JohnMc

It is in that article, and he seems to be getting criticised for it.

What is it people disagree with? McCoist is correct in everything he states, his point about McStay is very interesting, we've no one in our side currently who comes close to being a player of that ability or stature. As for why he's saying it he's working for Ladbrokes, has done on and off for a few years. It's an old PR trick to get the media to cover something that basically has no news value. Get someone who the media would like to interview along and allow them time to interview him in return for showing a pic of whatever is being promoted. What else are they going to ask McCoist about other than Rangers? I don't know if it's just a Rangers thing, or if it's a Scottish thing or if it happens all over, but fuck me we're quick to turn on our own. Just for fun here are the actual words he spoke; “It’s difficult to gauge the two periods,” said McCoist. “We’re certainly in a similar position now if not worse. That Celtic team – although we were dominant – was capable of beating us on the odd occasion. You don’t really see that right now. “I will contradict myself when I say Rangers can win the odd game, but as we all sit here I think we’d all say Celtic have got better players. In the 1990’s it wasn’t as much of a certainty that Rangers would win as it is now saying Celtic will win. “I always looked across the tunnel in Old Firm games and fancied our chances but there’s a big difference between that and knowing you’re going to win. There’s so many things can happen in an Old Firm game. “Celtic had some really good players. Paul McStay is one of the best I’ve ever played against. But when I looked at our team I was happy with it, although we never took it for granted that we would win.” “No Rangers fan in their right mind wants 10-in-a-row to happen but a far bigger issue is starting to compete against Celtic again on a regular basis,” he said. “They’ve got a chance on Sunday; the boys beat Celtic at Hampden in the semi-final last season and played as well as they have in a number of years. “But the in the last game at Parkhead, Celtic were dominant. Rangers were very good for around 55 minutes at Ibrox but Moussa Dembele and Scott Sinclair took over the game after that. “Rangers will have to play very well, defend well and carry a bit of luck. I feel for Graeme Murty. He’s in a position he wouldn’t have visualised at any time when he came up.” “Celtic are miles ahead. Aberdeen and Hearts are well run clubs and I have unbelievable respect for the way Anne Budge and Stewart Milne run their clubs – fantastic,” said McCoist. “But can they challenge Celtic? No chance. Celtic have kicked on. It’s not impossible – I think if you get investment you can get players to close gap initially and then work on other things. It’s not a no-hope situation but it’s very, very difficult. “In a one-off game you can beat Celtic. Rangers did it at Hampden last season, albeit on penalties when Celtic probably had the better chances. But that maybe gave people a bit of false hope; because Celtic have better players than Rangers at the moment. “Clearly, I don’t take any delight in saying that at all. In fact, before the 5-1 game at Parkhead I said Celtic were miles in front and Rangers wouldn’t challenge them this year. “I got dog’s abuse for saying that all over social media, so I was told. But was I right? I take no pleasure in it but Rangers are exactly where I thought they would be." “I’m certainly not going to be critical of previous managers,” I know better than anybody how difficult the job is even if you have a few quid. “This is not me being critical of Kenny McDowall, Stuart McCall or Mark Warburton. What I mean is Rangers needs massive investment – not just investment.” And if that doesn’t happen? “The same situation will follow. I just detect the patience of the Rangers fans – and the majority are fantastic – is wearing thin.” “There wouldn’t be a club if it wasn’t for the way the supporters rallied in the first couple of years after administration and then liquidation.” said McCoist. “They kept the club alive. “But I know better than anyone that the patience will be wearing thin. It’s only a matter of time before they turn on players, the board and individuals. That’s where we are at the moment. “Would Rangers be happy with second place? Most intelligent Rangers fans would have seen that as progress this season. Different question – would you settle for second being 35-40 behind Celtic? Probably not." Go on then, what is it anyone thinks is unfair, unkind or wrong about what McCoist said? I can see nothing to disagree with unfortunately, McCoist is measured and criticises no one.

Brilliant find, thanks for sharing.

Not when they manage us they don't...

I still back Warburton but McParland can get as far away from our club as possible as far I'm concerned. He's a liar who works to assist favoured agents not clubs.

I'm puzzled why people don't think we need midfielders, it's clearly the area of the pitch that needs strengthened first. I really like Halliday and Holt but they simply aren't good enough to move us to the next level. We need central midfielders who can take the ball under pressure from the back and dictate play. Teams are closing us down too easily, denying us space and forcing us to play it long. Obviously Kranjcar was meant for this as was Barton. Warburton's philosophy and style is based on dominating possession and that requires midfielders who can dominate the game, McKay apart we don't have any just now. We're so slow and pedestrian at times, we need quicker thinkers and faster movers in midfield. I'm far from convinced the two loan signings are the answer though.

Aird played a part for us, I remember his goal against Queen's Park causing a lot of relief all around me. Along with McLeod and McKay he looked like he might make it then, but for whatever reason it hasn't happened for him. Falkirk are a good club, he might find a second wind there. Good luck to him. Something has clearly gone wrong with Walsh. He has talent, but you need more than that to make it at a club like Rangers. It's a shame, every young player should look at Barrie McKay and see what can be achieved. He was another player who looked like it might not happen for him at one time. I noticed Morton are having a good season, sitting third with a game in hand and looking assured a play off place, Andy Murdoch is an ever present in their midfield and had his contract extended to the end of the season. He's the one whose release baffled me, why a ball playing central midfielder couldn't find a place in our squad when it's clearly our weakest area is a mystery.

He was injured but how serious it was I can't recall. I remember reading an article a few years back about the highest rated kids coming through in Scotland and Crawford and Jason Holt were two tipped for the very top. But then football is littered with kids who were world beaters at 15 and playing Junior by 21.

To be fair to Nevin he has publicly spoken about not wanting his children to support Celtic because of the sectarianism he could hear around him in the stands. Not many people are brave enough to say that or apparently have good enough hearing in the first place. But on your bigger point the panel that sits on these things is a farce. How can anyone can claim a 19 year old from Ghana without an international cap should get a work permit? I'd say that if we'd signed him.

Andy Kennedy went out with my cousin for a while, he looked like he might have a big future at one time, his first goal for Rangers was a cracker. He came through at the same time as Dave Macpherson and Hugh Burns just before Durrant and Derek Ferguson. Billy Davies was another around that time, he was very highly rated but got injured and released. John Morrow was a sad one, I remember seeing him play for us at McDiarmid Park a long time ago and he looked like he was going to be a superb player. Didn't he pick up a really bad injury? Chris Vinniecombe, Davie Kirkwood, Brian Reid, big things were expected of all of them at one time.

Kind of on topic I read something very recently that written online media will become available in a similar way to how music is available on Spotify. So, you'd pay a small(ish) monthly subscription and that would give you access to thousands of articles from all across the world, the writer or publisher would then get a payment every time someone read their article. Algorithms would see the type of articles you enjoy and suggest new ones to you and so on. As a business model it has some appeal to smaller regional 'papers'. In the end this will still reward writers of popular articles rather than factual articles. As a matter of interest has anyone on here read either issue of Nutmeg? https://www.nutmegmagazine.co.uk/

Good point about Cathro's age counting against him too. As Calscot says Levein might well provide the backing and the authority that Cathro needs. I actually think Levein was a better manager than he's given credit for however the Prague debacle was all his doing. The concept of flooding midfield and hitting on the break is fine if you have the players to carry it out. Scotland didn't. I notice Barry Ferguson doesn't mention calling Iain King of the Sun from his car on the drive away from Murray Park that fateful day, he must have forgotten about that call...

Newspapers have never been impartial, very few have even pretended to be impartial. They've almost always openly supported a particular political party and that ideology has been editorial led. In times past that would have been a left or right wing a Tory or Labour support, in recent times we've seen 'nationalism' also enter the equation. So any demand for impartiality in newspapers is pointless, they are private companies and can support who they want and report stories to suit their readership. Broadcast media used to try and be impartial but most commercial stations are right leaning and always have been, today Murdoch owned media doesn't pretend to be anything else. The BBC is the issue, it does have a duty to impartiality and at times falls well short of it in my opinion. What is often overlooked is economics. The BBC aside all the rest are commercial organisations that need to earn money. There is very little appetite to pay for content online, and so click-bait type articles have come to the fore. It's a shame but we've only got ourselves to blame. I stopped being surprised at how many Rangers supporters insist on reading articles from bloggers and journalists that they already know to be biased. Just don't, ignore them, they rely on your clicks, if you don't it will disappear. "Aggressive shut down mobs" are not limited to Scottish nationalists, anyone who thinks that is deluding themselves. I know a few bluenoses who've suffered astonishing abuse online from fellow bears.

There are parallels between the new Hearts boss and PLG. Not so much in record, PLG's record was much better, but in terms of the media reaction and expectation compared to that of professional players. PLG was going to 'revolutionise' Scottish football, new diets, new training and new ideas. I read similar things about Cathro. The problem PLG faced and Cathro will face is the actual man-management side of it. To introduce anything new you need to be able to communicate and win the trust of professional players, a generally cynical, hard-bitten and conservative group. Interestingly the only truly revolutionary moment on sport in recent years was the Moneyball episode in major league baseball. But the architect of Moneyball thinking, Paul Depodesta, was unable to implement his thinking, he'd never played the sport and was viewed with suspicion by players and managers. It needed Billy Beane, a highly regarded coach and former professional player, to introduce Depodesta's ideas. When Southampton appointed Sir Clive Woodward as Sporting Director it should have heralded the beginning of a golden period for the club. Woodward is/was a progressive thinker, a hugely successful coach in rugby union he was tasked with modernising the sport's science and culture at the club. Instead he clashed with the existing coaches almost from day one. The head coach, Harry Redknapp, left before the year was out, Woodward's appointed Head of Sport's Science lasted two months and eventually Woodward himself realised he was unable to communicate and manage footballers successfully. As a footnote Woodward was later appointed the head of coaching for the British Olympic team and oversaw the most successful period in British Olympic history.

You get Celtic fans in Dalry?

At the time I was quite angry about Le Guen and felt he hadn't been supported by SDM and the players. However, Le Guen has done very little of note since leaving Rangers and, with hindsight, I now think he simply wasn't up to the job.

A similar scheme has been in place in Scotstoun for a few years now, primarily for the Glasgow Warriors games. It's great for residents, it can be a nightmare parking anywhere near your house when a match is on, something that made me very angry when our kids were still babies. I'm surprised this hasn't been introduced before now, the Scotstoun scheme is about 4 years old now. Ibrox is well served by public transport, there are car parks at various underground stations and the Science Centre is only a 10 minute walk from the ground.

I agree with you that he shouldn't be banned from football forever, however I do think his past should exclude him from a role like this. Coaching well paid, grown men is one thing, any of them have an issue with him they can take it up face-to-face. This role involves working with children and coaches who coach young people, the dynamic is different, the power balance is very heavily skewed in Mackay's favour. The only good thing that might come of this is the pressure being put on Regan might eventually become intolerable and he'll resign.

Great read, good to see Germinal back on here! The Mackay appointment is just bizarre. Even if you ignore the texts and their content, you still have to ask how he's qualified to do the job of Performance Director? From what I can see Mackay has only ever coached professional players and has no experience of coaching children, far less devising and implementing a nationwide strategy to help develop future talent. Brian McLair made sense for the position, having worked as a youth coach and academy director at Man Utd, arguably as good a football academy as there is. Mackay's managed senior professionals at Watford, Cardiff and Wigan. The guy MacPhee who has joined Hearts as Assistant Manager was apparently in the frame for the job, again he makes some sense. But Mackay is just an all round puzzling appointment, he could be excluded for so many reasons.

It's been bugging me since Saturday night and I needed an outlet for it! I don't know where the 'Writer's' forum bit is anymore, I can't find it. So I've posted it in here, take it out if it's not suitable for the Rangers forum, publish it on the main site or ignore it and let it drop off the page, I'd an itch I needed to scratch and now it's done! I’ve read a number of articles over the last 12 months about how Donald Trump’s mastery of Twitter has played a huge part in securing firstly the Republican nomination and then the presidency of the United States. The Washington Post described Trump as the “master troll” and his use of Twitter clearly allowed him to garner as many column inches is it does followers. The ability to speak, or at least tweet, directly to the soon to be most powerful man in the world is one of astonishing things that we now take for granted. Up to this point politicians for most of my life have been otherworldly beings. Seen and heard only through the media successful politicians mastered sound-bites, oratory, a wholesome look and the ability to smile on demand. Social media is changing that. I went onto Twitter on Saturday evening to see what was happening in the world. My timeline is mixed and contains people from my professional life, allotment and gardener writers, photographers and naturalists, journalists, politicians of various hues and, of course, some football talk. Two stories caught my eye; the untimely death of the writer and journalist A.A. Gill and a Glasgow based MSP called James Dornan asking for an investigation into safety at Ibrox. Dornan seemed to be suggesting there was cause for concern regarding the structural well-being of Scotland’s finest football ground. Naturally I was alarmed by this and looked to find the source of his concern; I hadn’t expected it to be a delusional, obsessive Irish blogger called Phil Macgiollabhain. Who, and what, Mr Dornan chooses to read in his spare time is his business, but whom he chooses to re-tweet is an insight into his priorities and his judgement. Many people were rightly appalled. The blogger in question, like Donald Trump, has managed to find an audience for his bizarre world-views. He writes with an earnestness found only in the fanatically neurotic, it reminds me of David Icke’s famous appearance on Wogan when he was convinced he was the son of God. Like all of us he has a living to make and he’s clearly found a constituency for his world views in the unhinged, fringe of Scottish society, if he can make a buck out of them who am I to judge. Still, it was a surprise to find an MSP among them. The Sunday Times columnist, A.A. Gill, died of cancer at the weekend, he was 62. I didn’t always agree with what Gill wrote, but I usually enjoyed how he wrote it. Acerbic, humourous, thought provoking and challenging, Gill was a master of words and had been at the top of his profession for several decades. His death prompted me to buy the Sunday Times once again and read his final article, ironically about the diagnosis and treatment of his cancer. Being published the day after his death added to its poignancy but it was Gill’s insight into cancer survival rates that struck a nerve with me. The UK has the worst cancer survival rates of any Western European country, and, of the UK, Scotland has the worst rates of all. In Scotland you’ve a 46.6% chance of surviving cancer, in Northern Ireland it’s 51%, in Germany 59.1% and in Sweden it’s 64.7%. My mother was diagnosed with cancer earlier this year, like me, she lives in Glasgow, the centre of the developed world’s worst example of cancer prevention, detection and treatment. We should be ashamed. I try and avoid much of the faux outrage I see online. As a middle-aged father I long ago figured out where the importance of football really comes in the grand scheme of things. But I was genuinely angry at the priorities and choices being made by this particular elected politician. If we take Mr Dornan at face-value and accept his explanation that he’s concerned for the welfare of supporters then you still have to ask why the Retweet? Why not place a call to Glasgow Council, or to Rangers themselves, and find out if safety certificates are in place and up-to-date, surely as an MSP you carry a bit of clout and can get answers? Wouldn’t that have achieved more or is trolling now so ingrained in those who seek public office that what is seen is more important than what can be done? What offends me most though is that any MSP, MP, MEP or councillor in Scotland feels that this is a subject they should be engaging on. The lowest cancer survival rates in Europe news followed on from the report that Scotland's schools have recorded their worst ever performance. With three children at the local primary and a mother visiting the Beatson every fortnight I don’t care what delusional narcissist bloggers make up and I don’t expect members of the Scottish Parliament to care either. Here’s the thing, I’m exactly who you need to be reaching out too Mr Dornan. I’m not a died-in-the-wool unionist, I’ve voted SNP before, and may do again, but I voted ‘No’ in the referendum. I’m one of 55% that needs to be won over. Here’s a clue, trolling football supporters isn’t the way to do it. Focus on the things that are really wrong with this country whilst you have the chance, things that really concern your constituents and the vast majority of the people who live in Glasgow. There’s Japanese proverb; ‘When the character of a man is not clear to you, look at his friends’, maybe that might help you understand why so many were appalled by your Tweet. By the way Japan has a cancer survival rate of 58.2%.

I don't believe the SNP is "anti-Rangers". I think a lot of people involved in the SNP do have a basic antipathy towards people signing 'Rule Britannia' and waving union flags. But then I'm not a member or supporter of the SNP and I've no time for either of those two things either. I suspect a fair number of 'bears' vote SNP, I'm sure some are fully supportive of Scottish independence, I'm sure some just didn't fancy the alternatives on offer at election time and some thought Nicola Sturgeon would make a better First Minster than Jim Murphy. Any 'poison' is clear to you perhaps, but not to everyone.

I'm surprised that you're surprised! Gersnet ran a poll at the time of the referendum and, from memory, it was broadly inline with the result. Remember, for most people who they support and who they vote for are two entirely different subjects. The only thing the colour of my scarf tells you about me is what football team I support. I voted 'No' in the referendum, I'd vote the same way if there was another one tomorrow. But in five years time, or ten, who knows. Things change so I keep an open mind. Two of the strongest SNP supporters I know are big Rangers men, one I understand is looking to stand in local elections for them. He's a good guy and would make a great councillor, I'd vote for him. That's got nothing to do with him being a bluenose though. Describing them as "evil" does you a discredit. I disagree with some of their policies, I think, on balance, things are better being part of the union. But I can respect their point of view and accept that parts of their argument is valid. They aren't "evil". Any attempt to group Rangers supporters as one homogenous group should be resisted, whether it comes from fans of other clubs or from fans of our own. We're a broad church and represent a wide cross-section of the population, we'd be well served reminding politicians of all hues that as often as we can.

Double post.

The thing that always needs factored into this equation though is on-field success. Put frankly Barcelona's local, national and international profile has been heightened far more by the presence of Cruyff, Schuster, Laudrup, Stoichkov, Hagi, Maradona, Ronaldhino, Romario, Figo, Eto'o, Xavi, Iniesta and of course Messi, whose value to Barcelona is almost unmeasurable, than by the rise in Catalan nationalism. The Catalan identity really only plays out locally, your average 10 year old in small town northern Europe couldn't care less, they care about Messi and winning the Champions League. If Espanyol could put together a competitive side their profile would rise, in the same way that Valencia and Athletico Madrid have seen their profile rise as their fortunes on the field did. The increased commercialisation of football in general since the creation of the Champions League has coincided with Barca, and Spanish football, enjoying a golden period. In the 80s it was Italian sides that ruled the world and AC Milan merchandise that dominated shelf space. Today it's Barca and Real Madrid that's more to do with the cyclical nature of football than political demographics. As for the lack of politicians willing to self-identify as Rangers supporters that is a problem. However it's our problem and for us to fix. The issue isn't Celtic supporters undermining us, it's Ranger supporters undermining us.

I was at an ICAS dinner a few years ago and John Reid was the speaker. He was quite funny which was annoying. They'd Rory Bremner the other week, I wonder if Paul Murray can do a Trump impersonation.