JohnMc

It's completely changing the 'business' model for football. All the big English sides now view their academies as an income stream rather than a place to get players. So few of their young players will become first team regulars there is no argument to having them. However, with vast numbers scooped up very young, from all over the world, then loaned out all they need to do is sell a few of them for a few million each season to make the whole exercise profitable. Chelsea sold Jeremie Boga and Johnathan Panzo (no, I've never heard of them either) for over £5 million this summer. We bought almost an entire new starting 11 for that. Al the big clubs are doing this now, instead of smaller clubs developing players to sell to big ones, big ones are developing players to sell to smaller ones. It's not right.

Bill, go look in the mirror, you're white, deal with it. Now your version only further underlines the point I was making. So far no black Muslims have come on and mentioned slavery but when they do I'll be sure to call them out for it too. Happy? No councillor is going to vote against their own community council's wishes without a very good reason. It's electoral suicide. Local council elections have low turnouts, majorities are measured in tens or hundreds. The local councillor, whatever their personal views, isn't going to risk alienating politically engaged residents over a topic like this. Dornan was elected on second preferences, he's not sitting on a comfortable majority. Rangers, and Rangers supporters, need to deal with this type of thing in a clear headed and pragmatic way. As well as questioning why the community council were against a fanzone for reasons that seem spurious at best we should also be asking what more the club could do to behind the scenes with the community council to change their mind. The current situation where we're descending into trench warfare helps no one but opposition politicians. It certainly won't get us a fanzone any faster. Lastly I read somewhere that Alasdair Morrison, a former Labour MSP, is advising the club. Anyone know if that's true? Morrison is very friendly with Frank McAveety, and McAveety's statements on this has always struck me as surprising. All politicians are opportunistic I suppose. If we are being advised by Morrison I'd love to know what the strategy is. The only thing I know for sure won't help Rangers on this issue, or the many more that'll come up in the future, is supporters describing fellow supporters as the enemy. It would be good if people could see why that's both insulting and inaccurate.

That's what you took from that post? Brilliant.

If anyone wanted to understand why we're voiceless and powerless in our own city a read of this thread is instructive. What started as frustration around a fanzone has morphed into angry white men yelling 'brexit' into the void whilst dreaming of rimming Boris Johnston. No wonder Tims run rings round us politically.

I'd a friend who lived in a flat on Copland Road. She'd no interest in football but very quickly developed an intolerance for football supporters. As far as she was concerned Rangers supporters were responsible for urinating on her close door, littering her street and stairwell and preventing her from parking outside her own home on match days. She was right too. However, Rangers were there before she moved in and are still there after she moved elsewhere (she didn't move because of Rangers), it's not like the stadium appeared overnight. Anyone living locally needs to accept the stadium and the people who visit it are part of their community whether they like that or not. Rangers do a lot too in terms of paying for cleansing after matches, policing and generally trying to be good neighbours. As the fanzone isn't going to increase the number of people visiting during matches and it will house them very close to the stadium away from residents you can only conclude something else was influencing the objection.

I'm not debating a political viewpoint, simply explaining why calling someone 'the enemy' then feigning surprise that people are sensitive to that seemed a little disingenuous. My wife is on our local community council and it can be time consuming but it's not constantly so, it ramps up as 'issues' arise, calms down as they are solved/ignored/go away. I guess they are all different though. Local issues can be trivial, but sometimes they're not. We'd a big issue with a planned incinerator which created a lot of local interest and concern, likewise with proposed telephone masts. I also live near a sport's stadium and resident parking is always an issue as is crime and policing. What I would say is you're dead wrong on point 'c'. Local council take a real interest in what's going on at that level. Two local councillors attend most meetings, and can become quite involved in what happens. I've actually been impressed by how much a city councillor can achieve and influence. My last observation on this. Most people take no notice of their community council or residents association unless there's a single issue that rouses them. Because of this it is very easy for one or two people to exert significant power and sway in these type of organisations. If we all took more interest in politics/issues on this level we'd see a difference in decisions made at council level. In my opinion.

Really Bill? You don't understand why someone might be sensitive to being described as "colluding with the enemy"? C'mon. Hold whatever views you want but words like colluding and enemy are totally loaded. On topic, is there anything in what Clr Aitken says? I asked before, is anyone on here a member of their local community council? If not why not?

Also noticed an interesting Tweet from Dan Walker, presenter of BBC's Fooball Focus. In reply to a question he explained the lack of a preview of Sunday's match or mention of our Europa League qualification in the following way "We will talk about it later but there is a long standing issue between Rangers and the BBC. Hopefully it’ll be resolved soon." I was interested by the last sentence. Whether that's a personal 'hope' or an insiders knowledge of goings on behind the scenes, I don't know. But Gerrard is still a big name 'down south' and interest in how he's doing 'up here' would normally have led to a few interviews and features on national BBC Sport by now. There will be some frustration over this in Manchester BBC Sport headquarters, whether enough to put pressure on Pacific Quay to resolve it or not only time will tell.

I was driving during the 1st half of yesterday's match and was delighted to discover a commentary was on Five Live. Lee McCulluch and Pat Nevin were assisting an Irish commentator who rather amusingly kept calling our defensive midfield lynchpin "Jack Ryan". I listened for 20 minutes an no one corrected him. It's no wonder we struggled in midfield yesterday, what with shadowing runs from Rogic and McGregor whilst saving America and Western civilisation from countless terrorist and domestic threats.

I realise my over-whelming sense of disappointment about yesterday is largely down to my feelings of optimism about our team as August progressed. Not since our first match against them since promotion back up to the SPFL have I gone into a game against them actually believing we could win it. It's the hope that kills you and all that... It's not the result that's so disappointing, rather it was the performance. It feels like an opportunity lost, clearly Celtic were having issues behind the scenes whilst we were on something of a roll. In my opinion we got our tactics wrong, particularly in the first half. However, most of our players will get a break now and that can only be a good thing. It was a difficult start to the season, with a brand new side and brand new manager. Dropping 7 points from a possible 9 away from home is poor by anyone's standards, but, there's some mitigation with our European matches and our over-achievement in them. How we bounce back from this first set-back will be revealing. That's how we'll know what kind of team we now have. Full league points for the rest of September please.

Ooh, that's an attacking side. I'd have played Candeias myself, I think he's a better all rounder than Kent and has more experience, however Kent gives us pace. I also think Tav needs a player in front of him who'll track back and provide cover allowing him to push on, and Candeias is better at that then Kent in my opinion. Kent is direct though. I'm too old to be this nervous before a match!

Do they Rab? I'm not sure that's true actually. Most nationalists I know are convinced Pacific Quay is filled with MI5 agents spreading interference. BBC Scotland have a number of issues but I'm not convinced they've got an imbalance along those lines. In my opinion they've issues around getting working class people into broadcasting and there's a disproportionate number of Gaelic speakers.

I hear you Rab, Hearachs need watching.

It means nothing to me.

I've a confession to make, I've met Donalda MacKinnon, and I quite liked her too. ? Never met Stuart Cosgrove though, so I'm not compelled to say anything nice about him! I caught the last half hour of our match on the tranny. Dodds and Thomson were pretty enthusiastic about us, even Rob McLean was complimentary. Surely the BBC can cover our away matches? Why didn't they have someone in Ufa commentating? I also turned on to hear the Celtic score, although the lack of pings on my phone had already told me they must have won. Pat Bonnar and Scott McDonald were the most rational and realistic of the people on the programme at that time, which tells you the level of cheerleading the others were engaging in. When Richard Gordon built up this Sunday's match as being fascinating "for neutrals" Bonnar's instant retort of "no one is really neutral" made me laugh. Big Pat clearly knows his BBC colleagues pretty well now.

You'd fancy us against Spartak at home, away might be different. Likewise Vienna I'd expect to be on a similar level to us. Villareal should horse us if they're taking the tournament in any way seriously though. I'm just delighted we're even in this draw, let's not lose sight of that.

Reporting Scotland late evening news bulletin had the 'EBT story' as their headline and number one story last night. Even ahead of the First Minister being evasive over the growing sex pest scandal engulfing Alex Salmond. I understand that stories that feature Rangers might get elevated beyond the sport department but did nothing else happen in Scotland yesterday? That some retired footballers might have to pay more tax is not headline news at anytime. Even the tabloids haven't ran with this non-story as a headline today. There's a genuine political story on the go, where the previous First Minister, ex-MP and arguably the most influential Scottish politician of the age, is suing the Government he used to lead, is accusing the senior civil servant of leaking damaging information and the current First Minister, and that his former colleague and protege knew about this for months. There have been rumours about Salmond being a bit too touchy-feely for years, so where's Mark Daly and why isn't he busy finding pissed-off former interns who were too scared to talk about Salmond patting their arse when they walked past or were advised not to find themselves alone in a room with him of an evening? I'm a defender of the BBC, but BBC Scotland have completely lost the way of themselves. This is simply another example of that.

Aside from any political persuasion I find it astonishing that someone can be a Glasgow councillor and profess an interest in football but not know the history of the Loving Cup ceremony or what it means today. This man is supposed to represent the people of Glasgow, all the people. How is it possible to be ignorant of this? As a club we need to be smarter politically. I wonder if we've ever invited Nicola Sturgeon to the Loving Cup ceremony? We should, aside from being First Minister she's an MSP for Glasgow South, and Humza Yousaf MSP for Glasgow Pollok. They might say no of course, but that's on them. I could see a number of the crowd less than happy, but that's on us. Any First Minister should attend important matches at Ibrox, particularly if it's in their constituency and The Loving Cup ceremony should transcend politics, religion or belief. Our history is as important as everyone else's we should evangelise more.

The most surprising thing about that story is that Frank McAveety is now seen as some who stands up for 'us'. Remarkable. How many of the posters on here are members of their local community council? Members of a political party? A Trade Union?

But it's not in the past though, is it? That's not how addiction works, it's not behind him, it's in front of him everyday. He literally needs to deal with it all the time. I mean he's only 'clean' less than 12 months, he could easily relapse if he's not on top of it. I didn't read the article as a piece on Rangers but as a piece on Lafferty. Read in conjunction with English's article on Lafferty's addiction issue last year I think English comes across as someone who is concerned for Lafferty's well being. My reading of the latest article is that English has concerns that a high profile, big money, high pressure move to a club like Rangers might not be in Lafferty's long term best interests. Now that might be because English doesn't like the idea of an inform player joining Rangers or it might be because he has genuine concerns around Lafferty's ability to deal with the added pressure. We can all speculate on that. Lafferty hasn't conquered his gambling addiction, he's dealing with it, those are two different things. Lafferty's career is littered with missed chances, metaphorical and literal, he's someone who has shown glimpses of his ability, then hidden it away again for long periods. I wan't Lafferty to succeed, he had a good season at Hearts and could be a very useful addition to our squad. But to pretend he doesn't have potential to self-destruct again, to attract the wrong kind of publicity and create issues around the club is naive. There's lots we can criticise BBC Scotland about, I'm not convinced this article is one of them.

We played well, didn't panic trying to get a second, kept it tight and go into the second leg with a lead and no away goals. That's pretty professional and mid-table Russian sides are no mugs either. Arfield caused them problems initially but they altered their shape to contain him and that worked. That gave Ejaria more space and I thought he had his best match for us. Our left hand side isn't working as well as it should. With both Flanagan and Kent being right footed we lose the ability to cross early and attack the by-line. Barasic obviously fixes that problem domestically. How big is Lafferty now? He was always tall but I don't remember him being so powerful looking! It's going to be hard over there but it's in our hands and we should create chances.

Is it this article that people are unhappy about? - https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/45276855 Got to be honest and say I'm struggling to see what's wrong with it? I know a few recovering addicts and speaking about their addiction seems to be something they all do as a matter of course. They don't keep it secret, they own the problem. The signing of Lafferty is a risk. His career has been blighted by inconsistency, he's undoubtedly 'high-maintenance' (I know of some fairly unimpressive stories of his professionalism when he was first with us) and when you consider that playing for Rangers brings a profile and scrutiny that playing for Hearts simply doesn't then there's going to be pressure on Lafferty that he didn't deal well with before. He's older now, and seemingly wiser, certainly his home life seems more stable now. I hope it works out for all concerned.

I'm not seeing victimhood, I simply think his nationality plays a big part in the type of coverage he gets. Morelos has had 2 yellow cards in his last 12 appearances plus the red at Aberdeen that was rescinded and shouldn't have been given. Scott Brown has had 2 yellows in the last 13 matches, a similar record to Morelos, yet he's held up as the ultimate Scottish professional. Leigh Griffiths has had 2 yellows in his last 6 matches, Lafferty 2 yellows in the last 5 games and Naismith 3 yellows in his last four appearances. Yet you don't hear Griffiths described as an Edinburgh hothead or Laff as an Ulster hothead or Naismith as the sociopath he clearly is. The fact that Morelos doesn't really look like 'us', comes from a country where they speak Spanish and is popularly portrayed as being lawless means he gets the reputation for being angry and petulant when he clearly is no worse than most.

You don't think his nationality and appearance have played a part in the lazy stereotyping? I lost count of the number of 'drug gang', 'cartel' and 'cocaine' references that peppered his early appearances from apparently serious professional journalists. If he'd been a young, white Irish player for example would they have made 'bombing', 'knee-capping' and 'alcohol-abuse' puns do you think? No chance. He's clearly no more 'hot-headed' or 'immature' than half the players in the league, yet he's the only one being regularly criticised for it. He got illegally barged three times by the great white hope that's McKenna at Aberdeen, how much criticism have you heard of him since then? I've no doubt the fact he's a Columbian gives rise to this bull-shit nonsense that he's hot headed and out of control. He's treated differently and I can only see one explanation for that.

That raises his profile and fuels their dislike, but his nationality and appearance fuel the lazy stereotypes.