steelboy

our system and style at present is working well for us so i don't see any value in overhauling to do slightly better against the old firm. if you look at a league table without the old firm we are fairly dominant and even if we tweeked the team to be more competitive against the old firm the gains would be minimal. i just had a quick google and the spl ranks 27 out of the 31 top leagues in europe in terms of height and the average height in the top 5 five leagues is a shade under 6ft. it's funny how we often hear about the need to take the focus of physical stature when (i) we are relative weeds (ii) bannan, maloney and others show that good small players will make it no problem.

i think our team is well equipped to beat the other diddies but the type of players we have will struggle against the old firm. other than hutchy there isn't a player in our team you would describe as a good athlete. against rangers the other week seeing guys like whittaker, papac, bartley, mcculloch, edu and lafferty up against our guys was like men against wee boys. even steve davis who is wee looks like he doesn't have an ounce of fat on him and is much quicker than any of our players. it was the same in the leeds game during the summer, they are just an average championship side but they were bigger and faster across the board. players that have ability and athleticism are well out of our budget. we've brought hutchy through and we did well getting jutkiewicz on loan but they are very much the exception. our style of play is working well for us at the moment so i think we should stick with it rather than signing a few bruisers to give us a better shout against the old firm.

i was unaware of the vagaries of the greek league system. the sportsound crowd would love that set up. considering that info it looks to me like one from cska moscow, dynamo kiev, shaktar donetsk, benfica, braga, psv, twente, az alkmaar, panathaniakos and fenerbahce.

it looks like ukraine, portugal and russia are definites. most likely cska and either shaktar or dynamo kiev from ukraine or braga or benfica from portugal. the 4th one is up in the air. alkmaar, psv, twente, hevereen and feyenoord are all in a 4 way battle for 2nd in holland. panathaniakos have got 2nd in greece wrapped and have a higher points total than hevereen, az alkmaar and feyenoord so if one of those teams gets the place in holland the greeks would be the 4th seeded team.

i'm sure i read someone on here saying this celtic team were the best scottish side of the past 10 years! they are pish. they've won 2 out of their biggest 13 (8 europe, 3 OF, LCF, SCSF) games so far, that's piss poor and they haven't even been overly impressive against the diddies. the last two times we've played them it's pretty close so there's no reason why we can't get a result on sunday. we should be attempting to put them under pressure from the first minute.

he will be next season if he's at the game and you're in the pub

another clanger from big john.

could be doing with an extra 'r' there

big darren would have saved that no probs. i think it's close between them. ruddy made more errors but also more eye catching saves, darren has been extremely consistent.

he better get a good preseason in if he wants to catch me

you want our players and fans to prostate themselves in front of a club who even when they beat us in the scottish cup final still felt the need to publicly denigrate our players and a set of fans who continually accuse our players and management of dishonesty and refer to our support as h**s. that doesn't make sense to me but each to their own.

we could maybe make a deal where we don't applaud them onto the park but you take a line up from their full 42 man first team squad and management team pre match if your so keen?

looks like i'll be the last man standing at fir park. nae luck higdon

this just shows how aware all the other 11 clubs are that they need rangers in the league from a financial point of view. as i've said in the other thread i can't see what benefits this scenario has for rangers over going to division 3. if they're not going to win the league or play in europe what is the value to them of being in the spl?

what's the value of spl status if they are effectively out the title race before it begins and can't get into europe?

i'd be suprised if anyone bought them before the meeting. who would put down money before you know what the situation is?

i don't know about that. this pretty much makes it impossible to come out of admin before may 14th which guarantees they will have a points penalty next season.

i'm struggling to see where the goals are going to come from but i think we'll make it somehow.

they're not random events.

those things will even themselves out. we're looking at a sample of 31 games with probably a dozen different refs and he is pulled up for the same things in every game. last season he fouled the most times in the spl even though only started 26 games and came on twice as a sub.

even rangers?

they do live text coverage of every game so it probably all comes from that. i think that is correct for page.

espn site no.

85 free kicks against him in the league. it's a foul when the ref blows the whistle. 35 free kicks won in the league.

i bet micky quinn and mark yardley gave away a lot of free kicks as well. what is your point?