It’s surely the end of the Ibrox road for summer signing

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It’s surely the end of the Ibrox road for summer signing


We’ll have a full analysis of our thoughts on the Europa League exit in due course, but it didn’t take Ally McCoist to confirm what we’ve been calling on here for months – Lassana Coulibaly’s become a complete shadow of what he was and isn’t the player we saw at the end of the July.

Why Steven Gerrard is continuing to select him is absolutely beyond us and against Rapid again he was invisible, lost, and had no effect on the match whatsoever. Coulibaly, that is.

We jest, Gerrard took this Rangers team far further in Europe than we could have dreamed – regardless of what happened in Austria it was a stunning journey with an incredible run of 11 matches unbeaten included. It was pretty incredible.

But why was Lassana Coulibaly selected for such a big match when his form has remained feeble at best, both domestically and on the European stage?

The Malian was, for a time, a big Ibrox Noise favourite – his destructive work in the middle was impressive and he allowed Ryan Jack, Ovie Ejaria and Scott Arfield to express themselves a bit more than they would otherwise – he took the flak off them.

But that injury v St Mirren has simply ended him – we cannot justify his place in the side at all. He’s a lovely guy, we can tell you that, but five months later and he has been an empty shirt and if Gerrard continues to select him, it will only hurt Rangers.

We cannot afford passengers, and unless Coulibaly has a remarkable turnaround in form before January, he is the absolute epitome of one now.

Maybe he has a stipulation in his contract where he must play a set amount of matches, which is not uncommon in loan deals – it’s the point of the loaning club to ensure their player gets minutes at their temporary club.

But it cannot be at the cost of the club who takes the player on. And right now Coulibaly’s presence in the first team is.

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17 COMMENTS

  1. We lost this in Russia not in vienna the whole team should be ashamed but hae ho let's get back to winning this weekend and that means every one given it all they have a lot to prove to the fans .

    • We came through 4 qualifying rounds, going 11 matches undefeated, and took qualification to the next round to the last 10 minutes of the 6th game of 6. What is there to be ashamed about? Sometimes I think some of our fans only started to support us in 2013. Don't they remember what happened to us in 2012? Don't they remember Whyte, Green, Ashley, Easdales, Pedro, Murty?

  2. Coulibaly should've been left in Glasgow with Egaria and Andy Halliday in pushing on from midfield,don't understand why we played with 3 defensive mids tonight when we needed to win, its time now to find the best 11 and play that team, stop this rotation pish,don't think we've played the same side all season…No Surrender…

    • I disagree slightly. I thought our midfield looked the most solid it has for quite some time.

      I would like to see us continue with a solid four (Arfield, Jack, Halliday, McCrorie) and get used to this before the Celtic game, where this setup will prevent them running over the top of us again. We lose a bit of creativity but lets face it we didn't have much in that department with a 4-3-3.

      That creativity must come from a free role for Middleton, or Grezda, who switch flanks often to support.

      Steve Davis slots in easily as its a similar setup to when he played with Ferguson, Mendes and Thomson.

  3. The team have far outdone European expectations at season start. Yet, some are calling for heads after a hard fought 1-0 loss at Vienna…you pituitary retards…lol! You would have sold your mother's heads to Satan at season start to have achieved this. Ranger's fans have got to be some of the most petulant ignoramuses in sport. Shame on you morons.

  4. Guys you got to groups stages in Europe which looked very unlike at start of season, you are closer in league than you have been in years.. To get long term success you need to stick with manager & group of players then just tinker ( change 1-2) each window. All this kick 7 out get next lot in rarely works & when it does it's a one off, in other words back to square one with 10 players out each window.. Build slowly, improving each window only way for long term success

    • Jeez, does it take one of them to talk some sense. Spot on Camden. We can't just wake up one day and decide we want to win the league. This season was, and should be, an exception because Gerrard needed to bring in a whole team and as such the transfer budget was thinly spread. From here it should be about spending our transfer budget on 2 quality players then add a couple of good Bosmans, a couple of quality loan players, and hopefully promoting a couple from the youths. That's how to build a successful team.

  5. Regardless of what went before we went out with a complete wimper! It was a cup final for both teams with a potentially massive reward for the winner. Really disappointing as I thought from the start of the match that we were there to snatch a goal instead of really going for it. We are so light weight probably just as well we didn't go through to face a potential hammering.

    • I dont agree. We were away from home to Rapid Vienna. OK they are not the greatest but how often did our very best teams win in places like that? We took it to the last 10 minutes of the 6th game of 6. That's a good effort by any standards. As for the tactics it's telling that we lost the goal at the point where we had just started to open up in the last 20 minutes and push for the win. Maybe if we had opened up from the start the game would've been over in 10 minutes. Seemed like sensible tactics to me and it's not as if we sat back and got pummelled in the first hour.

  6. Same old arguments same old results same old season and as long as King is there
    Next saeon will be the same for gods sake can some of you not see past your blue noses
    If king wont stump up then don't turn up
    King =No Trophies Trophies =No King

  7. I just don't understand how a young man can go from great, to 'empty jersey'. When we were young, we'd take worse injuries playing in the local park, with no shin-pads or anything. Get the legs taken off us and be back, the next week, like nothing happened. Us elders, like. Are this young generation just weaker, or what? I just don't get it. Young fellas, in their prime of life. How come Celtic doesn't seem to be as 'plagued' as we are, with injuries. What are they doing, we're not? As far as last night goes, we done ok, considering our current circumstances. Don't be too down, bears. We knew what happened to us, would take us years, to bounce back from.

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