ascender

When McCulloch joined, I was actually quite pleased about his long range shooting as its something we'd missed for a few years. Which is a strange thing to say, but really, I think we went through a good 3 or 4 seasons without anyone who'd regularly try their luck from outside the box. I thought Thomson came on to a game as time went on yesterday, but Bougherra was excellent throughout so I think he'd get my MOM with a special mention for Whittaker who again showed that he's one of most comfortable on-the-ball players we have a the club just now. I definitely think we should be starting with Novo against Celtic and just get right in about them from the off. He did well again yesterday and lifted the tempo of the game. Mike.

Thanks Frankie, good to hear how it went. Mike.

Loads of postings as well saying the refs are doing all they can to hand the title to us which is just mental. I still think they only have themselves to blame. Strachan was doing a good job for them but they just weren't happy with him, apparently for the style of football he played. Now they have their ideal man, someone who allegedly plays free-flowing, attacking football, but who seems to struggle actually getting results. I wish they'd make their minds up. I was delighted when Strachan left tbh, in the same was as I'll be gutted when Mowbray jacks it in. Mike. Mike.

So I didn't dream it or miss it when I was trying to round up the children (my own children I should point out. From the back-garden, not in my child-catching wagon.), but I never saw a single frame of footage about the protest yesterday. I've seen postings after the game from people asking if the protest actually happened, so how was it from those who were there?

That's what I don't understand rbr. Its as if a statement was released to the media outlets of the world with precision-timing, with the sole goal of disrupting a protest by bringing some new, earth-shattering evidence to light. It was a posting on the internet. Just one bloke's opinion. This posting happened to not agree with what a certain bunch of people felt. It didn't slag them off, slag their ideals off or slag their mothers' off. Meanwhile, a thread about the piece, which I thought raised some good points, has been totally derailed in to what seems like a petty slanging match. Gersnet has changed a lot over the last 12-18 months. Mike.

OF game or not, WS should have a word with him or fine him for that booking, just f*cking stupid and totally needless. Mike.

Not sure if anyone saw Charlie Brooker's Newswipe a few weeks back, but there was a piece in it about how the press in the UK love to use un-named "sources" in stories. This leaves the reporters open to being manipulated by the source to suit their own agenda and when the facts come out, there's no-one to be found. Some of the facts of what's going on at Ibrox just now are out there in the form of our financial figures. You then have clear statements by some of those involved like Lloyds, who chose to state the Muir was not their man. We also have some words from WS, which were clearly designed to throw the cat in amongst the pigeons so to speak, but without actually telling us anything specific. Then, we have the "sources" who are feeding information to people who post on internet forums. These sources seem to be connected with various people connected with the club, the bank or potential buyers. The information they release is dissected in great detail online, but usually there's a pretty quick reaction posted to it, either agreeing or disagreeing with the sentiment/facts. Pretty soon, the original poster is being lauded as the absolute bringer of truth & justice, or the assembled mob are scrambling for their pitchforks. Quite a few things are worrying about this, but seeing as its being discussed on forums, we shouldn't be surprised with how its playing out. Firstly, who is deciding that one source of information is to be trusted in what they're telling us? Regardless of previous form, a couple of sources have said that we shouldn't believe all we hear, as there's a lot of mis-information being spread, on purpose. So what do we believe? All of it? Some of it? None of it? Or none of it from certain posters, but some of it from others? Take the article by Boss for example. On some other forums, its dismissed out of hand, straight away, as being anti-Rangers, trying to divide the support and a load of old tosh. On what basis can anyone say that for sure? Its great to see the support getting united and vocal about something at long last, but we also need to be careful that we're not backing the wrong horse so to speak. There seems to be a groundswell of opinion which praises anything that backs up the current party line that Muir & Lloyds are "the enemy within". Anything else is dismissed out of hand. There's some points in the article by Boss that would appear to directly contradict what was generally held as "fact" about what would happen during the January transfer window for example. Not to mention the other postings made over the last couple of months promising that something was going to happen within x number of days/weeks, only to be met with deadly silence and a confused look when nothing at all happened. Redford was right, it should just be treated as another "opinion piece", but so should all the other articles by journos and forum-posters alike until someone, somewhere, has the courage of their convictions and puts a name that actually means something to one of these "sources". I'm at the point where I genuinely have no idea what the hell is going on or who to believe. Don't get me wrong, I think the situation is being handled terribly from the side of our board and Lloyds, although I firmly believe its our directors' responsibility to be speaking to the fans, not the bank. I just think we're being all too happy to be lead up whatever garden path suits our mood and that our "no-one like us, we don't care" attitude has the potential to cloud things for us. Sorry, just another opinion piece to add to the pile

Ya f*ckin' dancer

I like the title of this thread.....

I guess whatever the situation Lloyds will want as much money back as possible and by getting that, the club will be more attractive to potential buyers. But there will be a tipping point, where the advantage of a smaller debt will outweigh the chances of success on the pitch (following asset stripping) and that's when the club will surely become more difficult to sell as any future owners will have to spend even more money rebuilding it. Does that make sense?!?! Mike.

No idea. But that's just it, none of us know for sure as there's so much contradicting information coming out, hardly any of it official. Muir isn't God, but I'm assuming he was hired for his experience in this sort of situation. I'm just assuming that he will be reporting back to Lloyds and the board to confirm they are meeting targets as agreed with the bank. As for him not being at MIH, there could be loads of reasons for that. SDM has allegedly been keen to sell for a while now and unlike MIH which is reportedly in massive trouble, Rangers could be seen as a potentially profitable entity with very small debts compared to MIH. The 1M a year thing is widely reported, yet I'd have thought we would easily be able to make that repayment with the savings we've already made, so why cut the squad further? Is this because the 1M a year thing is absolute bollocks and Lloyds want it cleared quicker? Or is it bollocks that the squad will be cut futher? We have one story today saying that we turned down an offer of 5M for Bougherra which would suggest things aren't as bad as we thought. Nearly every party involved in this who has made a statement of some sort, seems to be contradicting a story/rumor released by someone else, so who knows what the hell is going on. Mike.

Good to see a statement asking Johnston what's going on, I think he's the guy we should be focused on getting information from. Mike.

From the information available to us, Muir is on the board to oversee "turning things around", which is what he's done in his career. He appears to come in to companies who are struggling big-time and making them profitable (again). He appears to be fairly successful at this, but he's going to be doing it with methods he has used for any business which is going to cause waves at a football club. Can his role be in any doubt given this is what he does for a living? I don't think so. His exact methods and who he ultimately reports to may be thought. I guess he will have some sort of plan in place for the next few years with targets to hit financially. These may be determined by Lloyds - we've heard that they want 1M a year in loan repayments for example. Or these may also be determined by the board in terms of bettering that 1M a year as well as making the club a more sellable asset. Lloyds have come out and said Muir isn't their man and that they are not involved in the day-to-day running of the club, so maybe they think they've said enough on the subject which is why they've been so quiet. Its probably also a case of semantics. If they have agreed the 1M a year repayment and we've shown them how we aim to make those payments then maybe that's it - if we keep to the repayment plan, with regular reviews, then they're happy. Unfortunately, part of this long-term business plan may be to downsize further, to pay off the debt more aggressively, I'm guessing this is what WS is concerned about and has alluded to. This is all supposition and complete guesswork, but I agree that targeting Muir might not be the "right" thing to do in terms of getting us information. Maybe the current chairman would be a better person to target, trying to get him to make a statement to clarify exactly what's been going on? There's lots of directly conflicting reports and rumours coming out via sources on forums and in the media. As fans, we seem to be very selective in lending credence to particular snippets, possibly if they fit our agenda. We just don't know which ones are 100% accurate. I guess this all comes back to the fact that we're all hurting, we're all concerned about what's going on behind the scenes, but I think we need to take a step back and be wary of "going off on one" and pursuing the wrong individual here when we don't know what's really going on. It could be a waste of time & resources, not to mention it might not do us any favours when we're talking about hounding Muir personally. Just playing Devil's advocate here. There's been a lot of posts & threads on here recently which have become derailed for reasons we can all see, but I think because of that, some users can't post anything now without it being dismissed, when in fact they do have a valid point. * awaits flaming * Mike.

TBH I think its as much for the other rumours and headlines that have been following him around recently. I like the way Capello has dealt with it though, no messing around at all. Mike.

Yip, that was a Murray purchase.

Nothing would please me more to see all our fans united in a common cause. And as I said yesterday, I think its brilliant that people are taking a lead and actually doing something about it instead of just debating it. But what proof do we have that the bank are being difficult to deal with other than rumors? WS has said the situation is very perilous, but beyond that, we've nothing else to go on just now. If things are that bad, then its time for someone to stand up and let the fans know what the hell is going on. Mike.

To kick things off amongst our wider support, we need someone within the club (a director?) or someone fronting an interested consortium to come out and make a very public statement which will give us something to galvanise our efforts behind. Even Walter's comments are too obtuse to give us anything concrete to go on. Mike.

Main problem is that no-one from any side involved here has made an official statement, so no-one actually knows what's going on, other than the rumors we've been reading from "sources". Does that not make it a bit difficult to organise a protest just now? Mike.

This was posted on FF by SCGERS this morning. If this is all true, why aren't the media all over the story? Surely stuff like this would get to a much wider audience by being published in all the papers instead of being leaked to an internet forum?

The bank will naturally, want to get as much money back for the debt. Its been said that Muir has been tasked with this and will obviously be on some sort of structured pay/bonus depending on the final figure. So you have those two entities who want to get the max price from any potential bidder. People looking to buy the club, obviously want to get value for money, which is in direct conflict to the above. So that's why you're not going to get a quick sale, not to mention the fact that the "sources" have also said the books are very complex due to the relationship with MIH and its various companies. We do still have assets though in terms of players, the stadium, Auchenhowie etc. So that's another reason why the bank won't be in a rush to sell. Come the summer, they could force us to sell some more players or even Auchenhowie, both would generate some instant income and with the economy slowly recovering, I guess anything to do with land is likely to appreciate the longer we wait. Who knows, I'm way out of my depth now, but the lack of actual information from both sides is annoying and worrying. Mike.

I don't think they're under any obligation whatsoever and I'm sure there's good reasons for both sides keeping quiet and playing their cards close to their respective chests. Its very worrying to hear WS talking like this. TBH I'm more disappointed that even with this sort of headline and the worrying news coming out of Ibrox for months now that the various supporters groups appear unable to organise a piss up in a brewery, sorry, I mean a proper protest. So far there doesn't seem to have been any attempt to get all the fans together to pull in one common direction to react to the changing situation - be it in a protest against Muir, a protest against the bank, or a call for some information from either side, or even at least give any potential bidder a single point of contact with the fans. Are we really that apathetic as a support? I know its been discussed on here for a few years now, that question of "exactly how bad do things have to get on/off the park for us to organise a mass protest?", but I'm sitting here, gobsmacked, at just how bad things have (potentially?) got and we've still not united as a support. And yes, I'm aware of the irony of me sitting here typing this on a keyboard instead of actually doing something, but I believe there's individuals and groups much better placed and connected, to kick something like this off. Mike.

Don't worry, its all part of the master plan apparently..... Mike.

I've never bought in to the whole diddy cup thing. Its always exciting to see your team play in a final and can give the fans and players a real boost at this point in the season. So what if it doesn't get you a European place, its one of the 3 domestic trophies up for grabs and I think we should be competing for it seriously. Mike.

That shirt quote was brilliant Zappa - papers seem to be saying that Desmond is funding the Keane transfer himself. Not sure if that makes a difference to how it will be shown on their accounts. Mike.

Keane is a great signing for them, a no-lose situation. He'll sell tickets and shirts for them straight away. He's also a quality player who will definitely score goals, but its funny to see some of the fans who don't seem to realise they've just signed a player and not just paid money to make up the points difference between us and them. I'd much rather be in our position than theirs for this season, but if someone doesn't buy the club by the summer, we could be in a real mess for next season. Mike.