Are You Worried?

[Ric-Roc]

Official states HH and Ephriam available for Burnley and Smith was rested along with Tarbs for the Blackburn game.

Your turn!!

I hope you are right mate.

[brightonr]

Ric Roc,

This is my attempt to stop you worrying.

So many people seem to be getting twitchy and appearing to panic about the state of our squad. Some have even gone as far as to start criticising the board for not being prepared to spend enough money. I thought it might be useful to look at what we actually do have, rather than what we haven't.


Keeper - Cannot imagine anyone preferring any other keeper from this division over Paddy Kenny. With Cerny as a back up, I would say we are lucky.

Centre Backs - Usually they are pretty competent, if not necessarily the fastest. Granted, they have not been at their best for a while, but again, cannot find too many pairings from other clubs in this division I would rather have.

Full Backs - Whilst the loss of Walker is a blow, albeit no fault of anybody at Rangers, I seem to remember the vast majority of those on here who expressed their views, thought that Bradley Orr was about as good as we could get in this division. Clint Hill has been remarkably solid at left back although again not the quickest.

Midfield - From what I have seen, most of us are quite content with the performances of Derry and Faurlin. Wouldn't really want to change them for anyone, would we? We also have by far and away the most talented player in the league in Adel. Along with Smith, our new Norwegian and choices from Cook, Ephraim, Buszacky when fit, we are not exactly light compared to other teams in this league.

Strikers - Hmmm. Clearly the weakest part of our squad as is nearly always the case. Sadly, the formation that we tend to want to stick with, doesn't really lend itself to getting the best out of Rob Hulse. Personally I am not at all impressed with him regarding his finishing ability, but he does his job well other than that. Heidar has been exceptional this season in my view. What I do find rather impressive is that we have scored as many as we have despite the strikeforce being the "non-scoring" variety.

So, we are 5 points clear after 25 games. 21 to go, which do not look particularly daunting. Apart from a prolific goalscorer, we are at least as strong as and in the vast majority of cases, stronger than other sides in our league.

Any reason to panic? Not really. Somewhat worrying that Leon Clarke gets as much time on the grass as he does, but I feel we should give the manager the benefit of the doubt on this, for now at least.

I for one will continue to support the whole club, not just some parts of it. And continue to believe, despite what others may think, that we are far and away the best team in this league and will go up as Champions.