastically, looks like he’s taken the shirt, and come the big games Barisic starts.

Kelly shows promise pre season and hasn’t featured since.

Wright IMO done enough to force his way in to the starting XI but loses out to established players.

I’d argue that Hagi is similar - he’s clearly not a favourite. You compare that to Aribo who has moments of genius, but for me doesn’t fit our style of play, yet keeps his shirt regardless.
 
Coisty09 said:
For me, so far this season it seems like we’ve gone backwards.
We seem to have lost the fight and urgency that was such a factor of our game last season.
I did expect Lyon to outclass us on the ball this evening but I really did not expect us to be so passive and be bullied across the park.
Right from the start of the season against Malmo and Dundee united we were bullied.
It happened again tonight and we were not up for the physical challenge.
The last three seasons we were very rarely bullied by any team but it’s happened an alarming number of times already this season.
In the first half against St Johnstone at the Weeknd we were not winning the physical battles at times.
It is worrying because we are lacking the warrior type performances that we have produced especially in Europe.
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I'd recommend that you sit down and watch the full game again mate.

We certainly weren't at our best, but at no point were we "outclassed, or bullied all over the park."

Overall, the better team won, but it was only decided by fine margins and there was very little between the teams.
 
I don’t think this is just about Lyon to be fair.

Malmö - miles off it in both games.
Alashkert - miles off it in both games,
Dundee Utd - off it
St Johnstone - off it until we go 1-0 down

I’d even say we were off it against Celtic

It’s only really Livingston, Ross County and Dunfermline that anything resembling last seasons team have turned up. And even then it’s only been in spurts.
 
Gerz1872 said:
The Lyon team who aren't at Leverkusen's level got to the champions League semi final 2 seasons ago . Leverkusen haven't been at that level recently anyway, i'd say Lyon are the best we've played since Gerrard took over
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Leverkusen must be rated more highly on here than they are by their own fans. You'd think they are one of the best teams we've ever played.
 
MearnsUnionist said:
I'd recommend that you sit down and watch the full game again mate.

We certainly weren't at our best, but at no point were we "outclassed, or bullied all over the park."

Overall, the better team won, but it was only decided by fine margins and there was very little between the teams.
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We were nowhere near as bad as people are making out. There were times yesterday reading through various threads that I had to ask myself if it was a different game I was watching.

There are people who are another draw/defeat away from calling for the managers head.
 
bigy said:
I don’t think this is just about Lyon to be fair.

Malmö - miles off it in both games.
Alashkert - miles off it in both games,
Dundee Utd - off it
St Johnstone - off it until we go 1-0 down

I’d even say we were off it against Celtic

It’s only really Livingston, Ross County and Dunfermline that anything resembling last seasons team have turned up. And even then it’s only been in spurts.
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Well summed up, the bottom line is if we had been on it in the last few games, then lyon have a far tougher night on thursday, it's as straightforward as that.
 
kirkiebluenose said:
We haven’t signed players that improve our first team it’s as simple as that for me
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Given two of them haven’t even played yet, one of them is getting to grips, at least two playing are carrying injuries, Lyons squad cost 4x ours, and we’re starting slower, I think that’s just a tad carte blanche.

Maybe some don’t recall some of our turgid games under Walter nor the time it took some of our new players to adapt in their first season.

Borna anyone?
 
We where never going to improve on last season IMO. Last season was arguably one of our best ever seasons. Broke how many records? I’d be suprised if any Rangers team, or any other Scottish team comes close to that in the near future.

An realistic improvement on last year would be cup silverware as well as the league. If the players deliver that, we have improved.

Obviously we want to and expect to win every game, but unbeaten seasons aren’t going to come round every season.
 
Treble Kings said:
I noticed Malmo pulled in an enormous crowd of 5,000 versus Juve the other night. Big team, eh? What the f#ck were we doing going out to that shower of shite? Pitiful.
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Attendance is limited still Sweden.
Malmö are a big team for Sweden just the same as we are a big team for Scotland. Shower of shite who have beaten us the twice we have played them.
As for this Rangers team , we have just came off an unbeaten season, won the league by miles yet some don’t want to cut them some slack.
We are skint, no money so how on Earth could we invest in the team for the quality some obviously think they deserve.
Until we can sell players on a regular basis for big money that’s the situation we are in.
 
Top of the league. Still every chance of Europe after Christmas. Yes things can be improved Stevie G knows that and will find a way. Last season was special remember that
 
Gerz1872 said:
Maybe it is but they are still the best team we've played in nder Gerrard . Folk on here need to chill tf out after a defeat against better opposition
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Their goals came directly from us easily losing possession & the comical defending for the second other than that i wasn't overly impressed.

Lyon were good but not europa league winning good imo.
 
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