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Scottish Fitba'

rudebhoy said:
Last Sunday was the first points dropped by Celtic since mid-October, a 0-0 draw at Tannadice in a gale force wind with a much changed side. Their league record is P 17 W 15 D 2 L 0 F 48 A 4. Rangers by contrast have dropped 16 points.

Celtic win at Ibrox next week, we could see a record gap by the end of the season.
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I know points wise we're still motoring on. I was thinking more of the performance level. Early season we were blowing teams away, more recently it's been more workman like rather than dazzling. Even yesterday's 4-0 was a great result but wasn't a great performance.
I do think when we get back to a more settled line-up it will improve but there's a lot of games over the next month.
 
chico said:
Keeps a bit of interest in the League. Might be just for 10 days though.
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Wasn't even 5 days.

rudebhoy said:
See Rangers have formally written to the SFA complaining that one of the VAR officials from the LC final will be running the line at Celtic-St Johnstone this weekend. This follows on from last season when they demanded Willie Collum was not to be appointed to ref any of their games.

Maybe the SFA should just let Rangers pick all match officials in future.
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Completely and utterly lost the plot over this. I think it's the fact that Celtic have 119 trophies.

"We also note one of the officials has been appointed to an SPFL Premiership match involving the club that benefited from the error," Rangers said in a statement.

I can't believe they actually uttered that line. What do they expect, those guys never to officiate a Celtic match again?
 
The bears are revolting

NOW OR NEVER Philippe Clement has two games to save his job, says Kris Boyd, that’s if Rangers still operate to same standards I knew

It was another shocking away day for the Gers in Paisley

PHILIPPE CLEMENT has two games to save his job as Rangers boss.

Or he should have — IF the club is still operating to the standards I grew up with.

Clement said the Boxing Day defeat at St Mirren was “unacceptable”.

He was right — but so too is Rangers being 12 points behind Celtic after 17 games.

If that gap grows to 15, or worse, this week then it has to be the end for Clement’s reign as boss.

One TV camera panned to new Ibrox chief executive Patrick Stewart in the closing seconds at Paisley.
We will soon find out what his remit is at Gers. And whether the club is serious about challenging Celts.

Is Stewart simply there to balance the books, and be happy with the team finishing second to get a shot at the Champions League qualifiers?

Or do Rangers still have ambitions to mount a serious challenge to Celtic?

Clement will plead for patience, and repeat the same stuff about this being a huge rebuild and a young squad.
But at half-time at St Mirren, he took off his most expensive summer signing in Nedim Bajrami and Connor Barron, who was his blue-eyed boy at the start of the season.

They were hooked and replaced by two players he inherited 14 months ago.

In fact, Gers finished the game with only THREE players signed by Clement.

This is an expensively- assembled squad and nobody can tell me this team has progressed under him.

There can be no excuse for falling that far behind Celtic so early in the season.

Michael Beale and Gio van Bronckhorst both lost their jobs when the gap was smaller.

My critics will be saying, ‘Here he goes again after a Rangers defeat’.
Trust me, I never got carried away with the hype surrounding this apparent recent resurgence.

Gers were excellent against Nice and Tottenham in the Europa League. They played well against Celtic in the Premier Sports Cup final and were unlucky to lose.

But the other four — against St Johnstone, Ross County, Kilmarnock and Dundee — are games they should be winning.

They were made out to be bigger because the results before had been so bad.

There were warning signs in some of those wins that Gers could still be erratic.

St Mirren was huge for Clement and his players. If they had matched Celtic between then and January 2, they would have had the chance to cut the gap to six.

Instead, Celts have now extended their lead to 12 points and, hand on heart, I’m not surprised.
I’ve said it since the start of the season — there is something not right with Rangers on the football side.

For me, Clement doesn’t completely trust all of his players and vice versa.

The mixed messages coming from him all season have been incredible. He’s flip-flopped on so many players it’s hard to keep up with him.

James Tavernier would have gone by now had a package that suited all parties been on the table.

It wasn’t there, so Clement tried to phase him out of the team — now he’s back playing every game.

Injuries have contributed to that, but although Tav’s the captain, he can’t know if he’s coming or going.

The case of Ianis Hagi is even tougher to get your head around. Forget the Romanian’s contract issue, Clement publicly stated back in August that he wasn’t part of his plans.

Now? Hagi is a first pick and the manager is raving about how good he is. Make sense of that.

Nico Raskin was another one out of the picture, although he had a few injuries.

Now he’s sorted his diet out, he is the midfielder that Clement supposedly wants to build his team around.

Then you have Cyriel Dessers, who’s been totally bombed despite still being Rangers’ top scorer.

Hamza Igamane is suddenly Clement’s first-choice striker. While the Moroccan has talent, he is still raw.

If I was Dessers, I’d be scratching my head at being overlooked. Sure, the big man is far from perfect, but right now, he’s a better bet to score consistently than Igamane.
So much of what is going on at Gers doesn’t make any sense to me — from Clement’s comments to his tactics.

You never see his teams dominate a game from start to finish.
There is also a softness about them that St Mirren exploited to the full.

Gers have now played eight away games in the Premiership — and lost four of them.

They’ve dropped 14 points in those fixtures and have a goal difference on the road of MINUS ONE.

This is Rangers we’re talking about — you don’t hear Clement speaking about budgets, like he did before Spurs and Celtic, with regards to that dismal record.

There has been a lot of change at Ibrox, but has the Belgian assembled a squad that is ever going to be good enough, or care enough?

Again, maybe I’m old- fashioned, but it seems to me that some of these players are coasting, happy to pick up the biggest wage of their careers at the biggest club they will ever be at.

Are Oscar Cortes, Rabbi Matondo and Kieran Dowell providing value for money?

Now Rangers move on to Motherwell at Fir Park tomorrow and you’ll be lucky to find anyone who would bet any of their hard-earned cash on them winning.
Then it’s Celtic at Ibrox in the second league derby of the season, when you can be sure Brendan Rodgers will be telling his players to go in for the kill.

Clement will hope to pull a result out of the bag — but if he loses yet another Old Firm game, there is no way he should survive it.
 
KenL said:
www.thescottishsun.co.uk

Dunfermline v Falkirk descends into chaos as seats damaged and fans arrested

FRIDAY night’s massive Championship grudge match between Dunfermline and Falkirk was a thriller on the pitch – but was marred by shocking incidents off it. Both sides took a share of th…
www.thescottishsun.co.uk www.thescottishsun.co.uk
Pathetic. 😬
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Happens every time they come to East End. Raith are better behaved than the Falkirk mob.

That said, the trouble in town that followed was equally disgusting from both sets of idiots.

The sooner clubs identify and ban these morons the better the game will be for it.
 
rudebhoy said:
See Rangers have formally written to the SFA complaining that one of the VAR officials from the LC final will be running the line at Celtic-St Johnstone this weekend. This follows on from last season when they demanded Willie Collum was not to be appointed to ref any of their games.

Maybe the SFA should just let Rangers pick all match officials in future.
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…it’s against StJohnstone…what are Rangers thinking? That St Johnstone might get within a county mile of taking a point off Celtic? Or have they become just a bitter and twisted club - if not then certainly paranoid, struggling with their own failures and the dominance of Celtic.
 
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SwingsitlikeHogan said:
…it’s against StJohnstone…what are Rangers thinking? That St Johnstone might get within a county mile of taking a point off Celtic? Or have they become just a bitter and twisted club - if not then certainly paranoid, struggling with their own failures and the dominance of Celtic.
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Definitely paranoid and they used to accuse us of that.

Also I’m not convinced they have the money to sack big Phil.
 
Great performance from Celtic today. Very entertaining, seem to be kicking into gear with a very big month ahead. Great performances all over the pitch today and it really could have been a lot more than 4.
 
KenL said:
They are playing teams from a “lower league”.
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Aye that’s right…a bunch of diddy teams…and some wonder why much of Scottish football detests the OF. And it’s not because they are so much better than the rest - as they have been for pretty much ever…yet it’s only the incarnations of the last 40yrs or so that seem to attract so much disdain and contempt - simply a reflection of the disdain and contempt that is often shown by the OF to the rest of Scottish football.

Pity. And sadly it makes the OF hard to love as I want to when they are playing in Scotland’s name…and without bringing politics into it, even then many of their fans seem to reject that notion. Anyway…onwards and downward…🙁
 
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SwingsitlikeHogan said:
Aye that’s right…a bunch of diddy teams…and some wonder why much of Scottish football detests the OF…and it’s not because they are so much better than the rest.

They have been for pretty much ever…yet it’s only the incarnations of the last 40yrs or so that seem to attract so much disdain and contempt - simply a reflection of the disdain and contempt shown by the OF to the rest of Scottish football.

Pity. Makes the OF hard to love when they are playing in Scotlands name…annd without bringing politics into it even then many of their fans seem to reject that notion.
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I don't see them as diddy teams but unfortunately for the rest of Scottish football there are two giant clubs in one small country.
Bournemouth and Brighton are doing well in England because of the TV money. I would say Hearts, Hibs and Aberdeen are bigger than both those clubs.
 
chico said:
I don't see them as diddy teams but unfortunately for the rest of Scottish football there are two giant clubs in one small country.
Bournemouth and Brighton are doing well in England because of the TV money. I would say Hearts, Hibs and Aberdeen are bigger than both those clubs.
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Indeed…and I’m glad you don’t…it just comes across that way from too many too often.👍
 
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