buster.

Guardiola puts together sides that function well on a consistent basis and therefore they tend to win leagues. With Barcelona he also won CL's because he conincided with some fantastic players in their pomp. Zidane largely inherited a group of excellent players that as a side have been fairly inconsistent (not great for winning leagues) but on their day can beat anyone (good for CL's). Zidane reminds me a little of Del Bosque in that he tended to let the players get on with it. for the latter, Hierro and Raul dominated the dressing room politics and had seen off various managers but Vicente knew how to play the clubs politics and basically didn't get in the way too often.

Sounds like bitterness from a particularly egotistical player.

Come on Mr Jackson, get this question asked...................... Did he (Shifty) take a libel action against Private Eye and if not, why not ?

Have I posted a Gersnet WAG pic by mistake ?

RC school with blue tops and TimonTim altercations,....not so bad

You could go on a European scouting trip to see which venues would be best for a trip and then get back and supervise a fan prayer group. eg. Latvia

The draw isn't for another two weeks or so. Sevilla have won this competition five times in the last 12 years and are going to have to play in the second qualifying round

Expectation management is important and really needs to come from Gerrard himself. He started well saying that it's about Rangers and looking to improve things, forget Celtic for the time being (apart from when we play them). I think we need to see a better quality of player/an improvement in the squad both on paper and on the field. Therefore an improvement in our consistency of result. No embarrasment in Europe. If we go out in the qualifiers to a better team (and there are many, eg. Sevilla, Zenit, etc.) so be it. We need to get a result against Celtic. First OF match is away and a doing has to be avoided. After all the shit we have been through, aslong as there is a visible improvement, we'll stick with SG, looking for him to build further. Looking at SG and the length of his contract, the main hope/expectation as far as I see it.....is to win a League title or in other words, stop 10IAR. If we keep chopping and changing every season, we have no chance.

So if you want an Orange Away top for our first competitive game on the 12th of July in Londonderry, you'll have to go visit Memit's Bazaar in downtown Istanbul to get one. --------------------- Hummel at work.......

Steve Gerrard, the man who brought the 2-7-1 system to Scottish fitbaw

Not great for revenue cashflow but in the longer term we very much need to see the next generations of supporter coming to Ibrox. A disproportionate increase in sparking the younger fans interest would be a huge positve of the Steven Gerrard appointment.

The SPFL have backed themselves into a place where I doubt Shifty McGifty will be going that easily, unless 'the case' builds more momentum.

Apparently the evening of June 6th will see a Scotland v England semi-final.

To go 2 up on South Korea inside 8 minutes was a great start but it often means an intial partial relax, followed by hanging-on for a result, so I wouldn't bother too much about the performance today. We'll see how they do in the semi-finals......

France 2up at HT and Togo down to 10 men. Translates as Scotland have got into the last four with Mexico, England and one other.

How did Middleton get on ? --------- Simple equation regards qualification.......Togo win, they go through and we don't. Togo don't win, we go through.

A what I thought was an unlikely 5 goal win would I think put us through no matter what Togo did, ie. best runner-up spot would be assured. As it stands Togo would need to beat France by 2 goals to knock us off top spot.

I hope Spain do well but I doubt they'll win it. Would love to see the media fall-out after Panama beat England If pressed would pick the Germans as the most likely winners.

Togo seem to have been the surprise team of the tournament and they lead the group on goals scored (3) ahead of Scotland (2). Scotland need to win today to have a chance of qualification. If we win and Togo don't or we win by more goals than Togo were to win, we'll qualify. If you think that is getting value out of goals scored, group C has the tournaments lowest scorers, Canada on TOP, having scored 1 goal that gives them 4 points.

As it stands, I don't see an economic situation that will allow SG and his staff to satisfy the expectations that are building towards 2018/19 unless we were able to have the best 'value for money' transfer window I've ever seen and we convert reasonable current performers into much better ones. It's certainly an exciting time, the profile is high but we'll have a much better idea of how things are shaping up come the end of August when our squad is finalised and we've seen some competitive football. #Patience&Realism

They finished 13th (out of 20) but got relegated in 14/15 due to League sanctions re. financial issues. They were in the second tier for a couple of seasons then dropped down another tier and now are in the play-offs for promotion back to the second. #eventful

On their day, the French team that Serge played in could flow like no other in that era. I hope you are resting from your BBC Scotland duty

I doubt they'd appeal only the severity of the fine and wouldn't trust the wording of the redtops.