Just to answer your question.

1) Rangers do not EXPECT to beat Lyon at Ibrox. Far from it…I think we’d be happy with a draw to be honest.

2) That wasn’t the comment I called arrogant, it was the one that said ‘if Rangers can draw with Barca we can surely beat them. Now, that IS arrogance at it suggests Rangers achiving a draw means Lyon should surely win ergo Lyon are better than the team that beat them 3-0 at home. It could be considered ‘confidence’ were it not for this small fact.

Inara, well….if you know who’s best without them playing then you must be some football analyst indeed. Here’s a thought…by your logic, better teams can be beaten by inferior teams 100% of the time they play them…so er how are they better? Is it simply a case of ‘they just are’…I just tend to think the BEST team tends to be the winners unless a clearly wrong decision has been made within the game by the referee.

Scottish teams do not play the same as French….possession means little to us…scoring goals however does. You seem to favour possession and believe it somehow translates automatically to goals…stats say that just ain’t the case a lot of the time. Perhaps it’s just a different psyche we have but maybe Scottish teams would gain more possession if it gave you points and wins…it doesn’t so they concentrate on goals instead.

P.S I don’t believe the Scottish league is as strong as the French but do think there’s not really such a great gap anymore.

As for Lyon, I’m sure they’ll still be favourites at Ibrox and I see you are getting some players back – shame that goalie isn’t gonna play again.
Should you win and qualify then I wish you well – we had no expectations in this group and bar a disaster we should make the UEFA cup which is better than most anticipated. Should we qualify then that will be a cause of great celebration.
That’s humility for you but you probably see it as us only recognising our place…guess we’re different in more ways than one.

In any case, as I said, we Lyon fans may sound arrogant, but it’s really just confidence. Arrogant would be saying that Lyon will thrash Rangers 3-0 at Ibrox. Confidence is just saying that Lyon can get a good result there if they play well.

Read my first line where I mentioned the ‘great comments’ from Lyon fans.

It was the ‘arrogant’ ones I was addressing.

I suppose there’s nothing inherently wrong in being arrogant but it does tend to bite you back when things do not go as planned.

As for judging teams and deciding who is better: well, if they do not play in the same league and only meet each other twice in competition with one ultimately winning then surely that team is ‘better’?

How else can you judge, do we award points now for possession?

Perhaps as a member of the G14 clubs Lyon will push for this or maybe even technical merit marks?

Till then it’s just the old-fashioned way of who puts the ball in the other’s net the most to seperate winners and losers, good teams from not so good….

Simple really but as you say, this is a Lyon blog so I’ll leave you in peace.

The reason I brought up Milan is because they almost always manage to get results, and for them, poor form is always temporary. At one point last season they were floundering domestically, but they managed to get over that, make up the points they lost because of the Calciopoli deduction, and also win the Champions League on the side.

If Rangers can keep their momentum going, can make it through the knockout rounds not just this year but year after year, then I think a very strong case can be made for them to be considered a strong European team.

As a Lyon fan, I don’t hold any illusions about the greatness of my team because on the European stage, we haven’t won anything despite having a dogged consistency. For the past several years, we always won our groups despite having clubs like Manchester United, Real Madrid, and Bayern Munich in them, but midway through the competition either bad luck or crap playing happens. So we have a lot to prove, and I’m sure this year’s performances only negate whatever progress we made on the European scene.

Rangers are probably in better form at this moment. But current form isn’t always a good judge because take a look at Milan, who lost to Celtic, scraped a win against Benfica at home, and are currently midtable in Serie A, yet that says nothing about the quality of their team.

Even head to head records make me wary. Scotland beat France twice, but that doesn’t mean that they are level on quality. Brazil loses to Mexico nine times out of ten, yet Mexico isn’t a better team than Brazil. Sometimes it’s a style of play that is difficult for a team to overcome. In Lyon’s case, they struggle against defensive sides and haven’t yet found the solution in getting past it. Same with Barca, who also had trouble breaking down Scottish defense.