ascender

Just got an email to say the Rangers News will be out on Friday this week, so I'm assuming that will be to cover Walter's appointment.

Exactly. Why would he head straight to MP if no deal had been done?

 

Only one person missing in the management team now - Stuart McCall.

Is McCall still being linked? I got the impression that the coach we signed from Celtic was going to be the mystery third man.

I was wondering. Who would take Hartley given that he reputadley called the Rangers fans "Orange bastards"?

When this came up a while back he denied it. Besides, having seen lots of fans discussing this on other forums, I find it slightly hypocritical of them to slag the guy off for this one comment he allegedly made 10 years ago given some of the other things these guys have then posted on other threads.

Is he better than what we've got just now? Yes.

Would he give 100% for us? Yes.

I'd sign him. That's all that matters for me, but maybe I'm being very naive.

Tomorrow's first rumour is that J-Rod will be off to Marseille in the next few days.... for a fee!

Also, reports of the club doctor being sacked for apparently celebrating when PLG left and for being too close to Fergie. Anyone heard more about this?

Someone has said that McCoist has now been confirmed as assistant manager but helpfully hasn't posted their source or link. I hope that means he'll be on the training pitch in the morning and trying to get signings sorted tomorrow afternoon.

If McCoist isn't under contract to the SFA then my priority would be to get him to start attending training sessions asap. I'm sure he and Walter have a fair idea of who will stay and who will go, but they might want to work with them before making any final decisions.

At the same time, I'd hope that DM has been working on getting some new players in as they're bound to have identified some players they would like to sign.

An experienced, international centre half or battling midfielder for me.

The other thing about Craig Gordon is that every Jambo I speak to says that the lad will end up in the Premiership at Arsenal or one of the other top clubs. But at the moment, Arsenal are indeed the only top 5 or so clubs who could maybe be looking to replace their keeper in the near future. The others have got established number ones and some promising young players too. So maybe Gordon doesn't have as many options down there as the Jambos would like to think.

Just thought about this and I'm sure its been mentioned, but since when did the players get so powerful? The diet side of things is more difficult to police obviously, but we're hearing that they weren't pulling their weight in training.

Simple answer to that. Give them a warning. Then fine them. Then stick them on the transfer list. Or are we supposed to believe that PLG just let them do whatever they liked for 7 months.

I'm confused.

Lack of homework can't be used as an excuse as the guy had 6 months or so to get ready for pre-season and was being sent DVDs of all our matches.

The problem might be that we can't afford to get rid of Buffel. Not from a monetary point of view, but our squad is looking pretty threadbare at the moment. We just don't have enough strength in depth and we're all agreed that we could probably replace most of our first XI at the moment and not be any worse off. I guess until we know who Smith rates and how much money we've got, its all one big guessing game.

The Gordon thing would actually make sense if you look back at the way Smith managed - we always had a keeper as the basis of his team, someone who would be here for a long time and was an established number 1 at club and international level. I just don't think Gordon would want to come here and Romanov certainly wouldn't sell to us.

The Sun have got it, apparently a 3M bid. I'm assuming this is just a lucky guess on the back of Hearts signing another keeper. Vladimir Romanov won't sell to Rangers, so I think this is another non-story.

Thing is though, even I know that drinking and training don't really go together and I'm anything but an athlete. If I start training for a marathon, the drinking goes out the window apart from the odd one here and there. Its not rocket science and if I know what the benefits are, then you can bet that professional footballers and coaches know the pros and cons. The Scottish players have also been getting slated for their diets - again, its basic stuff. No wonder PLG was pissed off with them.

These guys are supposed to be professional footballers ffs. They're getting paid a ridiculous amount of cash and have a short career ahead of them. How fucking stupid are they exactly?

He's certainly a no-nonsense defender who could sort out the back line. But who knows what rumours are true. According to the Sun, we've put in a bid for Craig Gordon.

Silly season is upon us.

This was mentioned yesterday and a few people in the media have already said that the quotes might not be accurate as they believe their agent wants to get the pair of them to move to Celtic asap for the cash more than anything else.

Evening Times seems to confirm this news and says we're more interested in Hartley and Quashie who should be available for much less than Hibs want for their pair.

Short term on one hand.

More proven & reliable talent on the other.

Assuming its true obviously.

Good post Frankie and I'm glad to see the Trust taking this up with DM as the way we've all been left hanging with no official word on what's happened is disgraceful.

I too think that Walter will need at least 5M now in addition to any money made by selling, if he's to have any hope of making second place comfortably. As for the end of the season, another 5M at least would be needed IMO.

As well as the difficulty of getting rid of players who are in contract at the moment, we have the added problem of replacing them with only 3 weeks or so left to do it. I know that sounds like a long time, but we're not the only club interested in certain players and some clubs like Hearts will do anything to make our life difficult as they just don't want to sell to us.

I'm sure some arrangement will be got to, but its just frustrating that we're losing more time while the SFA are trying to score cheap PR points.

I guess this is the SFA playing hard ball so they can say to their fans that they didn't want Smith to go and wouldn't let him go. Maybe they should have thought about that when they only game him a short term contract with numerous get-out clauses in it.

On the radio that Celtic are now the clear favourites to sign both players in a deal which will involve cash and players going the other way.

I really get the feeling that every hour which passes without a manager in place means our chances of making the signings we need are lessening.

Looks like he'll have to resign then?

I think Celtic have typified the problem we have. I said it in another thread, but over the last 4 years or so, while I wouldn't necessarily want many of their players in our team, I would want their team spirit and fight. They've got that by the bucket-load which is why when they're a goal or two down they never give up. I think that's the key to their success at the moment.

Celtic have been reliant on team spirit and a core of experienced players for the last 4 years or so I think. During that time there's not been many players I'd look at and wish they were playing for us. But MON and now Strachan has had them playing as a team which has made all the difference. MON also realised that in the SPL, if things aren't going well, just resort to the long ball game. That's why Celtic signed a couple of big guys at the back and the front. Hardly a genius bit of management, but its worked for them.

I still think Celtic are average at the moment, but with the money coming in from CL each year and their willingness to reinvest, I think they could stretch the gap even more between us and them on the pitch. This transfer window is vital for us. Leaving team rebuilding until the summer is simply not going to work, we need to have a core of a team in place now so that we can hit the ground running next season.

I think most are agreed that the current Celtic team are nothing special, which makes the league positions an even more depressing situation for us. My worry is that Celtic are spending more than us just now while DM seems determined to remain debt free if possible. It looks like Celtic have a healthy attitude to spending to accumulate.

However, they are now guaranteed CL footy again next season, which, added to this season's revenue means that they are going to have significantly more money available for transfers and wages yet again next year. They've also made a very prudent signing in Nakamura which does help their global branding in what is a very lucrative market.

I'm starting to see the off-the-pitch gap between us and Celtic widen which I think is very worrying. They've shown that while we don't get huge amounts of TV money, it is still possible to spend decent sums on transfer fees for players. They've also shown that they're looking to strengthen their squad with Scottish players at any opportunity and I really worry that we're in danger of behind here.

DM is many things, but he's certainly not stupid. However, he has now backed 2 managers with hardly any funds when compared with Celtic. I thought the whole point of downsizing was to get to a point where you can then start spending money again but within your means? The wage budget was under control well over a year ago, but we've still seen no significant re-investment in our playing staff.

Whatever happened to the rolling £10M credit that DM said would always be available to the manager? Because looking at the current squad, that is exactly the sort of money that must be made available to Walter Smith if he has any hope of moving us forward.