weeyin

I'm not saying I know better, I'm saying there has been a huge improvement in the quality of the teams that didn't manage a win at Ibrox for 20 years, and now we have team with a track record of winning at Ibrox in recent games. That has set some expectations amongst fans that think we should be winning there more often now. That may even be true later in the season. The cold hard facts this weekend are that we still have a load of new players that have had little time to train together, have never played at Ibrox, are mentally tired from a glut of games over the past few weeks with little respite, and were up against a team that spent approximately 24 times our outlay this summer. The fact that we underperformed by our early season standards yet only lost by one goal is an improvement from the years where we played at our best and lost by 3 or 4 goals. There is a fundamental truth, however, that the OF will continue to outspend us by orders of magnitude to keep their standing in the top 2 slots in the league. There will he blips, and teams like us have split them in the past. That doesn't mean we will always hit top form in these games or win when we do. I do think there has been an overreaction to the defeat yesterday from some fans.

Since Alexander and Kettlewell? Or our wins at Ibrox under Wimmer and JBA? I don't know what team you have been watching, but if you haven't seen a fundamental change in the past 18 months, it's certainly not us you've been looking at. Even if you were being very generous to us by saying we were on a par with Rangers despite their massive investment compared to ours, losing 1 - 0 on their patch doesn't seem to be unlikely any more than us beating them 1 - 0 at Fir Park would be.

The bad news from this game is that we just weren't at it yesterday. The better news is that even under those circumstances, we only conceded one self-inflicted goal. Also, while Paulsen was obviously at fault, the pass back was also a little under hit which meant he wasn't quite as set as he should have been. So he only takes 90% of the blame from me.

A keeper making a mistake isn't any worse than a striker missing a good chance. Still costs a goal.

Agreed. We looked a bit tired today. The break is well timed.

Painful de-feet. Take your pick...

And at least 2 good attempts on goal. One that needed a good save from the keeper and the other that just crept past the far post.

Ranger's defence seems to be their weakness right now, so we need to focus on that. Falkirk could have picked up a point against them if they had been a wee bit sharper.

I've seen Arbroath beat us more than once when we were supposedly the superior side.

Seems like an ever smarter move recruiting Alfred when you hear about his knowledge and experience with developing youngsters. Even if the the SFA don't listen to him, I'm sure out Board will.

He played in a few league cup games the first season he joined them, but nothing since. He'll be getting paid handsomely to work with the other keepers, and is obviously happy with what he's doing there.

So Ap Stam was better than him at that too.

He was better than Jordan White and Jacob Blyth and scored more league goals than Ryan Bowman or Curtis Main. He certainly didn't make the transition the way we'd hoped, but not the worst we've had by any means. I have no problems keeping through the summer to see what Alfred made of him.

Why is it always the people who accuse others of being a snowflake that take offence the quickest?

45% possession too. JBA's lost the plot.

I'm usually not a fan of the break but it comes at the perfect time for us.

Whyte's a great prospect, but I trust the coaching staff if they think he'll progress more quickly if he goes out on loan.

The official website said Whyte extended his contract in their end of season squad update. Doesn't say for how long.

That's pretty much it.

Surprised he said that given how much he drooled over our sexy football last season.

When we were in the First Division, there were 14 teams and you played each one 3 times. There used to be an argument the odd number of games gave some teams home advantage, athough they did try to balance it every season. Now we have a precedent in the Premiership that teams play an uneven number of games against certain teams there's less reason to argue against a similar 14 team format. Of course it will never happen any more than an 18 team league, because the TV companies demand 4 OF derbies per season.

Guess who the ref was when we beat them 3 - 2 last time? Clue, it rhymes with Nevin Fancy. I get all the concerns about refs, Rangers VAR etc., but one positive of the style we play now is that we give refs less chance to penalise us. Moorman and Knight-Lebel didn't have to make a single tackle last night, for example. Of course, they can still stuff us by chalking off goals and VAR handballs - just not as often.

I'll be disappointed if we didn't receive one derisory OF bid for one of our players today.

The Diana-isation of society. Public displays of feelings and emotion all went downhill after Princess Di's car crash. Millenials and Gen-Z take some of the blame too. Not that I'm an miserable old Gen-Xer or anything. I'll bottle it up and let it kill me like a proper man.