The problem started at Full Time on Dec 29th

Using Walter as an example here, after the result on the 29th he would have gone over, shook Lennons hand and been straight up the tunnel. No grabbing cameras and yelling into them, then joining the players on the field, congratulating them all. He would have waited in the changing room, got the players in and said enjoy tonight, you deserve it, tomorrow its f..ckin over. History. We go away for 3 weeks and come back and go again from scratch. Absolutely nothing has been won today apart from 3 points, that's it. Put it out of your minds. The whole something happened in Dubai thing is a nonsense too, Celtic have been going over there the past few years and consistently come back stronger in the second half of the season. It was the players buying into the hype, wrong attitudes, 55 is wrapped up, they are shite, await the Timplosion. Gerrard should have never allowed any of that to get near the dressing room. Thats his job, control expectations. This board was overflowing with it also. At the end of the day, he has barely finished playing, was taking Under 18s and is a complete ROOKIE as a manager. Walter would have had a solid winter break, had them training and feeling like they had lost the game at Embaradise, and have us back after that grinding out 1-0 wins all the way to the title. The fact that the refs are utter gash, might have been touched on by Walter, but he is too long in the tooth to get sucked up in conspiracy theories, he would have understood dwelling on it helps nobody but your enemies. He would have taken control over the squad and used the money Stevie has been given 1000% times better. Straight after the game on the 29th is where it was lost in my humble opinion
 
Walter Smith had the good fortune to have vastly more money available. He was responsible for poor results too. Two seasons apart, many of them in Europe.

Gerrard should have criticised referees because even if we do get things together football-wise we‘re never winning this league.

In Smith’s time (well, his first stint at least) refs were much more even-handed. The current crop are both useless and corrupt and it is alarming that Gerrard can’t see that or say it if he can.

Laying into refs never did Alex Ferguson much harm.
 
What a lot of nonsense, people need to stop comparing what Gerrard does with Walter. Stevie G has been under nothing but pressure since he took the job, don’t get me wrong every rangers manager is under pressure.

However it’s a different pressure he’s had to deal with. Walter Smith never come in and inherited a team that hadn’t won in old firm in the league in so many attempts, he had a lot of money to spend in them days.

So Steven Gerrard coming in with raw passion and showing his emotions in a big pressured match isn’t a bad thing. It’s not the reason why we are now 12 points behind!


Alfredo isn’t out of form because of a managers celebrations, Katic didn’t have a couple howlers because of a managers celebrations, Glen Kamara didn’t have a howler at hearts because of a managers celebration. Clutching on to straws with that theory.
 
We were flying after trouncing them and had the comfort blanket of a game in hand.
8 f***in weeks ago
Collapse of epic proportions. Stunned TBH.
Iots went tits up right during/after the break though. Losing Tav, Alfie ban plus media circus ( which was relentless) throw in Defoe, Borno, Helander, Davis and Jack all missing games for various reasons it was just too much for us. As soon as we lost to Hearts the pressure was on and missing many of our important players didn't help with that. The players that have returned from injury are a shadow of the players they were before they break. Seems an eternity since I thought Borno was a superstar for example. We have had zero breaks since the 29th nothing's went for us either.
 
Having unfairly lost the cup final just a few weeks earlier, to go to their ground go one up, concede a goal that should never have stood yet go on and win the game despite the officials doing their best I've no problem with Gerrards post match celebrations.

Not sure what's happened since then, but it's %^*& all to do with the gaffers passion after the 29th
 
It’s got absolutely %^*& all to do with how we celebrated that win. It’s got everything do with how we reacted to it in the league games after. We should have been a lot more hungry for the 3 points in these games, knowing it’s one step closer to a title. The attitude has been stinking, you need every player fighting for each other and putting themselves on the line. Each sub and replacement player the same, that has been totally missing this year and last. It’s not beating them or the celebration, it’s not Dubai either. It’s a team/squad mentality that’s missing and what I mean by that is when every player steps on the field the mindset is this game is already won, we won’t be outfought and we’re one step closer to the title. Walter Smith knew how to instil that in his players.
 
I agree with those who say our collapse has nothing to do with how we celebrated on the 29th.

However Celtics form since might be due to being riled by it.

It’s difficult....we deserve to enjoy days like that. Christ alone knows the mentally challenged players have been able to lord it over us when they’ve beaten us. At the same time part of me thinks we need to save going mental celebrating until we actually win the league.

Im beggining to wonder just how grounded SG kept the players after that win
 
Using Walter as an example here, after the result on the 29th he would have gone over, shook Lennons hand and been straight up the tunnel. No grabbing cameras and yelling into them, then joining the players on the field, congratulating them all. He would have waited in the changing room, got the players in and said enjoy tonight, you deserve it, tomorrow its f..ckin over. History. We go away for 3 weeks and come back and go again from scratch. Absolutely nothing has been won today apart from 3 points, that's it. Put it out of your minds. The whole something happened in Dubai thing is a nonsense too, Celtic have been going over there the past few years and consistently come back stronger in the second half of the season. It was the players buying into the hype, wrong attitudes, 55 is wrapped up, they are shite, await the Timplosion. Gerrard should have never allowed any of that to get near the dressing room. Thats his job, control expectations. This board was overflowing with it also. At the end of the day, he has barely finished playing, was taking Under 18s and is a complete ROOKIE as a manager. Walter would have had a solid winter break, had them training and feeling like they had lost the game at Embaradise, and have us back after that grinding out 1-0 wins all the way to the title. The fact that the refs are utter gash, might have been touched on by Walter, but he is too long in the tooth to get sucked up in conspiracy theories, he would have understood dwelling on it helps nobody but your enemies. He would have taken control over the squad and used the money Stevie has been given 1000% times better. Straight after the game on the 29th is where it was lost in my humble opinion
It’s also the second New Year Old Firm game it’s happened.
 
Using Walter as an example here, after the result on the 29th he would have gone over, shook Lennons hand and been straight up the tunnel. No grabbing cameras and yelling into them, then joining the players on the field, congratulating them all. He would have waited in the changing room, got the players in and said enjoy tonight, you deserve it, tomorrow its f..ckin over. History. We go away for 3 weeks and come back and go again from scratch. Absolutely nothing has been won today apart from 3 points, that's it. Put it out of your minds. The whole something happened in Dubai thing is a nonsense too, Celtic have been going over there the past few years and consistently come back stronger in the second half of the season. It was the players buying into the hype, wrong attitudes, 55 is wrapped up, they are shite, await the Timplosion. Gerrard should have never allowed any of that to get near the dressing room. Thats his job, control expectations. This board was overflowing with it also. At the end of the day, he has barely finished playing, was taking Under 18s and is a complete ROOKIE as a manager. Walter would have had a solid winter break, had them training and feeling like they had lost the game at Embaradise, and have us back after that grinding out 1-0 wins all the way to the title. The fact that the refs are utter gash, might have been touched on by Walter, but he is too long in the tooth to get sucked up in conspiracy theories, he would have understood dwelling on it helps nobody but your enemies. He would have taken control over the squad and used the money Stevie has been given 1000% times better. Straight after the game on the 29th is where it was lost in my humble opinion
Walter Smith cost us a double treble and ten in a row.
The double treble in particular was a disgrace. Don't think we won any of our final five league games and showed up for the final with everyone just expecting we would come good on the day.

Walters seconds spell in charge was fantastic and proved he had matured as a manager but let's not go down the road of believing he was anything extra special in his first spell in charge.

With the resources he had at his disposal he should have blown the rest of the dross away. That never happened and we were often beaten in league and Cup ties unlike the scum of today that are relentless in their desire for success.
 
What a lot of nonsense, people need to stop comparing what Gerrard does with Walter. Stevie G has been under nothing but pressure since he took the job, don’t get me wrong every rangers manager is under pressure.

However it’s a different pressure he’s had to deal with. Walter Smith never come in and inherited a team that hadn’t won in old firm in the league in so many attempts, he had a lot of money to spend in them days.

So Steven Gerrard coming in with raw passion and showing his emotions in a big pressured match isn’t a bad thing. It’s not the reason why we are now 12 points behind!


Alfredo isn’t out of form because of a managers celebrations, Katic didn’t have a couple howlers because of a managers celebrations, Glen Kamara didn’t have a howler at hearts because of a managers celebration. Clutching on to straws with that theory.

I never said Gerrards celebration is why we are 12 points behind. I said it started there, because the players thought it was job done. The attitude was all wrong. As I pointed out, its just an opinion
 
I never said Gerrards celebration is why we are 12 points behind. I said it started there, because the players thought it was job done. The attitude was all wrong. As I pointed out, its just an opinion
I'm pretty sure Gerrard told them when they got back in the changing room that the hard work starts now.
There was an interview in one of the papers or RTV to that effect.
 
After the LCF when the dust settled although we lost Rangers took great heart from playing them off the park. At parkhead we backed this up by beating them in their own midden cementing the theory inside Ibrox we are better than them.
That day we thought we had won the league. I myself was guilty of this.
Our problem coming back in January was being unable to cope with the smaller teams when one by one they should have been swatted aside.
 
I never said Gerrards celebration is why we are 12 points behind. I said it started there, because the players thought it was job done. The attitude was all wrong. As I pointed out, its just an opinion

It's an opinion but an incorrect one. It was a huge win for Gerrard and he was entitled to celebrate it, as any manager in his position would.
 
It's an opinion but an incorrect one. It was a huge win for Gerrard and he was entitled to celebrate it, as any manager in his position would.
The difference pre and post 29 Dec is Alfie’s goals. Hero to zero. Hopefully gets back to his old ways very soon but how long do you give this before leaving him out the team.
 
The difference pre and post 29 Dec is Alfie’s goals. Hero to zero. Hopefully gets back to his old ways very soon but how long do you give this before leaving him out the team.

Alfie's lack of goals, Kent's loss of form, Davis' loss of form, Barisic injuries, Katic's brutal performance yesterday... I could go on.
 
Collapse of epic proportions. Stunned TBH.
Iots went tits up right during/after the break though. Losing Tav, Alfie ban plus media circus ( which was relentless) throw in Defoe, Borno, Helander, Davis and Jack all missing games for various reasons it was just too much for us. As soon as we lost to Hearts the pressure was on and missing many of our important players didn't help with that. The players that have returned from injury are a shadow of the players they were before they break. Seems an eternity since I thought Borno was a superstar for example. We have had zero breaks since the 29th nothing's went for us either.

The point about injuries and lack of form when returning from them is very valid. Before New Year, the team was more or less constant with all players knowing each other, and their own roles.
 
You could set your watch by Walter being used as an emotional crutch by those who want Gerrard out the door.

"Walter did this...Walter did that"

Walter's not coming back. And if we keep harking back to the past, we will never move forward.

Steady on mate - this guy seems to know exactly what Walter would have said and done though....
 
That was our first win at Parkhead in 9 years. We all went tonto and rightly so. I can’t criticise anyone at Rangers enjoying that win. As someone posted above Alfie has stopped scoring. We are reliant on him for goals. It’s been a weakness of this team. We don’t score enough from other areas. That’s the difference pre and post xmas
 
It's an opinion but an incorrect one. It was a huge win for Gerrard and he was entitled to celebrate it, as any manager in his position would.

Correct . It is idiotic and nonsensical to suggest celebrating that win has anything to do with our current form . Our first win at the piggery in a decade we celebrated the way anyone would , still nowhere near the way yahoo celebrate a win with Laps Of honour , dancing etc .

I wish people would stop trotting out this nonsense as a reason for our form - it’s extremely irritating .
 
Alfie's lack of goals, Kent's loss of form, Davis' loss of form, Barisic injuries, Katic's brutal performance yesterday... I could go on.
It's Gerrard fault.
it's Alfies fault.

The fact anyone can think it's either of those isolated things shows how far away we still are.

It's a team game involving 11 on the field and upwards of 25 total. So if 1 man can break that all down we are nukes away.
 
It’s got absolutely %^*& all to do with how we celebrated that win. It’s got everything do with how we reacted to it in the league games after. We should have been a lot more hungry for the 3 points in these games, knowing it’s one step closer to a title. The attitude has been stinking, you need every player fighting for each other and putting themselves on the line. Each sub and replacement player the same, that has been totally missing this year and last. It’s not beating them or the celebration, it’s not Dubai either. It’s a team/squad mentality that’s missing and what I mean by that is when every player steps on the field the mindset is this game is already won, we won’t be outfought and we’re one step closer to the title. Walter Smith knew how to instil that in his players.

Agree 100%. The attitude our players have displayed in almost each game since the break has been stinking, not for one second would you imagine they were in a title fight.

To have almost the whole team to a man off-form at the one time is just unheard of but that is actually how we look. We might get a way with 2, perhaps 3 players off-form but not 8 or 9, as has been the case to often recently.

As has been repeated by many on FF this is now our 2nd post break %^*& up. Some don't like the word but it is hard to think of anything other than our squad lack bottle. When pressure is applied our players find it difficult to perform, they crumble, the only conclussion is, compared to our arch-rivals, our players are weak mentally.

Celtic came back from the break with all guns blazing, knowing a title might be up for grabs if they stumbled. They have shown a winners attitude, no surprise there considering the abundance of trophies racked up recently. How we instill that quality within our own squad is the $64000 question, because until we do, collapses like those in past two seasons might just keep happening.
 
The hard fact is glaringly obvious, the injuries and suspensions from what is our strongest starting 11 have cost us big time.
The squad players have weakened us while filling in.
After all is said and done having Helander, Morelos, Jack,Tav, Barasic and Defoe out of your team through injuries and suspensions is a big miss over sucha short period of time, and this is the root cause of our collapse in form that is costing us big time too many key player out at the same time, aligning this with a drop in form from Davies, Kamara, Katic, Kent and Goldson due to constant reshuffling of the team to shore up for injuries and suspensions particularly when the replacements are limited in skill, just take a look at the regulars our bench barker, ojo, Flanagan, Halliday, polster, Stewart, Jones and Edmunson this says a lot about our in depth quality - we need at least another 4 good quality players to add to the squad just to cover for injuries and suspensions as we cannot cope at the moment with run of the mill squad players filling in for our first choice starting 11.
Ffs we have started playing Joe Aribo at left back in games !!!!!!
 
Using Walter as an example here, after the result on the 29th he would have gone over, shook Lennons hand and been straight up the tunnel. No grabbing cameras and yelling into them, then joining the players on the field, congratulating them all. He would have waited in the changing room, got the players in and said enjoy tonight, you deserve it, tomorrow its f..ckin over. History. We go away for 3 weeks and come back and go again from scratch. Absolutely nothing has been won today apart from 3 points, that's it. Put it out of your minds. The whole something happened in Dubai thing is a nonsense too, Celtic have been going over there the past few years and consistently come back stronger in the second half of the season. It was the players buying into the hype, wrong attitudes, 55 is wrapped up, they are shite, await the Timplosion. Gerrard should have never allowed any of that to get near the dressing room. Thats his job, control expectations. This board was overflowing with it also. At the end of the day, he has barely finished playing, was taking Under 18s and is a complete ROOKIE as a manager. Walter would have had a solid winter break, had them training and feeling like they had lost the game at Embaradise, and have us back after that grinding out 1-0 wins all the way to the title. The fact that the refs are utter gash, might have been touched on by Walter, but he is too long in the tooth to get sucked up in conspiracy theories, he would have understood dwelling on it helps nobody but your enemies. He would have taken control over the squad and used the money Stevie has been given 1000% times better. Straight after the game on the 29th is where it was lost in my humble opinion

We hadnt won there in 9 years.
Suffered an horrendous refereeing performance and still managed to win.
I can forgive the manager for enjoying it tbh.
 
Walter Smith had the good fortune to have vastly more money available. He was responsible for poor results too. Two seasons apart, many of them in Europe.

Gerrard should have criticised referees because even if we do get things together football-wise we‘re never winning this league.

In Smith’s time (well, his first stint at least) refs were much more even-handed. The current crop are both useless and corrupt and it is alarming that Gerrard can’t see that or say it if he can.

Laying into refs never did Alex Ferguson much harm.
Ah finally, there it is. Hadn’t seen a post this weekend proclaiming that regardless of what we do football wise, those pesky ref’s won’t let us win the league. Glad someone finally churned it out!
 
We have certainly paid for that win and the biggest casualty of the fallout has been Alfie,At times he looks like a broken man on the pitch,The full on campaign to destroy him by the poet Rangers hating media has worked,add to that the obvious double refereeing standards and we have a player who has been stripped of confidence .
 
Posters saying they thought the league was won after OF game... that’s utterly bonkers. I was delighted with the win because it looked like another step on the road to us proving ourselves as ‘the real deal’ but it was never won or ever close to being won.
 
Having unfairly lost the cup final just a few weeks earlier, to go to their ground go one up, concede a goal that should never have stood yet go on and win the game despite the officials doing their best I've no problem with Gerrards post match celebrations.

Not sure what's happened since then, but it's %^*& all to do with the gaffers passion after the 29th
Spot on. That wasn't a we'll win the league celebration,but removing a major barrier in terms of us going there and playing the way we haven't in 9 years and he was just echoing the feelings of the vast majority of us. The loss of form from that day to this is so night and day. But is it too long a break that we struggle to find the momentum we were in,it's so bewildering.
 
I don’t agree , I think we have lacked the strength in depth right from the start of the season to mount a serious and sustained challenge over the course of 38 games and still compete in Europe. We were never strong enough. Fully fit squad out Starting 11 can beat any other spl team on our day , but when we pick up injuries and suspensions we don’t have the qualify to come in and replace players and still get the same results and it’s cost us big time.
 
There’s no way in gods earth you can blame the demise on the celebrations. After what we’ve had to endure, particularly against them since the semi final win on penalties, justified every action that was taken on the pitch after the full time whistle that day. In fact, I’d say we let them off lightly even still!

Neither do I buy into our players thinking the league was done and dusted. If that was the case then we’d have came back after the winter breaking thinking we were Barcelona and trying overly hard to play nice silky football. Instead we’ve came back like Bonnyrigg juniors. Totally flat and bereft of ideas. That’s not the actions of a team who think they’re the best team by a mile and that the league is wrapped up.

The head scratcher though, is that I don’t believe one single word of this crap about bust ups and falling outs in Dubai. So what the hell has happened because we’re running out of possibilities of what it could be
 
There’s no way in gods earth you can blame the demise on the celebrations. After what we’ve had to endure, particularly against them since the semi final win on penalties, justified every action that was taken on the pitch after the full time whistle that day. In fact, I’d say we let them off lightly even still!

Neither do I buy into our players thinking the league was done and dusted. If that was the case then we’d have came back after the winter breaking thinking we were Barcelona and trying overly hard to play nice silky football. Instead we’ve came back like Bonnyrigg juniors. Totally flat and bereft of ideas. That’s not the actions of a team who think they’re the best team by a mile and that the league is wrapped up.

The head scratcher though, is that I don’t believe one single word of this crap about bust ups and falling outs in Dubai. So what the hell has happened because we’re running out of possibilities of what it could be

I think there is the possibility we went over to Dubai thinking we’d done the hard part inbeating Celtic and underestimated other teams.

We went to Tynecastle thinking we only needed to show up. They came out flying, it shocked us, we lost, threw away the advantage and it’s had a knock on effect.

Celebrating winning at Parkhead, we were celebrating a milestone in it being the first time we’d won there in years.

However OP has a point, did we go over there with a celebratory mentality? The tims on the other hand would have gone over embarrassed and determined to come back.

We like seeing a manager passionate about winning individual games but more importantly he must keep the players grounded.

Gerrard will learn from this though
 
I agree with those who say our collapse has nothing to do with how we celebrated on the 29th.

However Celtics form since might be due to being riled by it.

It’s difficult....we deserve to enjoy days like that. Christ alone knows the mentally challenged players have been able to lord it over us when they’ve beaten us. At the same time part of me thinks we need to save going mental celebrating until we actually win the league.

Im beggining to wonder just how grounded SG kept the players after that win
Celtic had won eleven domestic games in a row prior to the 29th. They simply took up where they left off after the blimp and got back to what they were already doing and have won ten in a row domestic games since then too. I think we would have to go back to the lower league seasons to see numbers like that from us.
 
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The way people talk you’d think Gerrard’s entire team was made up of bosmans and he hadn’t just signed a player for £7m. He’s been well backed, yeah he can’t spend as much as them but neither could Walter in his second stint.

And I don’t agree with the OP anyway, I don’t think it’s got anything to do with those celebrations. I’m still not sure exactly what has gone wrong, but I know picking the same out form players and sticking by the same faltering system has contributed significantly.
 
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Nothing to do with celebrations but something tripped on SG and some players.
He shouldnt be embarassing players (they do that themselves) and shouldnt be telling the public he was 'bored' with play.
He should certainly have at least made reference to shocking refereeing performances before he finally did.
We've yet to find out what this collapse is all about but I've never seen anything like it.
 
It’s got absolutely %^*& all to do with how we celebrated that win. It’s got everything do with how we reacted to it in the league games after. We should have been a lot more hungry for the 3 points in these games, knowing it’s one step closer to a title. The attitude has been stinking, you need every player fighting for each other and putting themselves on the line. Each sub and replacement player the same, that has been totally missing this year and last. It’s not beating them or the celebration, it’s not Dubai either. It’s a team/squad mentality that’s missing and what I mean by that is when every player steps on the field the mindset is this game is already won, we won’t be outfought and we’re one step closer to the title. Walter Smith knew how to instil that in his players.


I agree
 
H
Harsh. He’s got a point.
and that is the problem on here. The OP highlights a problem, one we all wonder about, and offers his analysis and an explanation. Immediately someone comes on and plays the man and not the ball. In my mind I know who I suspect of being the poet.

also I wish that people would read the full post and not jump to conclusions after the first sentence
 
I agree with those who say our collapse has nothing to do with how we celebrated on the 29th.

However Celtics form since might be due to being riled by it.

It’s difficult....we deserve to enjoy days like that. Christ alone knows the mentally challenged players have been able to lord it over us when they’ve beaten us. At the same time part of me thinks we need to save going mental celebrating until we actually win the league.

Im beggining to wonder just how grounded SG kept the players after that win

As usual they have all the luck in the world
 
Nah, first time we had won at the Piggery in years. We had every right to celebrate like that. And i hope we do it again in the split if we go or are top.
 
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