Midfield_General

Yeah it does: Eduard Spertsyan Southampton’s Armeni-an

Yeah and they’ve gone to PSG, Liverpool, Arsenal and Real Madrid. Goes to show how good their recruitment has been.

We’ve priced Dibling at £50m - we turned down circa £40m + £5m plus 15% sell-on if reports are to believed. For a player who has achieved less and only has one year left. On that basis we’ll be looking for £50m absolute minimum for Fernandes. It’s not a credible offer from West Ham.

What about if you kindly stopped to pick up a hitchhiker and then they brutally slayed your entire family? You’d regret it then, wouldn’t you?

I know I should let it go, but I just can’t… The unshakeable belief in something that doesn’t work, and the way so many people seem to fall for it. The total, unwavering commitment to such a deeply and obviously flawed principle. The falling upwards. I must admit, he fascinates me. (Not in a gay way) (Well maybe a bit, at the beginning. But not now)

Oh dear. He’s actually just sat in a press conference and tried to paint dropping points to Motherwell and at home to Dundee as “part of a 5-match unbeaten run”. This after saying after the Dundee game “I was pleased we didn’t lose”. They are losing their shit at him, saying he doesn’t understand the culture, has a loser’s mentality etc. As far as they are concerned, a Rangers manager should expect to win every game. They aren’t buying his spin at all. He was always going to be under a lot more scrutiny up there but it’s incredible how quickly they have turned.

God, that Sunderland game. 79% possession at one point and lost 5-0. Schooled by Tony Mowbray and a team who ended up coming 16th. Everything that was wrong with the ‘philosophy’ there on show for all to see. Putrid.

Yeah, it’s a difficult dressing room that has already seen off a bunch of managers and as he can’t shift them out he now has to rely on a bunch of players he publicly slagged off and threw under the bus after his very first league game, to play for him and get him out of trouble. Someone’s also leaking his team selections a day before they play. So he’s definitely got a mole and it’s possible he may have lost the dressing room already. It was a big, big gamble to go in so hard and so early on players he’s going to need to keep picking. If they’ve already decided they’re not having him and down tools, he’s screwed.

The irony is that if his style is going to work against anyone up there, it might actually work against Celtic because unlike pretty much any other team in the SPL they will actually come out and attack Rangers. Martin’s whole philosophy is about drawing teams in and then trying to expose spaces they leave when they press, and Celtic will actually come forward and have a go at them so it might work. But the massive problem he has and the reason he is crashing and burning in the league at the moment is because every other SPL team other than Celtic just parks the bus with two banks of five when they play Rangers. They have no interest in attacking and just come to sit deep and get a point. As we know, Martin’s style is completely ineffective to break down a low block because it’s so slow and ponderous and his teams just end up just endlessly passing it from side to side in areas of the pitch that aren’t dangerous while the opposition happily sit back and let them do it. That’s what’s happened so far against Motherwell and Dundee who are dross and it’s why the fans are so angry. They were told they were getting someone who knew how to break down a packed defence, and of course Martin talks a great game and got them believing it. But now they are seeing what his teams actually do on the pitch they are tearing their hair out because it’s so ineffective and anyone who knows how defensively teams play against Rangers could have told you that his approach wouldn’t work against that.

Good grief 🤦‍♂️. MLG - you’ve got competition. Yes, I’m aware of how team sports work, thank you. Saying a player has ‘won something’ is a fairly common shorthand for describing when they were playing in a team and that team won the competition in question. I wasn’t suggesting he entered those competitions as an individual. I’m surprised I need to spell that out, but ok. In Grealish’s case he was an integral part of one of the best club teams in modern history; he played in 50 games for City the season they won the treble, and started every Champions League knockout game. Dibling may well go on to be a great player but Grealish is the finished article.

Grealish has won the Champions League, the Club World Cup, the FA Cup, the Premier League three times and has been capped by England 39 times. Tyler Dibling has played one on and off season in the premier league, scored two goals and been relegated. Maybe that’s something to do with it? Dibling is all potential at this stage. Grealish is the finished article and at 29 is in his prime, especially for the way he plays which doesn’t rely on pace. Not that it matters, as they’ll never activate that clause.

Go onto their forums now and they have almost unanimously turned on him already. 2 points from Motherwell and Dundee with Celtic next up means lose to their biggest rivals and the league could literally be out of reach by the end of August. The awful results plus a complete rejection of what they’ve seen of his style of play in the league so far have got a lot of them calling for him to go already, which is insane but he was never going to get the leeway up there if he didn’t come flying out of the blocks. Him doing his ‘it takes time, trust the process’ thing is just throwing fuel on the fire. Time is the one thing they absolutely will not give him. They didn’t want him and now they’ve seen how ineffective his style is against teams who sit deep - which in the SPL vs Rangers is basically 90% of them - it’s gone toxic already. He needs to beat Celtic to have a chance of getting them back onside at this point, regardless of whether they get through in Europe or not.

Can’t see Levy paying £300k a week or whatever he’s on

Leicester manage to go a goal down at home against the few players Sheffield Wednesday have left

"Gassama looks terrific running onto the ball, but collecting it into feet he constantly stops, turns inside and plays it back or sideways." "We are far too slow and predictable in the build up. Three yard passes, and even when we pick the ball up in acres of space, instead of using it, we manage to turn back. We give Dundee three business days to organise themselves." "Rothwell is blowing our his arse after 30 mins" Pages and pages of it. Work your magic, Rusty. Work it.

I think full-time yesterday was the first time I'ver seen Baz smile. He usually seems very serious and loves a scowl. Absolutely delighted for the young custodian.

'Custodian'. Shoot magazine always used to call goalies 'custodians', but you never hear them called that any more, do you? I'm bringing it back. Custodian.

He'll lose against Celtic and drop points against a couple more of the dross teams, then the crowd will turn toxic and he won't last the season. EDIT: OK so they've actually viciously turned on him already and many up there are saying he won't last until Hallowe'en. They aren't buying his 'it will take time' nonsense. https://www.followfollow.com/forum/threads/martin-every-club-ive-been-a-bit-of-pain-and-when-you-get-through-it-its-worth-it.304843/

Yeah, of course. And in my correct opinion he was shit 😛

Yeah that's kind of my point. He missed loads, and got a lot wrong, for both sides. It got quite farcical.

They did get away with it though, all game. They were fouling us all the time and the ref did nothing.

Oh come on, the ref was absolutely appalling. He missed two blatant penalties for a start. And what about when he stopped the game for a head injury and the replay showed that in actual fact the ball had hit the bloke in the nuts?

Never in doubt 🤣 What a feeling, I'd forgotten what's it like. Love it!

No changes at half time. Mental.