ascender

Great work Frankie.

No rush for the lad to go anywhere surely? Even a club in the EPL signing him would probably be better off signing him then loaning him straight back to us although that kind of thing seems to be more commonplace in Europe than here.

Boyd may not have been banging them in recently, but I think his overall game has improved again, he's consistently winning much more in the air than ever before and his general linkup play has looked good as well. We've been winning, so why change things? Also, the goal from open play thing is a bit disingenuous, its not as if when you win a penalty, you automatically get a goal. Its a big relief to have someone like Boyd there to take penalties as his record is so good. The rest of the stuff that's argued against Boyd has been debated to death on here in the past. He's a player I think we should be looking to keep, but I can totally understand why he may want to move on and most fans would wish him all the best I think. He won't be easy to replace, but we do have a few strikers in the squad at the moment and maybe guys like Naismith would benefit from a run in the team in their natural position as part of a settled partnership.

Just wondering if this is still the case or not. TBH I can't remember it being referenced much this season but it was certainly the case at some point last season. Cheers, Mike.

In principle, I definitely would, but we need more information and I'm very sceptical as to how it would work tbh.

More good news

I'm assuming any takeover would be based on the party(ies) becoming majority shareholders, so is it a big deal if Murray retains some shares? There's so much rumour going round that I'm just waiting to see what happens. We don't know any of the details of the bid, so just need to play the waiting game. Everything's going well on the pitch, that's the main thing, can't ask for any more

It was a tough game for Little to come in to though and at times he was playing out wide instead of through the middle. i think there's some good games for the younger guys to play in at first, but I guess we don't have that luxury just now. Wilson is different because he's playing alongside Weir whose influence shouldn't be under-estimated.

Something about the place? Or the fans? Or the media? Loads of excuses from him though and not much dignity. I used to really enjoy Strachan as a pundit and his interviews as a manager, but I thought he turned in to a right miserable sob when managing Celtic.

That's good news indeed

We do seem to struggle at Tynie but hopefully we'll have a few players back who are rested and out to prove a point after going out of the cup.

The strangest thing for me was that Mowbray couldn't get his defence sorted out. That seemed to be half his problem with Celtic. Consensus from every job he's had seems to be top bloke, poor manager.

Not sure how you took my post as criticism of Walter Calscot? I was trying to explain why I thought we'd lose and my ambivalence about it all as much as anything. Last night I saw Naismith playing in a few positions in midfield; Little a striker, playing wide on the right; Beasley through the middle; Fleck out wide left; Lafferty out wide left etc. But like you say, it was due to a lack of senior, fit players, I never had a go at Smith and I think its right he's concentrating on the league.

As soon as I sat down to watch the game last night and saw the lineups I expected us to lose. I didn't see anything in the following 90 minutes which changed my mind either. We just seemed to be setup awkwardly with quite a few players playing out of their normal position and when a few of those were youngsters, they seemed to struggle. Our midfield was pretty non-existent and it was disappointing to see so little of Edu as I've been very impressed with him this season despite not playing much. Last night was one of those games where if we'd controlled the midfield, we could well have ground out a result, but United just over-ran us and could have taken a few goals off us at least. Our defence was its usual reliable self, but was left exposed, so its not surprising we conceded in the end. Strange thing is that I'm not even too bothered by the result. Not sure if that's because I didn't expect us to win, or because we had our chance to beat them in the first game or maybe because with the state we're in, it really is all about the SPL this season and anything else is a bonus.

That surprised me too Ally, particularly when quite a few people who are supposedly in the know said there were definitely others involved.

Thanks N_L, much appreciated that you've actually taken the effort to do this and post it online.

I'd like to see him going out on a high, being captain of a treble winning side should do Or maybe give him another year, but on the understanding that he's going to be used sparingly as cover, might suit him with his family being down south still. Wilson should be our first choice, possibly alongside Webster if Boogie leaves?

What is strange is that talks have obviously been ongoing for a bit and it didn't leak out. What's happened to all of the sources inside Ibrox who were drip-feeding rumors for the last while? As far as this bid goes, I think its a bit premature to jump to conclusions about Ellis on what he's done in the past. We don't know anything at all about his bid or the potential other people involved. Besides, if the QPR thing fell apart due to fan pressure, I'm sure at some point in all of this someone would have made him aware of just how passionate our support can be and our numbers. At least something is happening and the main thing is that Walter has managed to deliver success on the park while all this down-sizing has been going on. If we go on to win the league and are taken over, Celtic will be absolutely kicking themselves for the missed opportunity they've had to gain the upper hand while we're at our weakest. If someone does buy us shortly, the future is surely looking bright. We've got a much reduced wage bill, less debt that we've had for a while, a mix of youth & experience in the team as well as possible CL football next season. With even modest funds available, our manager could be in a very strong position next year. Mike.

Encouraging news indeed.

But there you go, that's part of the problem. Murray has been adamant in the past that he'll only sell to people who he thinks have the best interests of the club at heart and have money to actually invest in the playing side. I've been wondering for a while, is a debt-free & well-run Rangers a reasonable business prospect as far as football clubs go? If so, maybe that will mean we attract the interest of some non-supporters. Mike

Traynor seems to think there's something in the offing, but I seem to remember he said something similar about 6 months ago.

From the official site:

More smoke and mirrors? Who knows. Main thing is we're playing well on the pitch and are making progress off it, so we just have to be patient I guess.

Hutchison was also a cracking player in the first couple of versions of Championship Manager on the Amiga all those years ago.

* puts cork back in champagne * I thought this was going to be about Mr Lafferty. What have we told you before Jimbo about using mis-leading thread titles! Smith leaves to take Falkirk job! Alex Smith that is. etc.