thepundit

Fair do’s to Thistle. I thought they would park the bus and try to get a goal on the counter but they tried to play Rangers at their own game which can go horribly wrong for teams at Ibrox. Rangers didn’t play at their best either but I wouldn’t say we were woeful. Regarding our second goal, I think Tillman was rolling around on the floor and didn’t see that a Rangers player had put the ball out so he could get treatment. That misunderstanding then led to the goal. Absolutely the correct decision to allow them to score an equaliser and Greegsy obviously isn’t trying to stop the lad from scoring. Great sportsmanship which made it an honourable win in the end. That said, it’s easy to allow a team an equaliser to make it 2-2. To play devils advocate, had Tillmans goal been in the last minute of the game and it was to level the score at 1-1 rather than 2-1 to Rangers, would any club let the opposition score again to dump you out of a tournament?…… I have my doubts, lol. Still, well played Partick and their fans were excellent also.

Thought Pimblett lost the 1st & 3rd round.

Oaft! Difficult games in there. Liverpool are having a bit of a wobble though?…. Napoli and Ajax we could maybe win against at Ibrox?… If we can avoid embarrassment and sneak into the Europa League that’ll do. Got to be realistic.

I actually gave them some credit for at least winning the first game and getting and getting some coefficient points. I think their fans would appreciate that more than fans of teams who could have only dreamt of finishing in the Euro places last season lining up to stick the boot in. Your team Hibs would have had 2 losses and out against a team outside the top 20 leagues in Europe..

Fair play for at least getting some coefficient points in the first game I suppose. Was gonna say a heavy defeat is understandable with the salaries AZ can pay compared to Dundee Utd but AZ pay £4.6m per yr and Utd pay £4.1m so not really much of a difference.

After their over the top celebrations in the first leg that was particularly pleasing. You could tell that annoyed the Rangers players and had it not been for that we might not have went through. The perfect inspiration.

I’ve watched the fight again a few times since I made that post. (and sobered up!) I can see why Taylor won. Serrano is swinging wildly but rarely connecting whereas Taylor was calculated and accurate despite being the less active. Correct decision but there will absolutely be a rematch. Taylor isn’t going to finally start making 7 figures only to retire, especially as she has never had a big home event.

Well that was worth staying up for! I was hoping Taylor would win but to be honest I thought Serrano won. It was very close though.

Happy that VAR will now be used in the Premiership. Seems a bit unfair/tinpot to implement it halfway through a season though?…

Looks like the Souttar deal won’t be completed today as Rangers are apparently refusing to increase the original £300k offer.. With the Champs League pot of gold awaiting the league winners I think it would have been worth paying Hearts’ asking fee which was reported to be £500k. We are very light at centre back.

Loan with an option to buy Ramsey apparently. He must be willing to accept a hefty reduction in salary to be considering Rangers?…. Doubt Ramsey will join but looks like the Souttar transfer could be completed today and also the transfer of Zukowski.

Heart & Hand reporting on Twitter there is a sell on %. Haven’t seen it reported elsewhere so will take it with pinch of salt for now.

A deal rising to £16m for Patterson is great business from Rangers. Can’t argue with a club record fee for fringe player and will wish him all the best. His Rangers career looked to be finished before it had even began at one point so it’s quite the turnaround. Hopefully Gio will get a few mill of that fee to spend in January. At least one centre back is an absolute must.

Just saw the highlights of the game. Two great goals to be fair. In regards to the penalty shout. Absolute stonewaller IMO. The Livi player heads the ball off his outstretched arm and directs the ball away from a St Mirren player (number 4) just about to follow up on it at the back post. If we had VAR it would have been given I reckon. (Not that I’m in favour of it)

It was going to take an exciting appointment to get over the shock of Gerrard leaving and I think the hiring of GVB (and Roy Makaay) will certainly capture the imagination of the fans. I think they’ll do well and it’s arguably an upgrade on Gerrard, especially a Gerrard who was lacking the same desire as previous seasons which may have affected the players as they’ve been miles off it but time will tell.

Our defending has been absolutely shocking as of late. Probs should have been 2 or 3 down before Tavs equaliser. Giving teams a 1 goal head start and leaving a mountain to climb every game is so frustrating, albeit we’ve managed to turn it around for the most part but it won’t always be the case. Some goal front Tav tbf. Not sure why we are constantly going down the left hand side when Aribo and Tav on the right would be more effective though.

Glad I stayed up to watch Fury vs Wilder Edge of the seat stuff. A genuine modern day classic.

When it transpired that the lad Oforborh unfortunately has a heart issue I was very surprised we didn’t bring in a replacement and then lost a further CB by letting Katic go out on loan. With an overabundance of midfielders the obvious option is to go 3-5-2 or 3-4-3. Doubt it will happen though.

My guess is Gordon Strachan was lined up at the end of last season to take the Director of Football role but McKay was against it. Strachan brought in anyway as an ‘advisor’ which may be set to become full time Director of Football. Add to that the fact that Ange was supposedly chosen by McKay with the 2 being close allies yet Ange wasn’t able to choose his own back room staff and got teamed up with John Kennedy and Gavin Strachan then it could possibly be why McKay left?…

I don’t listen to the Heart in Hand podcast and if Rangers decided not to allow them access to interviews and feed them exclusives etc then they’ve only themselves to blame. Was the motivation for the Daily Record’s article the fact they are genuinely outraged by historic tweets from contributors to the podcast or was it a hit piece due to the Record no longer getting interviews/stories and that their “Exclusives!” are quickly rubbished by fan groups more ‘in the know’?… I honestly don’t know but it wouldn’t surprise me if it was the latter. Did the Record calculate that it would impact Celtic fans groups/podcasts who enjoy similar access? And that maybe both clubs will now return to the newspaper journalists as before?.. Will these outlets hold their own contributors to the same standards as journo after journo is being called out and many are now deleting/protecting their tweets?…. One things for sure, they should all know better and do better in future regardless of what team or political party they support.

I don’t wish to be negative but it’s been a bit of an underwhelming window for Rangers to be honest. Good to keep all of our main players but it’s seems like we’ve stood still, at best. I maybe got too used to the excitement of our annual rebuilds but then again they’re only required in times of failure.

Katic heading to Hadjuk Split on loan. Hopefully he can get a good run of games with them and come back ready to push for a 1st place next season.

If Rangers can get north of £10m for a player about to turn 29 in a few months time it would be great business albeit disappointing to lose a player of Barisic’s quality. If true, they should get a 3 or 4 million offer in for Doig as his replacement.

I see there was another Indy rally yesterday and it looks like there was only about 20 people there.

Glad to get through into the group but we made hard work of that. They were at the standard of a lower half Premiership team at best and at full time I was very worried about the game this weekend. Then I watched Alkmaar absolutely running rings around Celtic and I’m feeling a bit better..