And to be honest we got off lightly. After 10 minutes I was saying that our defence was looking really shakey, and that problem continued throughout the game. if we don't replace Dods we will have a relegation struggle this season.

No presence upfront either, but the lack of player availability should resolve itself soon.

Well done Mikey Fraser, an excellent, solid performance, his best yet. Good effort from Richie Hart as well, we at least started to get near their box when he came on.

But Charlie has a lot of thinking to do, and transfer funds will be required.

Have to disagree with a lot of what's been writen above.  We weren't gash - but we weren't that good either.  Compared with the opening games for the last few seasons we were actually quite good.

Defensively we showed a lot of promise but Caff and Granty need to form a better understanding.  I thought hastings had a very good second half and might even have got MOM.  Midfield needed a bit more bite but we really missed the defensive midfield qualities of Russell Duncan (and I really have to bite my tongue when I say that).  Up front we were just missing.

Don't forget the quality of the opposition today.  The huns have spent a lot of money on strengthening their squad and are streets ahead of the start to last season.  Ferguson, in particular has improved no end.

Lets give everyone a bit of time to develop as a team - except Rory!  There's a long way to go!

It's the first game o' the season and emotions are running high after a 2 month abstinence of football.

IMO:

3-0 flattered rankers !

We were poor but for all their signings rangers didn't look very impressive either ! tbh i think if we had played anything like what we can do then rangers were there for the taking today.

The match had a feel like an end of season game. We had a few committed tackles from tokely in the first half but nothing in the rest of the park and no great desire to win, that disappoints me. Blackie started well but seemed subdued somewhat after an atrocious tackle from boyd  :33:

Macdonald looked ok when he came on. All 4'6" of him managed to challenge well against the rankers back line for high balls. Was urging him to drill the ball into the net when he was clear on goal but instead he rather tamely squared the ball !

What made my afternoon even worse was that there was an invernessian rangers ned sat behind me !!!! :008:

Never mind.....rankers will be docked the three point cos o' all their sectarian bile pouring out the south stand right !!!............................aye right, like the spl will really carry out that threat !!! :rolleyes02:

What game were you at? 3-0 flattered Rangers?? It could easily have been 5 or 6! They barely had to get out of first gear to totally dominate the game. We did not manage to put together one constructive move in the entire 90 minutes - I was at the game today and have just watched the whole horror again on Setanta, and believe me it didn't look any better the second time! Our defence was all over the place, midfield hardly had a kick of the ball (and playing Hart from the start next week aint going to solve much), and we might as well have played no-one up front. On this evidence our pre-season "preparation" does not seem to have achieved very much, and for the first time since we made the SPl I am seriously worried about our prospects. :009:

Don't be worried wee howdenender ! Gretna got beat 4 zip by some bairns....we've nothin to worry about !!! :003: :003: :003: :sillywave:

Don't be worried wee howdenender ! Gretna got beat 4 zip by some bairns....we've nothin to worry about !!!

:015: :015: :015:

dods was totally immense today if that cheers you up any.

CLICKY

glad i didnt get out of bed for this today but it sounds like we just werent ready for it physically

rangers needed the chelsea and zeta games to get upto speed, we needed that today, next week should see an improvement

..just read cc's comments on the bbc site and its encouraging to hear he shares my views on bayne being vital to us looking interested during a game

wyness ive had problems with since we first started talking about re-signing him, he has always had the abilty but never the drive or determination it takes to make a team like ict succeed, really not the guy you want to be leading the line!  hed be great in a 433 system or a 5 man midfield, but hes hopeless when hes too far away from the other players

complacency has been the number one killer for us since season 01-02 in division 1, ive been going on about it online for 6 bloody years, though the reasons behind it have changed a fair bit.  every player in our squad needs it drilled into them, bloody brainwashed into them, that if they dont give it 100% in training and on the day, that if they dont win every single ball, make every pass, be strong in every f#cking tackle then ultimately we will be relegated and their careers will be all but over, as few players (if any) have been leaving the relegated clubs this past decade.  there is no excuse for not trying, least of all from the first team manager

ps think the complacency thing started when pele had us warming up for games against other full time teams by jogging between the sidelines once or hanging about in wee groups doing keepy ups before heading back up the tunnel!

I was really trying to hold back but I've got the Sunday morning blues. I am not just pointing the finger at CC but some of the club in general:

Why did we get it so tactically wrong yesterday ?  Some of the tactics were clearly seen to be ludicrous ?

CC had a pop at the players committment - Hope he feckin bollocked them or should he have been geeing them up in the first instance. Projection again.

CC had a go at the long ball - that means that it wasnt tactical. Caff, Munro and Hastings employed the tactic throughout. Black must have been going mental at the times he made room fer an easy ball.

It must have been feckin obvious that Niculae would need a permit - could that not have been sorted out quicker.

All constructive criticism which I hope will be learned by next week or the coming weeks. But we need to get it sorted out now. I also wish that someone would clearly ask CC what his opening tactics were.

We clearly need goalkeeper and defensive cover. Ist it that we have not been able to attract the right people or is it another case of giving the present players a vote of confidence ?

Why bother with a Singin Section if you are going to OVER "police" it ?

The fact that a team full of run-of-the-mill players, many of whom have graduated with the club through the lower leagues, has maintained it's SPL status for 3 years, never finishing lower than 8th, suggests to me that they are trying quite hard and succeeding. One bad performance against a club the size of Rangers isn't the end of the world.

Not sure how being relegated to Division 1 would equate to the end of their careers. Last time I looked, Division 1 was full of professional footballers.

The criticism of the team yesterday is fully justified, they were a disgrace. It was clear from the start that the TV pundits got it spot on, we were going to punt the ball at every opportunity and that is exactly what we did. Using Wyness as a target man is no use, he simply is not that kind of player, he needs the ball played to him below neck height then he will do the rest. Playing Rory as the other target man :rotflmao: Well he does not even look at the ball when it comes near him, he is too busy looking at the defender and his attempts to get off the ground are a joke. In fact playing Rory at all was the wrong thing to do. No holding midfielder, where was Duncan misplaced passes and all. The invisible man was, well, invisible. Bazza might as well  have been invisible he was certainly not influential. The defence were all at sea, noticeable from the start. Where is our big stopper?? Fraser was the only one to get passmarks from me. 

Not really the game we wanted to start the season wit, playing one of the old firm means no points for most teams, so lets hope we regroup for the lesser teams, for thats where our season will be one won or lost, against the St Mirrens Motherwells and Gretna's.

My observations of the situation are:

We have too many Lightweight players that seem too easily bullied off the ball for this level

Wyness

MacAffrey

Black

Rankin

MacAllister

We need more guts and fight about us

Another thing we are sadly lacking is a Mike Teasdale type creature. Someone who can take the ball and go charging at the opposition at full tilt.

Am not bitter about loosing to a Team built for Europe, but what i do find hard to swallow is the nature in which the game was lost

Worst preformance of the season :33: :tic01:

Rory was gash. Toklers had his worst game for long time.  Think it was CaleyD that said we should have packed the midfield. The players panicked on the ball, only Rankin really made an attempt to play football, that said not a very good one.

HOWEVER Rangers are a new beast under Smith, we were missing our top strikers and, as has been said before, we don't do good starts to the season. It can only get better....

Hopefully :024:

Tactics, tactics, tactics....

They didn't have any options other than to punt the ball up the park and hope for mistakes from the Rangers defence...

Man for man Rangers were far, far superior to us - they had guys who could run with the ball, go past opponents, who could tackle, who could make & receive passes and who could shoot... they were first to every 50:50 ball - light years ahead of us in terms of basic skills....

The difference between our performance yesterday, and the 2-1 game just after Xmas last year, must surely give cause for serious concern....

Whatever happened to the Austrian defender CC wanted to sign?  At this rate I'd even bring back Bobby Mann and Golabek.

Wow - Grumpy is back.  :sillywave:

They did have options. Black and Rankin and Wilson often made themselves available for a short pass but the "lump" was the preferred option - and not always under pressure.

Agree with the most of the rest though  :crazy07:

We rarely played the ball wide - we rarely ran at them or took them on - our tackling wasnt too bad.

It may not be a bad thing and I expect a backlash next week.  :023:

I reckon one of the problems is that ICT don't have many tall, strong strikers other than Bayne.  Wyness and McAllister look like they don't want to get involved and McDonald's too small for these long punts up the park.  If I could have my way I'd play Tokely up front and whatever happened to that Austrian bloke Baur that CC wanted to sign.

The difference between our performance yesterday, and the 2-1 game just after Xmas last year, must surely give cause for serious concern....

It also shows the difference between the budgets of Rangers and ICT. They could afford to seriously overhaul a lot of their squad to improve it. We cannot afford the same luxury.

Wow - Grumpy is back.  :sillywave:

Grumpier than ever after that performance....  :evil10:

was listening to the game on the radio yesterday and i couldnt help but laugh at the comment the commentator said "Charlie knows his team more than i do".  :rotflmao: Charlie hasnt a clue about his team, tactics or how to play against any opposition! He's the sole reason i didnt renew my season ticket this season.

My view from section B. Firstly I was glad to see a dozen or so Rangers fans in section A, who were joining in with the sectarian smut emanating from the south stand, being evicted within the first fifteen minutes.

The game was dire No one player stood out, at least not until Hart came on, and, as a team, they showed no interest in playing football. High balls into a pretty strong wind just doesn't work. We didn't have a forward that could bring the ball down and hold it up. Bayne may have helped out there but sadly he wasn't available.

Both our centre backs seemed very nervous and unable to control the game from the back. Considering Smith played with one striker I thought our defence should have been able to do a lot better. Thank god for Ikey.

McAllister......he had a couple of slim chances but lost the ball too easily, though the same could be said for Dennis. The lad needs to do some serious sprint training. He was way too slow in the chase with Hutton.

My admiration goes to Blackie. He got kicked and elbowed and generally bullied but held his temper and tried to make a game of it.

Had this team gone on to the pitch with the same desire as they had last season against Rangers we would have won it easily. If this is what Smith is going to put onto the park every game then Celtic need not worry.

Sure ICT were bad but Rangers weren't much better and if I were the SFA I'd give Celtic the cup now.

Are you all saying you know the team better than 10CC? I can only thank God that you're not in his place. Having faith in your players can be difficult at times, keeping that same faith nigh on impossible. Charlie knows what to do and I for one still have faith in him. Am I alone? :008:

Charlie knows what to do and I for one still have faith in him. Am I alone?  :008:

YES.

Charlie knows what to do and I for one still have faith in him. Am I alone?

NO