However, Rangers lost a goal to an outstanding free kick drilled into the net by Nerijus Radzius just before the halftime whistle.  No substitutions were made at half time and the team seemed to be playing for the draw, while Kaunas, who played a similar cautious style to ours during the first half and first leg, stepped up a gear and kept pressing Rangers.  Their attitude paid off when Christian Dailly gave away a corner in the dying minutes and Pilibaitis netting from the cross making it 2-1.  Smith made a substitutions a minute before the end with Lafferty and Boyd coming on and the team reverted to a “punt it up the park and hope for the best” while the minutes ticked down.

Supporters representatives met the Ibrox management on Friday for discussions on the teams performances and signings, especially the lack of them in the midfield.  The management assured the delegates that the club were activley looking to bolster the squad in the midfield, where we are clearly lacking in a creative force with Barry Ferguson out with a long term injury.

The newspapers this week have been the usual doom and gloom - themes following the Kaunas defeat include scare stories of top player Carlos Cuellar leaving for a variety of premiership clubs, “mass cull” of players and virtually every reporter writing the team off before the league had even kicked a ball.  Their intentional and misinformed reporting is infecting the Rangers support and for many, they are their only source for information on their club.

Smith has assured the club in a BBC interview that no offers have been made for Cuellar, and that he is not interested in selling him.  Doing so would do nothing but fan the flames of unhappiness amongst fans of Rangers, who are quickly losing patience with the manager.  However, despite this interview, the Saturday rags were back doing what they do best; stirring up the Cuellar saga again.  It makes you wonder why fans of both sides of the Old Firm hate the Sun and the Daily Record.

Moving onto the weekend, the SPL season kicked off today with an away tie to Falkirk.  Rangers played well enough to secure a 1-0 victory, but the mounting injury list is apparent, no Barry Ferguson, Carlos Cuellar, Nacho Novo or Kenny Miller to name just a few who are currently out with knocks ranging from a few days to a few months.

After a scrappy game with only one goal seperating the teams, new boys Lafferty and Bougherra gave impressive displays, and the other player making his Rangers debut, Velicka, netted the only goal of the game.  A notable performance from Kirk Broadfoot showed he can perform, lets hope he can find some consistency over the coming weeks.

Falkirk were awarded a penalty in the game, McGregor saved it with ease - earlier in the match he looked as rusty as he was against Kaunas but the penalty save seemed to give him the confidence he needed, and continued to play solidly for the rest of the match.

It was good to see Smith revert to a 4-4-2 formation, though weather this is due to the lack of players who can fill midfield roles, or pressure mounted on him after the midweek tie at Kaunas is anyones guess.  It worked, and I hope Smith does not decide to drop this tactic against Hearts next week at Ibrox if Miller is back in contention for a place in the squad.

Other good news this week:  Barry Ferguson’s ankle operation was a complete success and he will be back in action by November.

Other news - we would like to say congratulations to Jasonsco who was asked to join the moderating team, in a similar role to billyboys but in the media and gaming and tech areas. Shortly after he decided to start up our very first signature contest, which is underway now.

New site look - as previously mentioned the site redesign is well underway and the main site will be online tomorrow night with its new look - which if youre too lazy to read further down this page, is pretty similar to this blog. We will have some other surprises over the next week or so, so stay tuned for them.

TheQueensXI

Still in: Italy montecristo, Spain Spray, Netherlands Glasgow/gary/rangers, Sweden Kendo, Croatia rfc1983, Russia The_Lion_Roars, Germany madman, Portugal steve, Turkey Aesthetic Relic

TheQueensXI

So any bugs or things to be reported, then drop me a pm and let me know. Big thank you to blue-c for working on the wordpress theme with me and making it work like it should Id still be looking at it aimlessly otherwise.

Im also working on a new layout for the forum too, to keep it in the same look as the main site, but you will still be able to choose whatever skin you prefer. I just thought id try and make things look kind of the same and see how they end up. We are looking into having our Articles posted into this blog too, so if you wish to add something to this blog then log in and fire away! And no it doesnt have to be about football. So keep eyes peeled for random drunken rants and things. You know what im like.

TheQueensXI

managed to break the back of my phone, how careless can you get. cant believe i was so silly. bit fed up today cant seem to get anything right, really really need to get a new job and fast,

on a good note jessica made a beautiful cake today cant wait to try it.

but like any true rangers fan i am resilient and always look forward to the next game. Yesterday is dead and gone and we pick ourselves up dust ourselves off and look forward to the next game.

boy is the next one a biggie.Going to Ibrox to see the Stuttgart game and i look forward to it. we can and will do better and we have to show that we deserve to be in Europe cos

WATP