wokinginashearerwonderland

Hate knee jerk reactions but starting to wonder how long Glass gets at this before someone steps in to tell him he is way out of his depth. A few on here months back said this would be a transitional season and all that but we are far worse than at any time during the last regime. It is the second time in recent years that we have taken this nonsensical view that we should change the manager after a season where we qualified for Europe and for the second time it has backfired spectacularly. If we get beaten by Dundee then it is time to cut our losses and put Glass out of his misery before we end up in a relegation dog fight.

McTominay has to be the most overrated player in our squad. If he was a Burnley player he would not be anywhere near the Scotland team but we seem desperate to shoe horn him in. One, he’s definitely not a centre half so why are we picking him ahead of recognised defenders and I would have McGregor, Gilmore, Armstrong, Jack, McGinn or even Turnbull or McLean before him in midfield. We seem to get this notion that if a player plays for an English Prem team that he must be included in the Scotland team without actually assessing if he brings anything to the party. Plus he’s English.

Saw this week that Barcelona lost £405M last year. Hunnish?

The jury still out for me on Gerrard's managerial ability. He won the league, yes, but with a monumental amount of invest by SPL standards. Lampard though, why on earth would you give him an open cheque book? Find it hard to believe he would even be in their thoughts as being a potential manager. Surprised Shearer has not been mentioned because they are going to be doing as much as they possibly can to look good in the eyes of the geordie public for the next few months. He would surely be the ultimate appointment to get the fans flocking in.

Ah, you really should try it Rico, so much more enjoyable than the Scottish stuff. It is actually entertainment compared to just turning up to watch our crap simply because that is what we have always done so we'll keep going regardless of whether it is worth seeing or not. Watching that Liverpool V Man City game last weekend was honestly like watching a different sport compared to the shite that is served up in our league. I dislike a lot of the circus that surrounds the EPL but the quality of fitba is unquestionably on another level. I'd compare it to watching a couple of 28 handicapers knocking it around your local golf course then going to watch The Masters. Pains me to say it mind.

You don't watch ANY English fitba, Rico?

Got to imagine a few in the boardrooms around England will be squirming this morning at the thought of Mike Ashley selling out to the Saudis. The top 4 or 5 in England have got a cosy little thing going where they share the trophies and Champions League money between them so would be great to see their reactions if this takeover goes through. With financial fair play well and truly in the bin I am looking forward to seeing the geordies shake things up.

Funny manager Ranieri. According to Wikipedia, he has managed 1,325 games and has not really been out of a job for a significant spell since starting out in 1986. His CV of clubs managed is a who's who of European football including Napoli, Fiorentina, Atletico Madrid, Juventus, Chelsea, Roma, Inter, Parma, Monaco, etc. But apart from his amazing feat at Leicester, his trophies won are a few lower league titles and a couple of domestic cups. Every time he gets a new gig you do wonder, would you really want this guy in charge of your club? Cannot see him being in charge of Watford at the end of the season.

Most important month of the season this. The game on Sunday is crucial to set the tone for the other 4 games in October. If we get humped 4 or 5 by Celtic and morale is though the floor, we could easily go through the whole month without a win and potentially be in a relegation battle. Hopefully if we can get some kind of positive result/performance then it can light the flame again. Have not a clue how Glass approaches this one though. The keeper's confidence is shot to bits, one clean sheet in 20(?) games and half of our new signings did not even make the first 11 last weekend. Has he made up his mind that these players are not good enough already? Have to shore things up at the back, become hard to score against and horrible to play against and go from there.

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.