weeyin

Doesn't matter. What we are talking about are the fans that turn up every week and continually yell pointless, uniformed, negative comments.

Will you accept a reality cheque?

Some managers haven't noticed Hateley can't play in midfield. They all have their own ideas about how they want to play the game.

Every time I have erased that clown from memory, someone just has to go an mention his name.

Alarm bells will ring for some fans if we win the league but get knocked out before we reach the group stages of the Champions League. If any fan thought we would stroll our way to 3rd in the league then this is either their first season following the club or they have lost their grip on reality. Every team in the league goes through spells of good and bad form and good and bad luck. What separates about 6 or 7 clubs in the SPL is how they capitalise on the good form and how they minimize the impact of the poor form. Right now, we are in a bit of a trough, but it's hardly time to panic. It's time to roll up the sleeves, dig in and grind out a couple of ugly wins. Some of that will be down to the manager and some of it will be down to the players themselves. Our aim every season should be to look for a top 6 finish, and only after we achieve that should we worry about 3rd/4th/5th. Unfortunately, the other teams pay their players too, and they also want to finish in the top 6 - so those sneaky buggers try and win every game, even when it's us they are playing. The last thing we need to be doing is changing managers at this stage of the season. McCall hasn't had the chance to work through a complete league campaign yet. We're not going to be relegated, and have time to regain some form. So let's see how the rest of the season pans out. For us auld yins, any season we aren't battling the drop is already a success. Of course there are things we'd like to see changed, but messing around with a winning formula when we were 3rd is not the time to do it. Now we do need to make a few changes, they won't all work, and even if they do work, they won't necessarily work the first time we try them. A couple of home wins, and we'll start seeing posts on here again asking when the Europa Cup qualifying rounds start (which will be just as premature).

No. That's due to formation and tactics.

After a few suggestions from myself and others on here, the official site does now have the MFC TV link in a prominent position on the home page.

Imagine the Radio Scotland commentary and how bad that is. Now imagine the opposite of that. That's what it sounds like

Blind squirrels. Nuts. etc.

My only prediction is that ICT will end the game with 10-men and Big Tel will be ragin'.

I didn't realise the pre-season Lanarkshire Cup friendlies had started up again. Good news that he is on the mend.

He was excellent because he had Jeffers making tons of space for him. If he was in our current team, 4-5-1 and 30 yards from the midfielders, I doubt he would have scored the 9 that Higdon has.

I was on holiday when we played Morton on that Cup run. So I didn't have to endure all the stress of that particular tie - just picked up the paper next morning and read we had made it through.

Can you not just be happy that your team scored 4 goals at the weekend and made it to the next round? (Although I heard Arbroath put up a decent showing).

It probably does - but our turnover isn't likely enough to cover that plus all the other operating expenses.

Depends what you mean by "performed". In the Reynolds thread you were quick to point out how many clean sheets we had when he was playing in our defence. So "performing" for a defender means preventing goals. By the same token, presumably a striker performs when he is scoring goals, which puts Higdon at a 9 - 5 advantage over Sutton.

Translation: "I'm even more miserable now that my 'replay at Hampden' prediction was wide of the mark, as usual."

And Higdon is being asked to play as a lone striker in a 4-5-1, which isn't his natural position either. The fact we have failed to score in 8 league games is more down to McCall's insistence on playing 4-5-1 even at home, and refusing to change it when it doesn't work. A more important stat is league position. Sutton's link up play, heading and general all round Messi-ness didn't manage to get us up to 3rd by this stage last season.

Higdon then. Sutton had scored 5 goals in all competitions at this stage last season. Higdon is at 9.

Sutton only hit his stride last season when Jeffers started making sapce for him. On his own up top, I don't see him being any better (or worse) than Higdon. A more relevant poll would be: 4-5-1 at home - yes or no?

If McCall is determined to play 4-5-1, leaving Sutton isolated up front won't be any more productive than leaving Higdon isolated up front. We need to close that gap between our midfielders and our lone striker.

I don't even mind the fact that McCall tried a different formation for this game (some of it enforced, some of it to switch tactics). In his post-match interview, he at least made all the right noises about running a 4-4-2 and, even when a goal down, try and take the game to them. It just seems like the players are scared to play there. You would think the obvious way to overcome the fear is to get in about them from the kick-off and don't let them settle. Even if you lose a game like that, at least you come away feeling that you made it difficult for them. I've been saying it for a while now, but it feels like no matter how well (or poorly) we are playing, Rangers could field their U-14s girls team and still turn us over by 3 goals.

Quoted For Truth

'Understrength' Rangers team scores soft goals against Motherwell defence. In other news, the Pope is confirmed to be of the Catholic persuasion.