UCF2008

Even in the second tier of a European league structure the majority of the competition would be of a higher standard than most of the EPL sides. Would be a HUGE step up from the SPL and not just in a financial sense.

Couldn't agree more. Trouble is we rarely get it. Over the past couple of decades unbiased media coverage has increasingly become a rarity. I just think that in this instance we could have been doing with a more level headed approach from a journalist of his caliber. Leave it to the likes of Traynor, Speirs & Martin to sensationalize the problems our club is facing. Instead he's twisted Walter Smiths words to insinuate that he doesn't believe we have a team capable of competing on the European stage at least not when we try to actually play football. This leads into his insinuation that Walter is playing hardball in his contract negotiations over the lack of funds available for strengthening the squad. He's then went on to arrange the stats surrounding our better achievements to best suit his argument that our chairman is kidding himself if he thinks that he can promote the branding of our club on the global stage. 'The end is nigh', 'Papering over the cracks' of our 'broken crest' - it's all in there. I agree that Darryl Broadfoot is one of the better hacks, but I would have expected more from him on this occasion.

You've got to love the way journos and mopes alike can twist and shape the stats to suit their agenda. Although DB's supposed to be on our side (he is isn't he?? ) in this case it's just to give some sort of justification to his doom & gloom standpoint. Nevermind the fact that following that European run our standing as far as the stats that count were concerned was at (or near as damn it) an all time high. No that would just be 'papering over the cracks' wouldn't it Darryl? It's like the new 'one SPL trophy in the last four years' stat. Why not 2 in the last 5 years or 5 out of 11 since the SPL began? Phuds

I don't think we're missing Barry too much atm. There have been times so far this season where I think we've possibly missed some of his attributes as captain. Although Davie Weir has bags of experience and is respected by his team mates, I think he's too much of a nice guy to give them a kick up the arse when they need it. That said, I think it's more a case of absence making the heart fonder with Ferguson. At the end of the day he will and probably should be remembered as a Rangers legend, but the negatives had been outweighing the positives for some time and having been on a final warning - which he was lucky to get away with following the PLG saga - he blew it big time and his time at the club was rightly brought to an end. I think the wrong thing for us to do as supporters is to be looking for one player to 'replace' Ferguson. As much as I agree that he's done well so far this season, big Lee isn't going to tick all the boxes on that front. I don't think any of our midfielders will be able to match the rose tinted vision of our former captain. Instead we should be looking for the team to perform well as a unit. Like Pete says, when they're on form we have a very strong midfield and when Edu returns from injury, the competition for places in the middle of the park is going to be as strong as it's been in a long time.

Maybe we'll see next time he handles a Sellik game If he books their players at every opportunity then fair play I suppose. Somehow I doubt that'll happen though and we'll be fed with some line about how the early bookings in this instance set the tone for the game.

Ref killed the game today. However, I don't think it would have been that much more entertaining otherwise. We played poorly throughout and in terms of the result got what we deserved.

Leave Coisty on the bench?

I think for the majority of the time, based on our dominance of the domestic scene, we were just too cocky going into Europe. Our best players failed to make their mark in the Champions League on too many occasions. We did manage the odd great result in between the dismal failures, but overall we were tactically naive to say the least.

Come January 2010 that will work out at around 25 league starts a season, which isn't to be scoffed at for an Old Firm striker And if he had been getting any where near the same proportion of starts for Scotland there probably wouldn't have been an issue. Burley made it clear that Boydy wasn't 3rd or even 4th choice striker and used the same fuzzy logic as this joker when trying to excuse himself.

Could only catch the game on radio tonight. Can i just give a big thanks to the bheeb website for the live feed in Gaelic. It was much appreciated.

If you're talking about competitive games he's played 28 minutes out of our 1st 3 league games and it would have been more if he hadn't been sent off at Tynecastle. Apart from that he's got a full pre-season under his belt - something that can't be said for McManus ...or Gordon.

I think at any level it shows poor management skills to be singling out a player for criticism. Fair enough if your not happy with the performance of the team and let it be known, but individual criticism should be left behind closed doors. In the case of Broadfoot, if it was intended as a compliment and came out wrong then Burley should have tried to set the record straight at the first opportunity. He didn't and in seeing that Broadfoot didn't throw the dummy out the pram as many other players would have done, he obviously figured it was OK for him to leave that statement on record. Weasel.

We'll probably never know if there was more to Gow's situation at Rangers than met the eye. It could just be that he happened to be at Rangers at a time when the squad was bloated and opportunities were limited. To an extent this situation could be blamed on the management as a whole, but at the same time, when WS took over it was clear that the squad needed rebuilding and as a free transfer, Gow was a low risk addition to the squad. With the under-21 rule in the SPL it makes it even more difficult for fringe players to get their chance to impress. Even with a squad full of world class players you can only get away with so much squad rotation before you start to unsettle the consistency of performance, so with a group as large as we had there was always going to be a handful of players who were surplus to requirements. As it turned out, Gow was one of those players.

He said to the press that Broadfoot was 'a player of limited ability'. I think it was in the context of somehow paying him a compliment on his attitude, but seeing as Burley's a halfwit it didn't quite come out right. He made a similar blunder with Boyd by getting all defensive and criticising the player when questioned by the press about not playing him in the Norway game.

Your not wrong there. McManus is just back from injury and isn't match fit enough to play at club level never mind international. Both Craig Gordon and Alan Hutton are other players that Burley's thrown back in at the deep end despite not being 100%. For the most part it's worked out for him. Why should it be any different in the case of Thomson though? As for experience, between CL football and our UEFA cup run, Thomson has as much as if not more experience of top flight football than half the Scotland squad. If that doesn't count for anything and his decision making is purely based on international experience alone, then wtf is he doing giving the likes of McCormack, Steven Fletcher & Iwellumo their debuts in World Cup qualifiers?

Of course. I'm assuming you agree that this wouldn't have happened to them?. I'm sure the Sky coverage is better, but for those of us who don't have Sky it's a kick in the teeth. Will Sky be covering all of our games?. From what I've been hearing it seems that some of the rights to our games (the ones that ITV had an option on) are still available. I know it sounds paranoid, but I really think this has more to do with the ongoing shift towards the green end of the spectrum within the media. How long will it be before even Sky is infected with this kind of petty nonsense?

Hope it's not serious as it looks like he'll be a key player for us this season.

Peat is a fud of the highest order, however unfortunately his job isn't on the line. I don't know the exact workings of it, but because he was elected to his position rather than being employed by the SFA he basically can't get the sack. As much as I've got mixed feelings about the job that our media muppet Gordon Smith has done over the past couple of years, I find the intensity of the 'blame it on the hun' campaign that's being waged against him astounding. Burley has to go. If by some miracle we end up at the World Cup, then getting rid of him is obviously going to be difficult to say the least. Being realistic though as much as we've still got a slim chance of qualifying, it's not looking very likely and there can be no denying how much of a disaster this man has been since he took the helm.

If I could afford that, I'd be going to the games instead! Looks like it's the pub for me

The excuse from ITV is that they're trying to cater for a wider audience - Obviously the Rangers support isn't big enough . STV bosses meanwhile are supposedly 'furious' that ITV ignored their request for the usual opt-out deal. Personally I think they've deliberately sabotaged the deal and we'll find that it's miraculously revived next time that lot make it past the qualifiers. Picking up on it from NewsNow, I've found STV's heightened coverage of bizarre Rangers stories over the past few months very strange indeed not to mention the similarities with other suspicious outlets of 'news' related to our club.

I can't see Burley picking Thomson ahead of Fletcher & Brown even when he is on better form, but considering our nations supposed lack of quality players a good run free of injury should leave the Scotland manager with no excuse to leave him out of the midfield.

Turns out none of Rangers CL games are being shown on STV this year. What a surprise . For the first time (at least as far as I can recall) there will be no coverage on terrestrial TV whatsoever of the SPL champions CL campaign. Would this have happened if Celtic had qualified? - I very much doubt it. Will their Europa campaign get coverage? - you can count on it...Albeit probably on the bheeb The mhedia takeover get's more and more worrying every day

Whether it's a club ban or UEFA ban on TBB is irrelevant. If we sing any version of the song we'll get in trouble with UEFA again because TBB was singled out in relation to the UEFA verdict. I wish the club could have stood up to them more but to be fair they didn't have much of a leg to stand on. We as fans could be doing more however. For one we could ask for clarification from UEFA. Secondly, we should challenge the courts by singing the song as much as possible in public (while at least trying not to cause a breach of the peace) outwith match days.

Anyway, I wasn't meaning to dwell on that incident. It was just one of the very few glimpses I caught of him in his time at Rangers and striking me as a little bit odd at the time, it stuck in my mind. Like I said he's a good player. Hopefully he can continue to get his career back on track and force his way back into the picture with the National side .

Maybe so and I'm no psychologist, but you would think that extra emotion would accentuate what he SHOULD have been feeling as a Rangers fan AND a team player. Not the sort of thing that gives you a face like thunder really .