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00:00Hello and welcome to the latest episode of National World's FITBA Talk,
00:04your weekly lowdown on all things Celtic and Rangers related.
00:08And that came after Rangers 2-0 defeat at home to Hibernian,
00:14making it a fifth successive defeat at Ibrox for Barry Ferguson's men.
00:21Ben, I think best probably to kick off with Rangers, you were at the game
00:26covering for the Edinburgh Evening News from a hips perspective, but once again,
00:31Rangers, another dismal result and it doesn't exactly bode well heading into a massive
00:38Europa League quarterfinal first leg tie against Athletic Bilbao on Thursday, does it?
00:42No, I mean, but they've been here before, haven't they? It's just, again, this actually
00:47bizarrely made me more confident that they'll probably get a result against Athletic Bilbao
00:51on Saturday. But I think the worst thing you can say about Rangers from their perspective in these
00:57games is it's just total apathy. You've lost five games at home and you would expect, you know,
01:02fans booing. There was a bit of that at full time, but like you would expect it to be really
01:07hostile and really, really quite angry, you know, let's storm the place type stuff and protest.
01:15The place was half empty by about 75 minutes. People have just completely switched off from
01:19the domestic stuff. For me, I think it writes off Barry Ferguson's chances of getting the
01:24managerial job permanently. He's not done anything which Philippe Clement hasn't done,
01:30because as we've discussed all season, the issue for Rangers isn't beating Celtic. They've beaten
01:35them twice. They ran them very close in the Premier Sports Cup final and perhaps a refereeing
01:40decision away from that game being very different. They've managed to progress in the Europa League,
01:46but what they can't do is manage to beat the teams they should be beating comfortably.
01:52Even the games Barry Ferguson has won domestically, the Dundee game and the Kilmarnock
01:57game, they've had to do it in great escape fashion and conceding bucketload of goals.
02:01They can't seem to get ahead in games against these teams. And as soon as Hibbs went ahead,
02:07which again, that was the first time I've been at Ibrox a few times this season, and that's the
02:11first time I've felt that the crowd had quite turned on Jack Butland. A lot of shouts of basically
02:19get him off now because the ball just goes right through him. The last two games I've been there,
02:24the Mullow game and Hibbs game, there's been errors leading to goals for him. So a bit of
02:29pressure on his position, and Barry Ferguson said after the game he'd made a bad mistake and
02:34to expect changes for Thursday's game. But there's just a general apathy around the domestic games
02:39and five losses at home. Athletic Bilbao will be favourites, you'd imagine. If it goes to the
02:46form book anyway, it might be six. But I don't think you can actually read too much into Saturday's
02:52game when it goes into Thursday because they're so unpredictable. They seem to be able to get
02:56themselves up for these big games where they know we're going to put ourselves on the platform,
03:01I can maybe get myself a bigger move here, or I can make myself look good. When it comes to these
03:06type of games, the three o'clock ones, you should really be winning comfortably. They don't really
03:10look that interested. Yeah, that's an interesting point Barry Ferguson made after the game about
03:18potentially making a lot of changes between now and the end of the season. It'll be intriguing
03:24to see what changes he does exactly make heading into this Bilbao game. We're guaranteed that there
03:30will be two changes. Mohamed Diomande and John Souter are both suspended for Rangers heading
03:35into this one. Also the goalkeeping decision, does he stick with Jack Butland or does he risk
03:42playing Liam Kelly? That's a massive decision. Ben, I'll put you on the spot here. Do you think
03:49Barry Ferguson can sort out Rangers defensive woes with the current group of players he's got
03:55available? No, no. It has been sent a bit of a hospital pass in terms of what he's had to deal
04:01with. Now you're taking John Souter out of it, who for me is clearly the best defender of that
04:07group. I think if not for Vaclav Cerny, I could probably argue that maybe Rangers has played of
04:12the year this season as much as obviously that's maybe not too much of a prize you want in a season
04:17where you finish second and don't win a trophy. He's been impressive for Rangers this season.
04:22Dujuan Sterling was at centre-back. Again, I don't see what he offers at centre-half. His
04:28game has been physical and almost providing... On the other side on Saturday, on the right-hand
04:35side, you had Chris Cadden and Lewis Miller perhaps who, going forward, they're okay.
04:40Going back the way, they're okay, but they're good athletes and they'll get up and down the park
04:45all game. That kind of is Dujuan Sterling's game along with his versatility. It's totally
04:50negated at centre-back. All you had was Mikola Kukarevic, who was towering over him, giving him
04:56a bit of a difficult time in physical battles when John Suter was getting dragged elsewhere.
05:01I find it difficult to see how he comes into the defence again. I think there'll be two changes
05:08at centre-half. Leon Balligan, you would have to imagine, comes in. Again, the options are scarce.
05:15I mean, what do you do? Do you go back to the back three and play James Tavernier with Leon
05:18Balligan in the middle of that? It's not easy for Barry Ferguson. He just needs to find a way
05:25to out-shoot the other teams and just try and score more goals in them. I think it's almost
05:31a certainty at the minute that Rangers are going to concede over this tie, probably a few times.
05:36It's just a case of, can they score at the other end? Yeah, this is an athletic Bilbao team who
05:41currently sit fourth in the La Liga table, comfortably fourth as well, you've got to say
05:46as things stand. Score a lot of goals, also concede a lot of goals, Ben, but you look through
05:52their squad, it's predominantly all Spanish-born bred players, the likes of Unai Simone, they've
06:00got Owein Sansette, Ryunaki Williams and Nico Williams on either flank. Star quality all across
06:10this team. We've spoken a lot about Rangers' success on a Thursday night in the Europa League,
06:15but this athletic Bilbao team on paper certainly look a level above what Fenerbahce
06:23do. Do you think that's fair to say? Yeah, well, I think you don't want to get into the debate of
06:28what league is this and what league is that, but you would probably say the La Liga is a higher
06:33bar of opponent. That said, I was doing a bit this morning on the strongest teams across the
06:40continent and if you look over the last 15 games across the top 15 leagues in Europe,
06:46Fenerbahce sit eighth in that list, having won 11, drawn three and lost one of their domestic
06:53fixtures. So they were in really good form going into that game and Rangers, they did lose, of
07:00course, at the second leg at Ivoros, but they did enough in the first leg to allow them the chance
07:03to win on penalties. So, I mean, on that basis, they're not going to be playing a team that is,
07:09athletic Bilbao are still in good form, but not as good form as Fenerbahce were. But again,
07:14you would imagine that the level of player is going to be a bit higher. So I do think it's as
07:21difficult a task as they've faced. I think it's the most difficult. You would probably say that
07:27I know Lyon have had their difficulties this season, but that was an eye-opening test.
07:32Nice have been a decent side in recent years. They've dismantled Dame, Tottenham, Man United.
07:38They've had these type of tests and over the course of their time in the Europa League over
07:42the 2020s really, they've faced better teams, albeit, I think there's also been better Rangers
07:50teams. And so it goes back to that full thing that it's just so confusing. You would think
07:56that looking at both teams, the athletic Bilbao would walk this two or three nothing both legs,
08:02but there really is no way in Owen with this Rangers team. It just seems like for whatever
08:07reason they get on a plane or they hear that Europa League music and all of a sudden,
08:11they're the 1990s Rangers again. I don't get it. It's truly baffling.