wokinginashearerwonderland

Nathan Patterson, just checked on his stats for curiosity. Season 19/20 - games played 2, total minutes 103 Season 20/21 - games played 14, total minutes 862 Season 21/22 - games played 3, total minutes 242 My maths calculates that at a total of 1,207 career minutes in the The Rangers team, equivalent to about 13.4 full games.

Aye, good prediction though min. Almost like the perfect storm for the americans. A load of good players all in form, no european crowd, a number of our players out of form plus a couple of questionable decisions by Padraig. Have to say, you do wonder where our next generation of players are coming from. We seem to have lost a lot of good players from the top of the game over the last few years. Thinking of Kaymer, Molinari, Colsaerts, Pieters, Noren, McDowell, Manassero. It looked as if these boys would be mainstays of our team for years but it hasn't materialised.

He has been below par for a season or so now. I know a few people spoke about the captaincy last season affecting him but that has gone to Brown now and Joe is still not the commanding keeper that he seemed to be before. I wonder if an element of complacency has set in with him; he was SO good before I was stunned the no one in England came in for him because it looked like he could have played at the very top level and I wonder whether he too felt the same and the lack of a move on has stunted him a bit. Seems like he has become capable of a dodgy goal here and there. He reminds me of Craig Gordon in that he would save everything before his move to England but when he came back from Sunderland and had recovered from injury, he didn't seem to save anything you wouldn't expect him to save, if that makes sense. The two Motherwell goals the other week are a prime example. Although not massive rickets as such, they were crosses into the edge of the six yard box where a confident goalie would have just come out and punched them clear. Same with Stevie May's goal the other day, again not a howler but it was a shot Joe would have saved a couple of years back. It was by no means a worldy, in the words of Merson.

Notice you are still banking on Lewis throwing one in for them BigAl

A bold statement wee toon red, never in my years watching the Ryder Cup have the yanks ever won by miles. In fact, seldom have they ever won! A lot being said about the players positions in the world rankings and that the US have 8 of the top 10 in the world but let's be honest the world rankings are a pile of shite in most sports and golf none more so. They reflect the last few months and are heavily weighted towards a few big tournaments. If it comes down to a couple of matches on Sunday I'd still back Westwood to do the business against Morikawa, Poulter to beat Koepka or Garcia against DeChambeau. I also don't buy the US argument that they have rookies with no Ryder Cup battle scars so won't be weighed down by history. They seem to trot this one out every few years as if they want to make themselves believe it but their main five or six players have all played before and experienced being humped! The states are historically crap at creating good partnerships, Harrington eluded to it the other night when he was asked about pairing players from the same country. He said that does not automatically make a good pairing and you have to consider a lot more than just whether they like each other. The US broke up their best partnership of Speith and Reed last time around to go with Speith and Thomas just because they are best mates which was just foolish management. The only negative from a European perspective is that the crowd will be all one sided which does give the US a massive helping hand.

I take no pride in predicting that Tom

Stevie May bound to score the winner here

Get some width in the team in the attacking third. Get rid of all of these central players we seem to be including all over the place. I want to see a front six of McLennan, Ferguson, Brown, Hayes, Samuels and Ramirez. Get some width up top and get two up front and go for goals. Let’s score some goals and get the place jumpin again. Nobody turns up hoping to see a tight one nil. I’ll take a 4-2 win with a couple each for the front two.

Reading comments from Glass this week I think we can expect a very different looking line up to last week with a good few changes. Bring in Master Bates to cum and stiffen things up and fill those gaping holes

A maverick?

Got to give Glass time. Judge him at the end of November, we’ve only played 5 league games. As an aside, 75% possession is meaningless. More and more nowadays teams with the least possession are actually the ones who end up winning. Goals are the only statistic to be looking at.

So refreshing to see the team actually be a bit physical and actually competing. I like Dykes, he set the tone for that whole performance with those couple of early challenges. Yes, we rode our luck a bit but could have actually scored a couple more with O'Donnell and Adams. Well done lads.

Good interview with Roy Keane.

We can all be guilty of knee jerk reactions especially as Scotland fans because we are desperate to unearth a few real superstars who could transform our team. I just wish we would give young players a chance to bed in to their club teams before we start proclaiming them to be the next saviour of Scottish football. We did it with Oliver Burke, he was rushed into international football way too early and has never managed to hold down a first team place at his club. We are also in danger of doing it with Billy Gilmour. Yes, the guy looks great but he has played the square root of zero games at club level. Both Ramsay and Patterson have played about a dozen first team games each, they should be nowhere near the international team yet. It must be a massive kick in the teeth to every Scottish right back that we cannot find someone to replace O'Donnell without resorting to a player who has barely played for his club side. Also begs the question, why have we dropped David Marshall, a massively experienced player, on the basis that he is not playing for his club yet we are playing Patterson, also not playing for his club?

Sarah Harding ex Girls Aloud, aged 39. Far too young to go. RIP Quine.

I just don't think he knows his best team Rico and chops and changes for the sake of it at times. For example, Declan Gallagher played in the matches leading up to qualification for the Euros and looked like a rock, our best defender in my opinion. Then during the Euros (and now) he wasn't even in the team. Stuart Armstrong has been a bit part player for Clarke, coming on as a sub numerous times yet he decides to start him in the opening game against the Czechs. Christie is in the team one minute, out the other. Fraser looked great for a couple of games up front with Dykes then he doesn't play him. Dykes appears to be the number one striker then he doesn't start against Denmark. In the absence of O'Donnell and Patterson against Denmark why the hell are we resorting to playing a left back at right back? What's happened to Callum Paterson, Liam Palmer etc? Can't we at least find a player who plays that position for their club? There is just no consistency at all. Tierney, Robertson and McGinn aside, do we really have a clue who the other 8 players will be in the starting 11 tonight? The only outfield player with over 40 caps is Andy Robertson which says a lot. I, like many thought Clarke was a decent appointment. He did unbelievably well at Kilmarnock and deserved his chance. But can anyone, honestly say, we look any better than we did before he came in? To me, we still look like a dreadful international side, capable of being beaten by ANYONE. I have just totally lost faith with him. Clarke has been in charge for 25 games, winning 9. Those 9 have been against Cyprus (x2), San Marino, Kazakhstan, Czechs (x2), Slovakia, Faroes and Luxembourg. Just to add, one of those games against the Czechs was when their entire first 11 were changed due to covid. We will beat Moldova tonight but I don't think we have a hope of winning in Austria to be honest.

Compared to a team like Wales, which I think we could all say their first eleven and ours are comparable, they get FAR more out of their players than us. Watching them in the Euros, Bale, Ramsay, James and Ward (because he used to play for us) apart, I had not heard of the other 7 in their team yet they still qualified from their group and gave a decent account of themselves. We were struggling to score a goal, never mind win a game. I would say that arguably, on paper, our team is better than theirs. Consistency of selection has also been a bugbear of mine for a while with the national team. Opposition national teams always seem to have numerous players with loads of caps and we don't. We are so sporadic in our selection and just seem to play whoever is flavour of the month and Clarke has done exactly the same in his time as manager. One minute we have Shankland up front, then we go with Brophy for a couple of games, then it's Burke then McBurnie, Fraser, Christie, Dykes, Adams, Nisbet. Same at centre back, McKenna looks like a first pick then he's out for Gallagher who looks like the number one centre half. Then he changes his mind and plays Bates, Considine, Cooper, now it's Hanley. Ridiculous. Choose a group of players, stick with them and give them a chance to build a bit of familiarity and confidence in each other.

I think the grass routes argument is nonsense Jute. I blame the coaches/management and cannot help but feel we should be getting more out of this group of players. That starting team the other night had 8 English Premiership players in it. Ok, they are not all playing at elite teams, some Norwich, Newcastle etc but still they are playing against good players each week so international fitba is certainly not a step up as such. But we were so outclassed in that first half it really could have ended 6-0, I was almost hiding behind the sofa after the second goal went in. Other international teams we play just seem to have so much more of a unity about them and you have almost got to scrape them off the pitch. That Israel team for example is so much better than the sum of their parts yet ours never seems to be. We never get a result against a team we would not expect to. We're just too easy to play against, we need some nasty players. I also reckon there is some truth in what Strachan said about out players being too small, even though he got laughed at for it. Seeing guys like Gilmour and Fraser the other night, they are just not physically imposing enough. We lose far too many goals from headers and score very few times from set pieces.

My point was not to do with the average age of our team compared to someone else, nor whether Glass has or has not played young players and also nothing to do with the last manager. Simply that it was strange to sign six players 30+. Brown aside, who is exceptional, these guys are journeymen.

We also started with five players of 30 and over and brought on two more and we were humped.

Longstaff would probably be our best midfield player but I don't see the point in loans unless it is an emergency which used to be the whole point of them for maybe when you were desperately short of a goalie for example. Seem to recall us taking Bobby Mimms and John Burridge back in the day. Otherwise, unless you have an option to buy at an agreed price, you are just developing someone else's player and the player has no loyalty to you when the chips are down. You are also in a state of constant replenishment every summer because you know at least four or five players are leaving. Other than Ryan Christie, which seemed to work out not bad we have gone through so many bad loanees that I would prefer us to just take a punt on someone from the Scottish Championship to see if we could unearth a gem.

What is going on with the transfer policy? Jet - 30 Ramirez - 30 Woods - 30 Watkins - 30 Brown - 36 Gallagher - 30 Is this a fitba team we are building or a retirement home? The basis of our relative success over the past few years has been that we got a nucleus of players who were in their early/mid twenties and who could stick around and play a couple of hundred games each to build a bit of consistency of selection and get a bit of a rapport going with the fans. I am thinking of Lewis, Considine, Logan, Shinnie, Rooney, Jack, McLean, McGinn, Hayes etc. These recent signings, plus the ones we have on loan, are going to be in the team no longer than a couple of seasons maximum and have no sell on potential either. Just a hunch but I can also see Ferguson moving on in the next few days after the European exit. Probably to Glasgow for about £1.8M.

After news of another couple of players being diagnosed with dementia this week, I wonder how long it will take for heading to be totally banned from the game. It has been suggested that the old heavy lace up footballs were the cause of a lot of it but even the new lighter balls must cause a lot of damage to the brain after years of training and matches. Seems odd that we could see a game with no heading whatsoever but it could potentially make for better entertainment if the ball was kept on the deck. Got to question how many more players will be diagnosed with these awful conditions before FIFA actually do something about it. This is much more serious than the tackle from behind ever was which is now outlawed.

13/4 for an away win. Worth a punt.

Joe Lewis was as much to blame for that second goal on Sunday, I think the commentators mentioned it as well. He should have done a lot better with the initial shot. He needs to cut out the stupid mistakes. Joe seems to have gone from Mr Dependable to a keeper quickly gaining the reputation of being capable of a howler. He got off with the one against Livi because we ultimately won the game but he is not the same keeper of a couple of years ago. He has not really been the same since McKenna left.