Neil Lennon

Absolutely buzzing after this, the team showed some resilience to come through that. Add to that the fact that us playing at pretty much our worst, and them at their best, still resulted in us winning, has got to be a huge psychological boost for us/kick in the balls for them. Having said all that...

I hope Lenny knows that he got off the hook as regards team selection. We don't necessarily need to sign a striker in January, as if Griffiths and Bayo get fit, we have options (a bit Bayo would have made a difference yesterday imo), but maybe a loan deal might be worth looking at. Can't really blame him for the LB situation, but it was definitely part of why they had so many chances. We can't play like that against them again and expect to win. Though I don't see us being that bad, or them being that good, next time.

 

Get them back down at Barrowfield now To be fair the pitch isn't as bad anymore at Hampden and there was a * tonne of rain overnight (there was major flooding and landslips on the road I drive to Glasgow), worked out in the end.

 

After seeing Neil saying Griffiths was fit and would have been on the bench if Edouard would have played leaves me here to partially blame Neil for the poor perfornance yesterday. Even without much game time Leigh would have been better in that position than Morgan.
In generally I try to make sense of yesterdays performance and I'm not really sure if it really isn't a coaching problem. The game took me back to the last derby of the passed season. Maybe Neil has problems to figure out how to face that pressing. I mean our whole midfield disappeared. We've seen Brown owning the midfield against them in September and yesterday he disappeared. I'm not sure if that's up to Brown or the tactics.

 

If LG was fit it's another very poor call from NL.

 

Firstly I don't think Morgan would have been as bad it the conditions were better, , but I agree he's not a striker and that is firmly put to bed now. I can understand lennon and the coaches thinking with carrying two strikers who neither are 100% in squad. we got away with one yesterday and managers can't be right all the time . If nothing else Desmond and lawell were there watching our need for striking options from the stand maybe that may encourage them to invest in January

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A look at the weather should've disqualified Morgan from the starting lineup, if Griffiths was fit. Not that Leigh is tall, but he at least has knowledge of the position.

 

NL on his gear like his name, Neil Lennon, class

 

Lenny is lucky! If we lost that game he would have been totally roasted for that team selection. Got so many things wrong.

Firstly every * and his dog knew Morgan was not good enough to lead our line. After the huns seen his name, that alone was probably a morale boost. The difference after Edouard came on was incredible. Just having him on the field affected the mentality of the Rangers players. Credit to Morgan, he did his best to put in a shift, but out of position and being bullied by the Hun Ref and Hun Centre backs was never gonna be easy for him. If Edouard was even half fit, he should have started. Otherwise he should have started Griifiths. I am pretty certain, if we had Griffiths from the start they would not have played so high!

Next, Elyounoussi was clearly unfit. No idea how he is ok to play whilst Edouard or Griffs is left out. Should have started Ntcham in the middle. We lacked composure in the middle and lost almost all the midfield batlles. A Rogic or Ntcham would have made a difference in there and then Christie or McGregor could have been moved out wide.

 

There is a pattern in their dominant displays, and it's that we're missing key players

Game at Ibrox last year: No Tierney, No Edouard, Johnston at cf, Mcgregor at LB, Benkovic and Lustig both off at half time

Second Game at Ibrox: No Forrest, Christie or Boyata, Johnston at RWB, Oliver Burke and Hayes starting, a very unfit Rogic playing and Lustig off injured.

Sundays Game: Edouard on the bench for an hour, Elhamed, Bolingoli and Taylor missing, a very unfit Elyounoussi playing, an 18 year old a right back and a winger at left back, 10 men for half an hour and a winger at cf against two 6 foot 5 center backs.

Even our dominating 2-0 win early in the season didn't have our fully fit squad. I honestly believe if we had our full squad available we would pummel them.

 

I don't think that's the only reason. Its been evident for a wee while that if teams drag us into a scrap wee can be too easily knocked out our stride. I feared the worst yesterday when taking everything into consideration. I.e I knew they would be right up for it with their usual tactics against us of 4-5-1, harass, press, kick, then throw in the conditions, the team selection and knowing the ref would let them get away with murder. Thankfully and after peeking through my fingers the full game wee miracuosly came through it. But the display was atrocious and not for the first time against them. At a packed Paradise with us roaring the team on we are a different animal but I still worry we can be too easily bullied.

 

This all day long....Lenny has a track record of getting things horribly wrong .

As you say...had we lost that game it was on his head and his staff...got it so wrong.

 

Utter bullshit.

• He's won all 3 domestic trophies in the space of 8 months.
• We're currently top of the league with one loss from 15 games and are averaging over 3 goals a game
• We're top of our Europa Group and unbeaten having defeated Lazio home and away and achieved a record points total for a Scottish team in European competition
• In 13 European games this season we have only been beaten once, scoring 32 goals in the process

We were injury-ravaged, had no available match-fit strikers, no Elhamed, no available match-fit LBs...yet we still won the Cup.

Appreciate that reality without being negative about hypothetical failure. Other than Cluj Lennon has been more or less faultless in his 10 months since he returned.

3 Cups, Top of the league, Top of Europa League Group...or in other words a track record of getting things very right.

:lenny1:

 

Agreed. A half fit Elyounoussi and no striker made a huge difference in their favour.

 

Could add, a clearly unfit Ely, no striker and an out of sorts Forrest, that gave them the platform to build. Wont happen again.

 

I think not performing well on Sunday will probably work in our favour on the 29th.
We have seen before when we hammer them, it can lead to complacency from the players and fans.

 

He got is so wrong we won.

 

We'll be so far up for it it'll be unbelievable in a couple week's..

Cannot wait..

If anything they sound complacent from coaching staff to their support believing that we'll ever be as weak as that again and that that's a true reflection of both side's..

Imagine we had a fully fit Eddy and they had Ojo up front..

We'll do a number on them and completely end their league challenge. I've no doubts about it..

 

He did get it wrong. Lets not paper over the cracks, thats what huns do. Need to address the striker issue ASAP. And playing a clearly not fit Mo against them in that weather was also a terrible move.

 

Have to say I think there is an improvement in his management. Yeah he may not be as flairy as a Rodgers set up.

But, for the most part we've been solid as a unit and with the right additions assuming we can keep our best talent, we are probably no more than 2 signings away from being near unstoppable domestically.

What Sunday showed is we are * desperate for another Eddie, he changed the game completely on its head when he came on, if he was "fit" from the start, guys like Christie especially would have been bossing the game.