Monday, 1 October 2018

Rangers desperately miss AWOL summer signing

If one thing has stood out since early August, it is that Rangers have desperately missed Lassana Coulibaly’s energy and graft in the middle.

Ever since that injury v St Mirren ruled the Malian international out for a lengthy spell, Rangers have missed his physical presence and mobility in midfield.

The twist, unfortunately, is that despite his return, he is still nowhere near the player he was pre-injury.

He seems less mobile, less hard-working, and a little less sure of himself – and this loss of energy is striking. He did appear to have his zest back v Dundee, but since then, the guile and punch in the middle which punctuated his late July and early August seems to have faded worryingly and after becoming such a huge and integral part of the side, his impact on midfield since his return appears to have significantly diminished.

Before we go on, he is absolutely one of our favourite players, and we love the guy to pieces, backing him to get his spunk back.

But right now sadly he is a shadow of what he was, and the fact Livi’s Menga got so much joy physically in deeper midfield was a massive indictment of how Coulibaly’s own physical presence and impact has worryingly lessened.

We do hope it’s nothing more than lacking match fitness, but it was one of the few things Steven Gerrard got right yesterday in hooking the on-loan Angers man off for Ryan Kent.

Come back Lassana, we miss you!


  1. Sometimes I think Rangers are cursed, by malevolent leprechauns, the luck we have?? I have a cure for luck-lustre performances. it's called the bench, or sold. Same thing with Lafferty last season, at Hearts. Banging them in for fun. Comes to Rangers, it's patch and go, now. How long are the Alfredo faithful, going to see that he is definitely NOT, worth 33k a week. A striker that can only hit the net 50% of the time, is not, what Rangers 'needs' right now. Get it sold, in Jan. Sick of the injuries, as well. Seems to me, yesterday was a case of "oh, it's a plastic pitch, let's just all go to sleep today." One of the reasons Fergie/Clough were so successful, was they were not shy to boot arses, when need be. I hope SG, doesn't go down the Murty path, of wrapping them up in cotton wool and never telling them, they were s***e. They need telling, simples! No creativity and abject cowardice, in the final third. Midfielders not pushing up into the box, for crosses, rubbish crosses. Let Dorrans take corners from now, ffs. Livi deserved their win. If we had some of that diehard spirit, we'd be better off. Pure s***e display. Sabotaged our season, with their heartlessness. We need a Gazza, not a Buffalo.

    1. Hi Joe, we have some ratings coming up at lunchtime and we too call Lafferty as you have.

  2. I feel like halliday and katic were missed masivly yesterday halliday has been fantastic under Gerrard and gives everything that was missed in the middle of the park. Katic would have dealt with menga with ease as he loves the physical battles

  3. Coulibaly does not look 100% fit.

  4. Feck! Now we are missing Halliday. The world has gone mad, or at the least the blue section has.

  5. The whole team had the wrong attitude, approach and application. We lost because a very poor side tried hard - that is deeply worrying, as is 2/12 away points. Our biggest problem was a total lack of intensity and quality caused by slow passing on a pitch that favours a far quicker and direct game.

    The elephant in the room is Europe, clearly we are struggling to juggle the two competitions - something that many pundits predicted.

    Gerrard needs to learn fast that Europe is a side show and a bonus, domestic success is the only game in town. He has has a lot of praise but our domestic away form is simply not good enough- think of abuse previous managers have had for less.

    Fielding weakened or rotated teams always sends out the wrong signal to both our players and opponents. This simply can't happen again. Also why has Grezda not been give more game time as he was signed to be the man to unlock defences - exactly what we needed on Sunday.

    Ps. Whoever threw that coin is a disgrace not only to Rangers but the human species. As are those who know his identity but keep quiet. It's time for decent rangers fans to take a stand against the idiots who give us all a bad name.

  6. We need to remember players are being left out of the team to make way for onloan players from Liverpool. Our own players on contracts are left behind to make way for them. Hence Halliday and others not playing from the start or being on the bench but the Liverpol players get on from the start or are on the bench but get brought on before one of our own.So dont tell me that Stevie is playing them because they are better watch the next number of games you wont see any of those onloan players being dropped and out of the team completely

  7. The Whole Team was Pish
    ...Simple as.

    Stevie G got it Wrong
    ...End of

    We March On! 🔴⚪⭕

