Probably the toughest group we've ever had in the CL.?

tazzabear said:
Yes to the first and no to the second.
Either way, it’s a different world from back then.
Back then we were spending as much as most of our opponents were.
I posted last night that our team cost £20m and theirs cost £200m knowing I’d understated it.
VvD cost them £50m?
Anyway, another poster corrected me with the correct figures.
Liverpool £350+m against our £18m.
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He cost them a reported £75m ….
 
Johnny Yen said:
My point stands, the teams I mentioned are competing and picking up points.
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My point about their groups being easier stands as well, drop us in their groups and I would expect us to pick up points.

What we do lack is experience at this level plus a few years of building up a squad capable of competing.
 
It's a tough group,we have had tougher though,I think it's just a step too far for us this season,win the league and kick on for next year's competition.
 
CNICHOLL2910 said:
Absolutely spot on. A sense of realism is needed by some of our fans
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I keep seeing this talk of 'realism' on here. What exactly are folk meaning with this? We can all accept being beaten by better teams, thats not the issue.

The issue is that barring about half an hour against Napoli we have been utterly abject so far. The very least we should expect is a team thats motivated and organised enough so that these 'better' teams have to at least work hard to beat us.

We've had thee scuddings so far and the opponents have barely had to put much effort in to win. Any Rangers fan that thinks thats excusable simply because of the calibre of our opponents is just burying their head in the sand.

The team looked beaten before they stepped out the tunnel last night and thats on the manager as well as the players.
 
the values of the teams alone tells you all you need to know. Kent is our most expensive player who got newhere near the Liverpool team, says it all.
we looked tiny and weak against these teams.
would a new manager make a massive difference for us in the CL in the long term, if we still have so little money to spend? that's anybody's guess
 
RobboTheBear said:
so what was mental about the take?
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Implying that any blame needs laid at Gio’s door as though last night was an absolute travesty (I refer to the general tone of many in this thread)

We’ve had a shit champions league campaign so far, no denying that. But it’s not a stage on which Gio should be judged. The opposition we are up against is at the very, very top of European football. Liverpool top 3 or 4 teams in the world for the last 5 years. Napoli top of Serie A and smashed Ajax 6-1. Ajax I feel we can take something off at Ibrox personally, the away leg of that tie was poor but I feel the blame lay at the players for that one.

Domestically, Easter Road was a write off, we got shafted. Old Firm was poor, must see improvement in the Ne’erday game. Otherwise it’s been a clean sweep domestically. We’ve had to win ugly at times, but our first run of games we had some of our traditionally tougher ties to overcome. Tynecastle was a vast improvement on our recent form and we have what should be a much easier run of games coming up, so hopefully we can kick on and try to go into the World Cup break at the top of the league.
 
Intrepid said:
It's the Champions League. But our approach to our 3 games has reflected Gio's "We can't compete" mentality.
Greegs saved us from a real tanking.
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That mentality has to be ditched fast. The amount of space we conceded and failing to string two passes together and it kept coming back at us and credit to the guys at the back
 
IbroxForever said:
Its been over looked just how tough this group is.
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Liverpool , Beaten finalists , one of the most consistant teams in the comp
Napoli , best team in Italy atm top of the league . Some cracking young talent .
Ajax , best team in Holland Pot 1 team but that’s who we would be trying to compete with for Europa place .

It’s the worst in the competition for me .
 
mountloyal said:
Could have been in a group of actual champions. Because we are shit does not mean the group is great.
Put it this way. No one from our group will.make the last 4.
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AC Milan are actual champions as you say , a much poorer team than Napoli and pummelled by Chelsea last night , it’s how good team is atm in time .
 
DutchVanDerLinde said:
No. It is an extremely hard group, but I'd say Bayern/Valencia/PSV and Lyon/Stuttgart/Barcelona (all champions) were harder.
Where this is harder, is that we aren't as good as those previous teams of ours .
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Is that not the point?
One of the reasons being that, back then, we could compete, financially, with them and anybody else.
Not much chance of that this season!
There is no way any of those sides had a value twenty times that of ours.
 
RH_2020 said:
I genuinely don't think the support realise what we're up against in this group section.?

Not having that, Napoli showed you what you can do if you work and believe. I’d like to see the running stats for that game like Ajax. Dortmund, PSV & RB Leipzig are CL standard teams and we didn’t throw in the towel as soon as we drew them. Pish.
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If you set up defensive and compact, playing only in half the pitch, would it not be likely that you’ll be running less?
 
It’s mad to think Ajax are the only team in the group who won the league last year but to spot on it’s our hardest group.
 
mountloyal said:
Could have been in a group of actual champions. Because we are shit does not mean the group is great.
Put it this way. No one from our group will.make the last 4.
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“Put it this way. No one will make the last 4.”

What a ridiculous claim to make so confidently. Liverpool have made 3 of the last 5 finals and won one. They very well might not make the last 4, but that is the quality they have.
 
Without doubt - only 95/96 comes close for me.

This group was greeted with enthusiasm for the absolute novelty of actually being in the CL groups again, and what looked like a couple of good away trips to Amsterdam and Naples.
I don’t think anyone should have expected much more than we are getting in terms of result, although we are entitled to expect far better performances given our European record in recent years.
 
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After the draw was made we looked at Napoli as the team we'd battle it out with for 3rd place.
Napoli are wiping the floor with everyone, hope they've sealed the group before we travel over to Italy to be hosted by their B team.
 
RabSpackman said:
Without doubt - only 95/96 comes close for me.

This group was greeted with enthusiasm for the absolute novelty of actually being in the CL groups again, and what looked like a couple of good away trips to Amsterdam and Naples.
I don’t think anyone should have expected much more than we are getting in terms of result, although we are entitled to expect far better performances given our European record in recent years.
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I think you have to take into consideration the huge jump from EL to CL.
The 8 bottom seeds have 8 points between them in 24 games with a combined goal difference of -44 :eek:.
It’s a tough competition even tougher as bottom seeds.
We would all like better performances but to be honest our home performance against Napoli was very good until the sending off.
 
Sandbear said:
I think you have to take into consideration the huge jump from EL to CL.
The 8 bottom seeds have 8 points between them in 24 games with a combined goal difference of -44 :eek:.
It’s a tough competition even tougher as bottom seeds.
We would all like better performances but to be honest our home performance against Napoli was very good until the sending off.
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The jump is incredible. I was watching the game the other night with my 2 kids who play football and was pointing out that Liverpool were well on top but still every time a Rangers player had the ball at their feet there was a red shirt closing them down.
The work ethic that Liverpool and the likes of Man City have is off the scale.
 
cloodie said:
It's by far the toughest group we've had imo. You like to think you've got a chance against the Pot 3 team but we've got Napoli, who have completely rag dolled Liverpool and Ajax. The financial gulf between us and the top teams now is massive compared to what it was. If you go back to the 90's Real Madrid were the richest team in the world and they only had around 2x our income. Now the top teams have around 10x our income. Our first team last night cost about 1/4 of the what Nunez cost Liverpool. It's depressing really.

The fact is that the Europa is our level and is much more enjoyable than the CL, in footballing terms.
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We signed Amoruso, Gio and Numan for around 5m each and they turned down tip clubs for us

Players of that profile now would never even consider us. They would be moving for 10s of millions and 100k a week deals.

We are so far away from that nowadays it's unreal
 
Bigbluebear said:
We signed Amoruso, Gio and Numan for around 5m each and they turned down tip clubs for us

Players of that profile now would never even consider us. They would be moving for 10s of millions and 100k a week deals.

We are so far away from that nowadays it's unreal
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Aye, I don't think folk realise just how much further behind we're falling in financial terms and the ability to attract quality players. Back then we were signing dutch internationals etc, and now we're signing players from the English Championship.
 
der_hammer10 said:
This extends beyond just the results. Look at how the team is set up and is playing. There is no confidence and very little game plan. Gio is fair game on that front.
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Ajax looked dead confident before and during taking a 6-1 shoe-ing at home to a team we "only" lost 3-0 to.

Honestly, there's just a growing sense of having to find something wrong with literally every single thing that occurs just now.

It's like the nonsense body language experts again. The "players don't look confident" is an absolute crock of shit.

They're facing, for the first time, an elite top five World team. If only they all smiled like Sakala consistently we might have got a point, eh?
 
rock lobster said:
I genuinely don't think the support realise what we're up against in this group section.?

Just going after the Manager and the team is daft.
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In recent times yes but we are being organised like a rabbit in the headlines by Gio when we should embrace the challenge and have a go with expressing ourselves albeit we still sadly self inflict!

Way Gio sets up and talks sometimes he has to trust the players instead of publicly sucking the belief and confidence out of them, needs a bit of Jock Wallace in him and get the battle fever on!
 
Laudrup1 said:
Ajax looked dead confident before and during taking a 6-1 shoe-ing at home to a team we "only" lost 3-0 to.

Honestly, there's just a growing sense of having to find something wrong with literally every single thing that occurs just now.

It's like the nonsense body language experts again. The "players don't look confident" is an absolute crock of shit.

They're facing, for the first time, an elite top five World team. If only they all smiled like Sakala consistently we might have got a point, eh?
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That’s a load of nonsense.

Performances in Europe and domestically to date are intrinsically linked because

1) Gio is playing players out of position

2) inexplicably players like Wright are in for several games and then they are bombed out (same goes for Sakala, Tillman, Arfield, Davis), there’s no consistency

3) player confidence is very easy to see as being low due to the way we play. Backwards and sideways passing continually. Tav for example not getting forward as much. Lundstram’s form has nose dived. The bravery we showed on the ball in the Europa League isn’t there now. And I include domestic games in that.

There is a malaise that surrounds the first team, and that stems from the management not showing a clear plan as to what they want this Rangers team to do or achieve.
 
It is without a doubt an extremely difficult group however we have failed to give, even, a decent account of ourselves and that is hugely disappointing. The Ajax game was an embarrassment, Napoli at Ibrox we did ok (no better than that!) then luck deserted us, and Liverpool key players let us down.

Amongst them Tav, who remains the great enigma. For every big game or huge moment that he pulls us through, there is another (maybe even two) where he is posted missing.

The whole Gio situation has a feeling of inevitability about it. Was Tuesday night the same team who saw off Dortmund, Braga, Red Star & Leipzig to reach the Europa League Final…….a pale imitation.

And that has been the case domestically too, even with three 4-0 wins in the league we haven’t managed a single complete performance.

We haven’t replaced the quality we sold, money spent on Davies might prove to be good value but it was only spent because of injuries to Helander and Souttar and should have been used elsewhere. Goalkeeping situation should have been dealt with (although I admit I was happy for McLaughlin to get his chance), we won’t see many more McGregor performances like Tuesday. Yilmaz may well prove to be a player but we were never in a position to spunk a high percentage of our budget on a “project“ signing.

I would love Gio to get it right, win the league, maybe even the treble and have a more mature attempt at the Champions League next season but it ain’t going to happen and the longer the inevitable takes to unfold the longer it will take to repair the damage.
 
Laudrup1 said:
Ajax looked dead confident before and during taking a 6-1 shoe-ing at home to a team we "only" lost 3-0 to.

Honestly, there's just a growing sense of having to find something wrong with literally every single thing that occurs just now.

It's like the nonsense body language experts again. The "players don't look confident" is an absolute crock of shit.

They're facing, for the first time, an elite top five World team. If only they all smiled like Sakala consistently we might have got a point, eh?
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I think folk also forget about our Napoli result that we were only 1 nil down with ten minutes to when Gio decided to take off a defender and go for an equaliser, despite being down to 10 men. It was worth the gamble despite being down to 10 men but if it wasn't for that it would probably have ended up 1 nil.
 
Ferrybear73 said:
No m8, that was 07/08 in the Lyon and Barcelona group.

In the 99/00 Bayern group we lost v Valencia away 0-2, drew with Bayern 1-1 and beat PSV 4-1 in our first 3 matches.
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We beat PSV 1-0 away in third game, then 4-1 at home a week later.
 
We need Ajax to get beat every game incl us and we sneak a point if we manage that set us for after winter break with loads to look forward to and surely we would splash some cash
 
Gramps1 said:
Still say it’s coming down to the last game against Ajax to get in the Europa .
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We’d need to somehow pick up another point somewhere, winning seems a big ask in its own right. Outside Brugge all the other 4th seeded sides are bottom of their group with only 2 wins from 21 games.
Outside Marseille I can’t see there being many if any other 4th seed wins in the next 21 games.
That needs to be the realisation, I’ll accept debate on the manner of defeats (Ajax) it’s hard to enter a OTT debate when let’s be fair we are in good company with being out of our depth quality wise and financially
 
der_hammer10 said:
That’s a load of nonsense.

Performances in Europe and domestically to date are intrinsically linked because

1) Gio is playing players out of position

2) inexplicably players like Wright are in for several games and then they are bombed out (same goes for Sakala, Tillman, Arfield, Davis), there’s no consistency

3) player confidence is very easy to see as being low due to the way we play. Backwards and sideways passing continually. Tav for example not getting forward as much. Lundstram’s form has nose dived. The bravery we showed on the ball in the Europa League isn’t there now. And I include domestic games in that.

There is a malaise that surrounds the first team, and that stems from the management not showing a clear plan as to what they want this Rangers team to do or achieve.
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I couldn't disagree with you more.

"Player confidence" was never mentioned when Gerrard's teams were doing the back and sideways stuff and failing to break teams down before they had the difference makers in Hagi and Roofe.

Lundstrum's form was rotten under Gerrard and he only became a player of any note in the Rangers fans eyes under Gio's guidance. Yet we're somehow to believe he's entirely responsible for it all going wrong?

Part of any malaise in the first team comes from failure to recruit properly over the last 4 or 5 windows and move the squad on to the next level.

Gio's European performances last year go against everything you're saying about the management and the relationship with these players.

We're now being asked to repeat that without two of the best three (Bassey and Aribo) from that squad and a continued lack of fitness on Morelos's part.

He won us the Scottish Cup having finally seen us beat Celtic at Hampden (am I right in saying for the first time since Warburton?) and also negotiated a really difficult CL qualfying tie to even get us here in the first place for the moans to commence.

I'd honestly be careful for what you wish for.
 
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tazzabear said:
Yes to the first and no to the second.
Either way, it’s a different world from back then.
Back then we were spending as much as most of our opponents were.
I posted last night that our team cost £20m and theirs cost £200m knowing I’d understated it.
VvD cost them £50m?
Anyway, another poster corrected me with the correct figures.
Liverpool £350+m against our £18m.
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Nunez and VvD would be our transfer spend for the next 20 year!!
We have 2 home games left and we need that same application and determination we undoubtedly showed vs Napoli
 
Biggest issue for me is the gulf between scottish football and the rest of Europe. I didnt think it was as big as it is.
 
cooperman said:
the values of the teams alone tells you all you need to know. Kent is our most expensive player who got newhere near the Liverpool team, says it all.
we looked tiny and weak against these teams.
would a new manager make a massive difference for us in the CL in the long term, if we still have so little money to spend? that's anybody's guess
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Davies our second most expensive (on the pitch) and he never got a sniff either.
Ajax had our most lucrative transfer out playing for them.
 
Laudrup1 said:
I couldn't disagree with you more.

"Player confidence" was never mentioned when Gerrard's teams were doing the back and sideways stuff and failing to break teams down before they had the difference makers in Hagi and Roofe.

Lundstrum's form was rotten under Gerrard and he only became a player of any note in the Rangers fans eyes under Gio's guidance. Yet we're somehow to believe he's entirely responsible for it all going wrong?

Part of any malaise in the first team comes from failure to recruit properly over the last 4 or 5 windows and move the squad on to the next level.

Gio's European performances last year go against everything you're saying about the management and the relationship with these players.

He won us the Scottish Cup having finally seen us beat Celtic at Hampden (am I right in saying for the first time since Warburton?) and also negotiated a really difficult CL qualfying tie to even get us here in the first place for the moans to commence.

I'd honestly be careful for what you wish for.
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Player confidence absolutely was a question of Gerrard’s teams prior to #55. The collapses after New Year in successive seasons saw to that.

I would also query your suggestion that Hagi and Roofe were the reason for getting Rangers going.

Lundstram’s form has disappeared along with the rest of the squad. That isn’t just an individual problem that’s a collective problem that certainly sits with the manager and coaching staff.

Recruitment is an issue, of course it is, as is player injury and Gio can’t be held accountable for that.

And whilst there is a huge step up from Europa league level to CL level, nobody can convince me that Ajax are far superior to Dortmund and Leipzig which is why they thrashed us 4-0. But we are now playing within ourselves compared to those performance seen in the knockouts of the Europa last year. Again that’s down to tactics, player selection, and the atmosphere around the squad.

I appreciate what Gio has achieved in 12 months, but it would be incredibly remiss to not try and understand the failings around the squad at both European and Domestic level, and that sits with the Manager.
 
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