MOTM Poll Rangers v Benfica - 20:00 Thursday - BT Sport

Your Man of the Match

  • Total voters
    231
I think both poznan and liege will be beaten by benfica, which would put us through even if we somehow fail to take anything from last two games
 
Arkansasgerstill said:
Sorry Mr Gerrard nowhere near good enough. That was on you and no one else tonight. A brainless, self destructive lesson in how to turn a victory into a draw in the last 30 minutes. Once fooled, twice shy, obviously not for you. You personally should be ashamed of your own performance tonight. IMO, you let your players down!
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Gtf! What difference does it make when you score or concede. We scored as many as them in both games.
 
hms said:
What game did you watch ? We’re pushing, chasing and going back to front and back again. for 90 mins, the players are giving everything. It’s no coincidence the game changed after their subs.
We needed fresh legs and the game broken up, exactly like the game in Lisbon.
make the subs after the 1st tonight and 2nd in Lisbon and we win both games
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playing on the front foot means with the ball, we didn't do it for 90mins.

have a nap for christ sake.
 
Disappointed but proud of those players again. We went 2-0 up against the run of play and they were a superb side - easily the best we have played this season by a mile.

Still very much in our control tp qualify.
 
Some embarrassing comments on this thread. To call this garbage is ridiculous. It's disappointing to draw both games after being ahead by 2 goals yes. But if we both finish level at the end of the group we will go through as group winners. Let that sink in guys before making a fool of yourselves.
 
BoyciesDa said:
12 subs and we don’t use any to freshen up the side after they’ve ran solid for 80 minutes
Soon as it went 2-1 subs should have been on pitch
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Easy when chasing goals, far better and far more experienced managers than Gerrard will be loathe to making changes when leading and defending a lead. We missed Jack that's for sure. Itten, Hagi, Barker don't appear to have the trust of the gaffer just yet for these massive games
 
Disappointing to end up with a draw against....Benfica ! We are coming on in leaps and bounds but know we still have a wee bit yet to go. As the game went on even though we were ahead I still felt we were playing within ourselves and played a very cautious game and let Benfica have too much of the ball. Don't kid yourselves Benfica are a very decent team and we should have beaten them twice but perhaps inexperience let us down.
 
Arkansasgerstill said:
Sorry Mr Gerrard nowhere near good enough. That was on you and no one else tonight. A brainless, self destructive lesson in how to turn a victory into a draw in the last 30 minutes. Once fooled, twice shy, obviously not for you. You personally should be ashamed of your own performance tonight. IMO, you let your players down!
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Get yerself back to the huddle board. Honking
 
People will make the point that we'd have taken two draws against benfica so chin up, but it's the mentality that worries me.

Keep saying we've made progress but that's two games now that we've taken one step forward and two steps back. And its the same culprits tav and to an extent goldson who are making mental errors.

Benfica a very very good side imo, so positives to take - but still feels like a gut punch to not have closed out at least one of those games.
 
dougieb said:
Why don’t you just do one, you obviously don’t understand what a decent team looks like
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Once again another example of being unable to close a match out we were told three weeks ago we learned lessons from it obviously not
 
Hahaha gutted purely because I took a night off work but in the grand scheme of things not too bad, at least Celtic got pumped again lol
 
I would have settled for a share of the points at the start but it is gutting to have been pulled back from a two goal lead yet again so late on in the game.
 
Looking for the positives, the manner of this result will test our mentality. Let’s see how we bounce back. Tav and Goodson had a few shaky moments. Let’s see how they recover. This could be the making of this team.

We’re still undefeated and need a maximum of one point to qualify.
 
JD1872 said:
Don’t think we did a huge amount wrong there, bit slack at the
first goal but the second was fantastic football.

Late goal for standard is a bonus
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That's the thing. Benfica are the better side, luckily we played against 10 men the majority of the first match.
Frustrating not to hold out but they played some lovely stuff in the final third.
 
Dissapointing in the end. They are a good side but we kept them at bay for the majority of the game. We ran out of legs in the end and with that comes mistakes. Really should have used the bench better imo.
 
Arkansasgerstill said:
Sorry Mr Gerrard nowhere near good enough. That was on you and no one else tonight. A brainless, self destructive lesson in how to turn a victory into a draw in the last 30 minutes. Once fooled, twice shy, obviously not for you. You personally should be ashamed of your own performance tonight. IMO, you let your players down!
Click to expand...
Have a word with yourself mate. We had three midfielders out abs playing a team that sell players for 50 million plus.
 
I’m not too down, would have taken they before kick off. They are a quality side, make no mistake.
We should qualify with a game to spare
 
Tav had a stinker, no getting away from it. MotM for at least 5 out of the last 7 games and he picks tonight to be murder >.< The first goal it's Tav that heads it back across our goal rather than glancing it out for a corner. horrid.

Another draw that feels like a defeat against a top top quality team.

Not the worst place we've been.

Just win one of the other two games and it's home and dry.
 
Don't get me wrong, if you had given me the draw at the start I would have taken it; but by christ when you are 2 up with 15 minutes to go you start to use the subs to start closing out the game. This is SG achilles heel, he seems to just not see it and in the big games it is costing us.
 
Before a ball was kicked in this group you'd have bitten the proverbial hand off for 2 points from the Benfica games. Most would have seen those bonus points as being potentially enough to help us claim 2nd in the group so long as we were good enough against the other 2 sides.

To be 2 goals up well into the 2nd half in both games and end up drawing? It's painful.

Tav and Goldson are prone to making a couple of mistakes per game. It's why both are at Ibrox rather than an EPL ground playing for an EPL team. You hope that they don't cost you. Benfica's first goal was certainly poor defending. The 2nd? Pizzi found acres of space and as much time as he wanted. If a centre half isnt going to step up and charge that shot down then a midfielder needs to be tracking back to help out. You can actually see Roofe in shot when Pizzi gets his shot away - thats how deep Roofe had dropped to try and help the team. That should have been a central midfielder there.

Gerrard has done very well so far this season but thats the 2nd game v Benfica where a failure to make substitutions in the 2nd half of a game where we're looking tired has let the opponent back into things. You just can't do that at this level because teams like Benfica will exploit any tiredness. Has to be a lesson for Gerrard to learn now. Happening once against Benfica could be really bad luck. Happening the 2nd time? Sorry gaffer - you need to learn to make substitutions.
 
Disappointing to only come away with a draw again, but we will struggle to play a better side all season, some of their one touch interplay was excellent.

Different circumstances but felt we played miles better over there, draw probably the fair result on the balance of play tonight for me.

If you had told me a couple of years ago I would be disappointed at not qualifying from the Group with 2 games to spare I’d have laughed at you, so bring on next Thursday.
 
The first goal was poor, I don’t think Tav done great with the header but it wasn’t easy. Goldson and Balogun could’ve been better. Borna was actually at the edge(even possibly outside) of the box and the goal came from his side. All 4 should do better.

The equaliser I think hold our hands up and say a nice piece of play and some finish.

Should have had a pen and almost scored before them as well.

2 draws with Benfica, shows how far we’ve come that it feels like 4 points dropped
 
Can’t hide that I’m disappointed to have made the exact same mistake yet again, and we’ve managed to turn 6 points into 2 over those last 2 games.

In the morning though I’ll think we only need a point probably to qualify with a game to spare.

Would have just been nice to have had another game to spare with the Liege result going our way.
 
We just need 1 point from the last 2 games to go through, whereas either Lech or Standard would have to win both their remaining games.

Bottom line is that we can certainly compete at this level now, we've come such a long way from Pedro arguing with fans in a Luxembourg hotel garden.
 
For some reason I don't feel quite as gutted as 3 weeks ago, we were 2 goals up again, but they were always a threat. It was a good game and a draw was not unfair.. should have had a pen tho.
Bottom line - still top of 2 leagues, undefeated.
 
Disappointing to end the night with a sense of Deja Vu but they are no mugs so I guess we can be happy to be unbeaten.

Our bench wasn't the strongest tonight but you have to think we should have brought on some fresh legs.
 
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