ascender

Once again the silence from Ibrox is deafening and all around, Boyd and others at our club are being slaughtered in the press. Given Burley's statement yesterday, there should be an equally strong one from Ibrox - be it from Boyd, SDM or even Walter Smith. Some of the stuff being mentioned today by various so-called journalists is ridiculous. Not to mention some of the stuff that's being conveniently forgotten by them.

Why do we always appear to be so happy to be the whipping boys for the rest of Scottish football via the media?

I don't think being behind Iwelumo was wrong, but I think being overlooked for Fletcher was. Iwelumo and Boyd could have been a good blend of players.

There's been rumours from the start of Burley's tender that all was not well behind the scenes and I think this is just the latest evidence of that.

As for Burley, I just don't understand what he was doing yesterday with his selection and the way we lined up. Let alone the substitutions. We should have been set up to attack yesterday and taken the game to them. Man-mark Carew out of the game, stick two up top and go for the win.

Some of the pieces I've seen today allude to very little changes to Ibrox itself, is that right?

I just think that there's times where we really don't help ourselves as a support and walk in to these things.

It depends how we as a club and support want to try and address this. Do we take the approach which has been mentioned above, where we become "squeaky clean" and sing or do nothing which could ever be construed as sectarian, racist etc.

Or do we get up for the fight and stand up for what we believe in and make a stand against the over-PC nature of this whole thing?

The second approach could be difficult as we don't have the backing of a strong Chairman or owner.

I think to the outsiders looking in, both sides are being seen as as bad as each other, especially as any debate on the issue turns in to a "he said, she said" type thing.

Weird to read that and then see he'd been dropped for JCD!

It can't be luck or a conspiracy though because its happened so often in the last few years. I think its more like self belief and the way they're set up to play if they are losing. They just seem to be able to keep playing to the final whistle even when things are going against them.

So one of Bain's first targets he was set when he came in was to get the wage budget under control and he did that ahead of time. After that infamous period of downsizing, we were no longer prepared to pay big money wages and things looked a lot more prudent. Are we now starting to creep back the other way, possibly because of the sheer size of our squad now?

If we don't get to the CL groups next season, we could be properly in the brown stuff and looking at another fire sale? I guess the only thing that's changed this time is that we have more sellable assets in terms of younger players with potential who will actually be worth something instead of us having to buy out contracts left, right & centre.

I don't see how long term we have much to look forward to under the current leadership and while playing in the SPL tbh. We seem to be putting all our eggs in one basket each season, which is qualifying for the CL. But to say its a shaky strategy seems to be an understatement.

Its strange that bonus payments were so high for the UEFA Cup when we all know that its the CL which brings in the real money.

We've been like this for years now and under 3 different managers, so I've no idea how we can have something as fundamentally wrong with our first team which never gets addressed.

That's a great write-up, thanks for taking the time to do that.

There's more than just a few worrying things in there, particularly in light of how successful we were last season. Quite a few of them seem to demonstrate that the club is still being run with ideas above our station in a financial and practical sense.

If we're not careful, our debt is going to spiral again to dangerous levels.

What a strange thing to say. Regardless of what Walter thinks, that kind of story can't do anything good for team morale can it?

Its been the same for years though, across the world you can always pick up a Celtic top, but struggle to find a Gers one. I can't believe we're still in the same position all these years later. So disappointing really.

As for the JJB deal, surely we must have specified some minimum level of stock & prominence of place in all their stores for our stuff? Or does Murray not care as we're guaranteed x amount of millions no matter what?

Is this not a bit worrying though? The debt is now over 20M again and I'm guessing will increase after this year. Our profit was up, but how many times are we going to reach a European final and sell a player for 9M?

The "limited ability" thing was actually said in amongst some really positive and accurate words about KB. Its just he ruined the rest of it by using those two words. Really unprofessional.

I don't see the problem in him sitting out his contract in practice, or even asking for a pay-off/compensation to go, if its true that he feels he's never been given a fair crack of the whip here.

But I do think it shows a serious lack of ambition on his part.

The problem is, I don't know what's gone on behind the scenes. I thought the lad's attitude from the start has been first rate, keen to sign for us and the few times I've seen him play in the first team he's looked good. That's all I can ultimately go on which is why its baffling he's never been given a chance to show what he can do in the SPL.

The other side of the coin is the numerous rumours about him since he signed and whether you believe some of them or not. The problem with rumours and particularly "sources" is that on other Gers forums there's so many sources that its hard to take them seriously any more when only a small percentage turn out to be legit. But I have no doubt some of them are, particularly in a small country like ours.

Bottom line for me is that the guy is obviously well down the pecking order and I'd have thought he'd be busting for regular football which surely means he'd have to move on? There's a lot of money in the English game, so unless there's family reasons for staying in Scotland, surely it wouldn't be a bad move for him?

Whatever happened to having extended highlights from the match of the day? Ridiculous coverage, then they have the cheek afterwards to say how brilliant the football was. Shame they never showed any of it.

I don't think anyone's ever doubted Cousin's abilty or talent. Its various facets of his attitude that's been the problem.

I heard a couple of callers on various shows today saying they'd still never accept him, no matter how many goals he scored.

I think Broadfoot has done quite well when played in his preferred position this season. Funny that....

I'm sure when he was first linked with us months ago, people who'd seen him play rated him quite highly once you past the usual "another average SPL player" stuff.

Who knows what's happened with Gow. There seems to be two popular rumours/versions going round. The first one is that there's been a bust-up with some of the backroom staff or refused to play for the reserves or something else which makes for good reading. The second version is that he just isn't good enough and quite a few people who've seem him play for the reserves tend to back that up.

The Jambos have been linked with Gow for the best part of a year now, pretty much since he failed to appear for us at the start of last season actually.

Boyd and Velicka seem too similar to be played together, but I thought Velicka looked much better in pre-season than he has done since. I still think a settled strike pairing who complement each other is the way forward.

My feelings were pretty clear on Cousin and they haven't changed, he disgraced the jersey and should have been out on his arse at the end of last season. JCD and Miller are too similar, but Miller seems to be much fitter and less injury prone, so JCD could go. I'd be interested to see what Lafferty could do up front alongside Velicka for example.

Its now official, he's signed a 5 year deal subject to the work permit going through.

I'm guessing this might mean Dailly and Hemdani are allowed to leave?

I think a couple of the papers today confirmed that Bresciano would rather play in the Premiership than the SPL according to his agent. I think he's been linked with Fulham as well actually, so that'll be our money from Davis going towards him probably.