buster.

CL Draw Bayern v Real Madrid Liverpool v Roma

Jupp Heynckes is free ! (Bayern just announced Niko Kovac as boss for next season) He can bring some of his current Bayern Munich players with him as well.

Europa League semi-final draw Arsenal v Atletico Madrid Marseille v Red Bull Salzburg ------- Cracking draw Champions League aspirations for Arsenal just got a whole load more difficult.

I doubt 'solutions' wrt BBC Scotland will come without involving BBC UK and hard collated evidence. I said back when Club1872 started up that in time a 'CQN*' type offshoot might eventually emerge, do some of the particular spadework and deal with the PR aspect. * CQN is a celtic supporters group that have unofficial communications with the club and are relatively quite effective at setting/controlling naratives on certain issues.

The reality is that until we are further down the line and we see how the squad/mgmt. is shaping up for next season, how our budget has been spread and in this case, who are options are at centre-half.....we won't get a full picture to make a judgement from. The other unknown is how Bates will get on with Hamburg and how he will develop. The one thing I do take from this is we haven't managed the contract in a way to get value from a promising youngster. We did extend various contracts and appeared to be getting on top of this,...lets hope we haven't let the one who ends up going for real money slip through the net.

I wouldn't trust any journalist or ex-journalist/PR man who hasn't learnt his new trade yet or believe that real solutions would emerge from them. They are in it for the money and will bend and alter positions accordingly. It comes down to the support getting their act together and channelling efforts properly as per the other thread on the Gersnet article (fan power).

It boils the blood to think of the sum of money we have wasted over the past couple of years but we have to look forwards and try to put a squad together that represents better value. The unknown/hidden factors as far as we are concerned are: - who is going to be manager - does the club know yet - is this already having an impact on squad planning

Daily Record 'inside track' on this suggests the club.......... "refused to bow to wage demands of around 7500 a week". "Rangers are in line to net only a five-figure compensation payment under FIFA guidelines but they point-blank refused to salary demands from Bates and his advisors they believed excessive. His package would have outstripped considerably the salary levels of other young Rangers and Ibrox chairman Dave King and his board decided to draw the line on a player who has made just 19 appearances for the club." -------------- No mention of what the club were prepared to offer but Forlansister mentioned 2K. The question being, what happened to any negotiation between 2K to 7,5K (no mention of bonus structure) and length of contract ? He was definately worth more than 2K and IMO his age/displays to date merited an offer of more than 2 years. 5K and 4 years would have sounded about right to me and the question now is how much will it cost to replace him ?

I've just realised why this is 'Comeback Week'.....all of Europe has been inspired by the Marvin Andrews youtube interview edit....another comeback ! Lazio won the first leg 4-2 against Salzburg but are now 6-5 down on aggregate...10 minutes left !

The week continues in the same vein 35 or so minutes left CSKA 2-0 up against Arsenal (agg 3-4) Sporting 1-0 up on Atletico Madrid (agg 1-2)

What gets me is how easily we throw money around and waste a lot of it at the higher end of the wage scale on players where there will often be no re-sale value, yet we seem to want to drive a hard bargain at the lower end to the extent of losing a promising youngster for nothing. Contract management is very important when your revenue streams are limited.

'A game of two halves' They made an excellent start and up to the Cup semi-final two years ago were flying. Post semi-final, we didn't win another game all season (2 draws and 3 defeats) and nothing was quite the same again wrt MW.

I reckon we may have a better idea a little further down the line, if/when other jigsaw pieces are announced/come to light.

How many times do you shell out in the region of 20K p/wk for experience/better players only to be burnt by it .......instead of paying a promising youngster say 5K. Alves, Kranjcar, Barton, Pena, Rossiter, etc.

That was supposedly the son of Douglas Park, Graeme.

Wasn't it Jim Traynor that had McLaughlin literally shown the Ibrox door one Saturday afternoon ? I ask because I'm not sure if my memory is strictly accurate on this.

Imagine if it was getting a man sent off against a direct rival in the battle for second place, eg. Jack, Hibs. Funnily enough, speaking about the Hamilton player sent off against Celtic, Lennon was on the radio this week saying you can't raise your hands against an opponent because it gives the referee a decision to make. Must have forgot all about his ex-player, Stokes and his own thoughts of how important decisions are with European football at stake.

Naw it's no. The reality is that Sevco can overturn yellow cards at will. They only have to drop of a letter to the nearest Lodge within 4 days of the game. #sevcossiss

We haven't the money to appoint an experienced quality manager and allow him a budget to be able to takeover topspot next Autumn. We could get lucky and bring someone in who is especially good/lucky regards recruitment, everything clicks, celtic stutter and we win the title...but that is long odds. I think our most plausible route to success is a manager who will stick around and build something over 2 or 3 seasons in conjunction with an efficient football operation. However, a degree of patience would be required and there lys the weakpoint of that idea. A fantastic appointment isn't a sexy name who would most probably be off at the drop off a hat. The other issue with a name is how does that impact the DoF/football operation/ strategy ? IMO the realistic 'names' that may come to Rangers are too much of a gamble themselves to be a better option than a more pragmatic appointment. For me, Clarke is the man but only if he really wanted the job and going by what has been said, that's doubtful.

He repeated it with Inverness in 2011 when they unexpectedly beat Lennon's Celtic, 3-2.

What is it with Scottish Football and the need of 'Statements'. I can hardly remember any prior to 2010.

According to Wikipedia facts, he'd be far too risky given what we need. Olympiakos: Won League with a team that had won the previous five leagues and quit after a season for personal reasons. Hull: 6 months, relegated and resigned Watford: sacked after 8 months -------------- Not one to stick around. Not what we need

Given what has already been said by Clarke himself, he may be a non-starter BUT for me he is clearly the best candidate out there. - Excellent experience at top level - Knowledge of Scottish game and league - English speaker and commands respect - 'Media accepeted' and commands respect - SPFL record / Has beaten Celtic and if you extrapolate his record to the rest of season he wasn't there, a limited Killie squad would be a very comfortable second / only team in league to win 5 gamesIAR this season. - Didn't need time to settle at Kilmarnock

Cheers Pete ! Frank seems to be restricting himself to a very narrow type of job that he obviously expects to be offered. I get the feeling he needs a squad made up of mostly Dutch players under the age of 24 to have a chance of being successful.

Why didn't Ajax have him back when they changed managers in January ?