der Berliner

How and what about the opposition? How many of these games have we lost then? Too many for some, for sure. I for one wouldn't just point out the bad facts here.

IMHO, what is criminal is not our training stuff et al, but the simple fact that teams have to face such vital games so early in the season. No matter how people like to turn it, we were essentially in pre-season when we faced Malm�¶. Thus, IMHO the sharpness wasn't there to score these sitters. Somesuch can and did come back to haunt us. Whether other players can help here remains to be seen, as they would equally suffer from this early season form. Obviously, Maribor weren't much farther in their season, but much like in every cup competition, results like that in Slovenia will happen. Have happened before and will happen again. It hardly gives an impression of the state of affairs in Scotland, nor the state of the current champions and league leaders of the SPL. I reserve my judgement on McCoist till December at the earliest. IMHO ... once we have settled into our rhythm and all the new players have found their feet,we'll get an impression how the "McCoist Regime" will work for our club. NB: You know why the likes of Roma have bowed out too? Lack of quality? Lack of training methods? More like ... the fact that the Seria A season has not even started by now.

European minnows such as us made a UEFA Cup Final in 2008 (or not?). European minnows such as us win 54 titles, three on the trott in these last few years (or not?). European minnows such as us are in good company in Europe, since about 99% of "us" are not Real Madrid, Barcelona, Chelsea, ManU and ManC - thus have no hope of winning major honours on a semi-regular basis.

The point remains that Fulham and Co. can offer that amount too and Jela will be tempted, as we all would. Wonder what will become of Rhys Murphy now. He, as a freebie, is worth a try.

Nope, he said that before the game. AFAIK we did try and bring players in from the day the season stopped. Yet, as people like to forget, wanting players is just the first step. I for one am absolutely delighted that we have acquired Bedoya, McKay and Bocanegra, as they had no second thoughts and joined up in no-time - no questions asked. Same with Goian and Wallace. That tells me: those chaps want to play for Rangers. What we now have to do is start building a settled and well trained squad over the course of the season, so that we can challenge for CL points next time with more than a transition team. BTW ... I for one wouldn't be surprised if a ManU or someone happens by with a 8m bid for Jelavic these next few days.

The co-commentator at the game tonight (Andrew Dickson Rangers Media) said that we are still actively looking at attacking players with up to two being targetted. Obviously, the quality of these targets and their willingness to come might have hinged on our involvement in Europe.

I would assume that if Maribor is not beaten by 4 clear goals, they will think about appealing. For the worst thing would be that UEFA reverse to first leg score to a 3-0 in Maribor's favour. Of course, UEFA would stretch their own rules doing this, as the requirements do not exactly state anything about visas et al.

Wylde - I never wanted to quit sayest The Scottish Sun

Re Beattie ... when he's fit, he hardly makes the bench, Healy's ahead of him it seems, and Hemmings is/was the u21 option. We gave Healy an extension to his contract, but hardly play him either. To me, the best thing for Rangers and Beattie is if he moves on - hence I assume he's bound to go (thus, just MHO). There sure is a Championship or Division One team that needs an experienced striker such as him. It would have been interesting to see a Healy and Beattie partnership up front, but Rangers can hardly afford such a trials & tribulations line-up. We - as we all know - want success and thus we will play our best line-up as often and as consistently as possible. IMHO, I wouldn't be surprised if we loan some young chap like Lopez (where's he gone, BTW?) or sign up Rhys Murphy (20), for they could fill the u21 bench places and add some good quality too - no disrespect to our folk here.

On a sidenote, the BBC article on the topic says that it failed because of its late delivery. Yet, Maribor has 3 days to appeal this. I checked the UEFA website and they have not even put the initial Maribor story on their website. You wonder where the BBC gets its information from.

AFAIK, we are only linked to Le Fondre because some FFers brought his name up. It became a long thread and nothing more. Rangers were never linked to him. That said, 400k is not that much and since Hemmings is now crocked and Beattie bound for England, why not? Back up for the time being, and he apparently knows where the goal stands. Which could not be said of Lafferty ... when we signed him.

IMHO, I would not been surprised if they actually thought this up. The Would-be Irish Idiot sure thought so. Warped mentality and disfunctional reality perception is bound to lead to such line of thinking. Anyways, as I see it, we needed to register him as a player eligible to play for us in Europe. That is UEFA's concern. That and nothing more. The national association granted us that permission and that's that. Should UEFA now rules something different, they would make a first case out of this and probably advance their own rules. This wouldn't surprise me, but we did not willfully exploited this and even the SFA embraced our registration stuff. So what sort of punishment could there be? Maribor's hope is clear. As is the WbII's ones. If UEFA's current rule is not clear enough, so be it. Anyways, I do hope that they did not register their written complaint in time, so this farce falls flat on its face.

He could hit a dozen hat-tricks for us against Celtic and still people would remember him for spitting at a person or giving a fouling idiot on the ground a earful (not knowing that said idiot had broken his leg while brutally fouling a player of EHD's team). I wonder how many current SPL players have been punished for spitting on an opponent in a rush of blood ... and people talk about this all their lifes. Remember a certain Dutchman spitting at Rudi Voeller ages ago? Did not stop him from managing Barcelona, did it? Neither of the above means that I condone or apologize his behaviour, BTW.

The general lack of info about these friendlies as well as our women's teams is something that should be worked upon. On a sidenote and after reading a few "raving comments" about him ... ... might have been an option too. Dunno where he plays though.

On a sidenote, US citizens need no visa to travel to Slovenia. Going by the Daily Record's headline, we should at long last take a stance against press behaviour such as this.

He's sort of a flair footballer of the Gazza ilk. Can do a lot with the ball, but IMHO lacks the pace of a striker these days. Technically and with regards to his awareness, he sure would add to the creativity department, possibly very useful if we need an outlet during the later stages in a game. Might be regarded as a luxury though, not a cheap one at that either. The problem will be the baggage attached to him. Undecided.

Can this individual hiding in Ireland be sued for bringing the name of the club into disrepute? IMHO, we should point this action out to UEFA, as they already fell to the Timothy-prompted and instigated FARE farce. There sure are malicious forces at work who try to bring everything remotely against our club to UEFA's attention. They should be warned about this, and its sources.

Well, I was actually looking whether our "friends" from Scotzine have by now a fuly detailed report on the Hooped Horrors' horror show at the Timdome up, only to find the above topic glaring at me from all angles. Well, better you know "your enemy" so I checked about what the Scotzine Chief had to say and guess what ... (no need to give them clicks) (Scotzine article) Was it him who wrote the "call-to-arms" on the Celtic boards to get this poor lot going too? The closeness between him (and Scotzine) and all things bad for Rangers are remarkable.

It was mentioned over at the German boards (yesterday) that on transfermarkt.de it was said that Celtic fans made complaints about Bocanegra and Maribor apparently reacted. Above you find the truth in this rumour. Scum does as scum does. And in the same Corinthian spirit they will chase every FIFA and UEFA official who shows up should they lose to the Swiss on Thursday. For those Swiss do indeed fielded up to 6 (methinks) "ineligible" players despite a ruling of FIFA against the club. A ruling Sion contests.

Not related to us right now, but since no-one seems in the know about Rhys Murphy or that Spanish kid Lopez: I would be somewhat surprised to see SWP leave the C version of Manchester for that paltry a sum. I mean, he sure is on astronomical wages, but that's the fee the Tangerines got for Goodwillie! All rumours, but ...

Any further word and I get my handbag!

Moving on with a parting shot, that is. On a sidenote, I replied to this thread with no-one in particular in mind, bar some over-enthused folk perhaps, who seem to be exactly as I described above and who are indeed a far more common species on FF.

Maybe you weren't reading FF on Thursday night then? Sometimes it was not that obvious, but you didn't need to be an expert at reading-between-the-lines to see what people were looking for. Even on here people questioned McCoist's ability to manage, his lack of "experience" et al. No imagination ...

Like people screaming for players, managers, and the chairman's heads? As if life and death of Rangers and their support depend on any of the Malm�¶ games, or the Maribor tie? Without the season having barely started? The main thing here is objectivity and/or the lack of it. If people start thinking we have an eternal right to win every game, be in the Champions' League or beat any team that is no household name in Europe - which is obviously the case on here and FF - then they have a problem when reality comes calling. When they should have experienced football reality often enough before, you would think. I could count down and quote all that has been said about the Malm�¶ games, but I do not. Let me simply remind people that we play a game of chance, a game called football. If there ever was a reminder needed that you cannot rely on names, quality, experience and the like, it was (once again) delivered yesterday afternoon at the Timdome. These "freak" results will happen time and again, as it is part and parcel of the game. Yet, in the long run of an SPL season, you would hope - and Rangers have delivered this time and again - that the occurance of such odd games is limited to such an extend that we reclaim the league title in May. I have never experienced such a streak of bad luck in front of goals and goals conceded, foolishness commited by our players in many a long day. During those three European ties alone that is. Thus, I do not regard these games as any sort of standard that Rangers are capable of or shall be measured against. Especially if you consider that we have been barely out of pre-season, while Malm�¶ had half their season behind them and are no pub-team either. Wee reminder that Maribors and the like do happen to other teams of - let's say - our ranking in Europe too: HJK Helsinki 2 Schalke 0, Slovan Bratislava 1 Roma 0, Maccabi Tel-Aviv 3 Panathinaikos 0.

Had a look at it and the only question that remains is: what was the position of the officials. From midfield, this might well have looked like a penalty. From the touchline, it should be obvious that Stokes took a nice dive. He played the ball (and could have done much better, btw) and after miss-hitting, milked the occasion. Did they actually show a red card to the goalie?