Gaffer

Our support is so large and diverse that they cannot be out into a simple political bucket. It's easy for other groups to associate with one political party or ideal, but it's not so easy for our support. I'm accepting of that, although I do agree that there does seem to be a large number of SNP MSPs who are eager to demonstrate a blatant bias given any opportunity. Some of the posts from MSPs are just bewildering. I couldn't get away with posting anything like that or I'd lose my position, and I'm not a public servant!!! There was also the story of the senior barrister (I think) who apologised and now everything seems to have been forgiven. What?!?!?

I think most of us are pretty much on the same page here (surprisingly). Theres no question Murty has improved the team. We play good football, the players are happy, and we are scoring goals for fun (even against 'them'). His signings (or Allen's) have been really good so far too. As we all know, the success of a Rangers manager depends on winning things, and mainly the league. Until he beats them there will always be doubts about him being the right man. The problem is (and Ian said it too) is who would we replace him with, even if we didn't think he was right? There isn't a single person I would pick to take a risk with. I too was delighted that McInnes didn't accept our offer because good football is just as important to me as winning, and there is no way we were getting that with him. Murty has delivered good football and wins. If we beat them in the semi, the job is his for sure. If we don't, unless someone can come up with a strong alternative, I'd be inclined to continue to support Murty through his growth into the role, and the inevitable mistakes that comes with that. He has an enormous challenge now though. He has to demonstrate that he has built a winning mentality into the team. If they have that, we will come out and beat Killie. In many ways, the result against Killie should be a more important indicator of his performance (and ability to motivate and install belief) as a manager because that is some thing he has control over. He has no control over the quality of that other lot and the money they spend. With the benefit of hindsight, it would have been great if we had stuck with Murty last year. With two transfer windows under his belt, can you imagine how good we'd be now? I have no doubt we'd have won this league this year. The very fact that it was a possibility shows what a good job he's done. Next year however will now be even harder than this year. We had the opportunity to catch them cold because they thought they were so far ahead of us last summer (and they were). I expect them to spend money though this summer because for all their public statements they know we are back and ready to challenge them. They can't afford to allow us to do that so the biscuit tin will be raided no doubt. That makes Murty's job doubly difficult, but the pressure isn't just on him. It's on Allen, the players and perhaps most importantly the board to continue supplying the resources he needs.

Club 1872, and the football club have such a challenge on their hands. It's incredible that we all have the same objective - to make Rangers the best again - and yet we seem to be able to agree on very little in terms of how we get there. There are major differences of opinion on the manager, the players, the board, fans' behaviour, opposing fans' seating allocations, and the list goes on. I don't have a solution, but I'm just reflecting on how hard it must be for these organisations to represent the fans and do what the fans want, or what is best for the club. It's always tempting to react to what the noisiest fans want, but that's not always how the majority feel. Having said all this, I'm sure that every fan wants assurances that they can attend Ibrox safely. I think we're united in that statement. The club has a duty to take on board that simple premise and offer us assurances and a solution to that problem. I'll expect a statement from the club at some point when they've assessed their options, but not before, unless it's a simple acknowledgement of the problem.

I agree with you Rousseau. He is the only one that can play that role unfortunately, based on the way we play. The issue I have is that Windass doesn't feel like he has competition for his role and I think it's one of the reasons he feels he can drift out of the game without consequence. I'd like Murty to replace him in games with someone (actually anyone would do) to give him a kick up the back side until we can bring in proper competitions for his role. If Windass performed for more than 50 minutes in a game, he'd be some player. His is currently however either lazy, or loses concentration, or doesn't care. I think it's the second of these but either way he needs competition to encourage a change in his behaviour.

It's ridiculous how many morons there are around. I just don't get it.

I'm sure you'll then equally defend the rights of the media who create made up negative stories about us every week. That's not illegal either I suppose. Just because it isn't illegal doesn't make it right.

You can certainly criticise the media for its focus on certain events over others, but the reaction from Rangers fans (including me) to this is perfectly sensible. Firstly, what other groups from other teams is less of a concern to me because they're not associated with my club. I don't like my club being negatively affected at all, and when it's done by our own fans it's so much more disappointing. Just because others do it worse than use doesn't mean it's ok. That's a ridiculous argument. Not a single Rangers fan thinks that the flyer is worse than someone being attacked. The difference is that we (as Rangers fans) could have prevented the former. It was a stupid own goal we scored and totally unnecessary. If that March was simply about singing songs in favour of the team, why that logo, or covering if their faces? It was sinister and stupid. However, I've already said the attacks on our players, staff and supporters is worse. There's no doubt about that, but it still won't stop me voicing my opinion about our own behaviour. It'll be a sad day when I start measuring our behaviour in relative terms to 'theirs'. I think we're much better than that, don't you?

It isn't his fault he is at a club where he's not good enough. Good luck Eduardo.

This is what annoys me so much now. I am fine with spending resources on clamping down on abusive or sectarian language. I've always thought this was too tough to deal with sensibly and in a balanced fashion, but I at least understood the sentiment behind it. What I am astonished at however is that this has become worse than other 'crimes'. When the 'flyer' was originally posted on line, almost everyone in authority jumped on the language used. Almost no one focussed on the logo showing fans kicking their fans, which would potentially be inciting violence (not saying that was its intention, but merely pointing out it could have been). We then have fans running onto the pitch at the cup final, assaulting players and officials and then the focus being on the songs being sung. And now we have police unwilling to invest much time and effort on a potentially lethal assault with smoke bombs. What the hell is wrong with our country these days?!?

Actually, as I said in an earlier post, I was all for 'them' having that stand because it adds to the atmosphere. However, if it gets to the stage where this sort of thing is happening I would ban opposing supporters. However, as the previous poster said, this isn't only other fans. He mentioned occasions where our own fans did it to our own. Unless people can be identified and shot (completely agree with compo on this one), I don't know what else can be done. I understand the position the police have outside the stadium, but inside the club has the right and responsibility to introduce any reasonable controls to keep us safe.

Im glad he hasn't been playing Cardoso. We would not have been as likel to build the momentum had he played ahead of Martin and Bates. Our two most reliable defenders were unable to play this match (well, not for long anyway) so we can't give Murty pelters for that, surely.

We are so close to beating them, so why now look for wholesale changes? That doesn't make sense to me. Murty could and should have made changes yesterday when we went a man up,, but let's be clear about this, that team should have beat them yesterday, even without any subs. We played really well in spells and only allowed Celtic to play when we stopped doing what we've been doing so well. We don't need to change much at all, and certainly not the formation/tactics. One strong signing for centreback and a number 10 is all we need to beat them, and I'd suggest we can do it comfortably if we keep progressing the way we have been. Lets not talk about throwing the baby out with the bath water now. We are so close to the tipping point.

Out of interest, what can the club do about it? I have no idea other than introduce airport style security checks.

I thought that too. We should have brought Cummings on as soon as they went down to ten. It was obvious that Rodgers had to change his plan but we made it to easy by not changing anything ourselves. If we had brought on Cummings at that time, it would have given everyone a boost, and them a problem. About 5 minutes after he was sent off, I looked over and saw Murty telling the players to lift it. He even turned to the fans to get us to lift it too. What he maybe realised too late is to that he had someone on the bench who could have lifted it. Murty is still very inexperienced though and as long as he learns from these things, it's all part of his growth into the role. He's earned much more time to develop in my opinion. We showed that our style of football works against them too so I'm excited still about our future under Murty.

I was all for them having that stand, but that was dangerous today and I'd expect the club will take action to mitigate this threat in future. If that means banning them altogether, it might be necessary. I couldn't believe that today. There are some dangerous morons about and we were really lucky no one was injured. As for our fine, it was for interrupting/delaying the game, not because our fans threw paper.

What a pity today. I thought Morelos caused them so many problems and if he'd scored it would have topped off an excellent performance from him. Strange how fine the margins are in this game.

After today, having almost managed to calm down after the stress of it all, I'm now convinced we are just one centre half and a number 10 away from winning this league. Windass is good at the running game, but when we need to create, we need a more inventive player there. I really enjoyed watching us go forward, but Murty's interview was spot on. We stopped playing our game when they went down to 10 men. We could and should have won it but hopefully they'll have learned a valuable lesson today - they are there to be beaten now. We just have to beat that mob in the cup now.

Are you drunk? Or did you watch something else? That is the most bizarre outburst I think I could read on here.

You are surely kidding? You can't see any positives? Didn't you think we were the better team, or deserved to win that? You are right that we have to turn in results soon, but this showed me that we are back and able to challenge now. We've got a young team that's only going to get better. They need to spend serious money in the summer. We don't.

Agree completely. I know we've all been saying it on here, but if we can get at least one strong centre half (but possibly two) in the summer, we should be in with a real chance of competing for the league next season. We looked like we were going to run away with it at times today. The mistakes for the goals are down to individual errors. It just showed though that we need an intelligent number 10 to help break teams down that sit it as they did today. They gambled against us by sitting in and hitting us on the break and it worked. 9 times out of ten though we are winning that game today. Bring on the next one.

That's a ridiculous statement to make in my opinion. Murty!?! How was that his fault? Get a grip.

How did we lose that game? We just couldn't take our chances. Twice we had a chance to score, and they break away and score. Morelos worked so hard but that miss at the end was a shocker. Murty has to get the team back up after that and get them playing the way we have been. Today showed we are able to beat them now. We just have to do it.

Thought I'd just check on here to see what you guys think. We look dangerous every time we go forward and they look afraid of the pace we have. At the back though .... dear oh dear. We are giving them too much space. It is still our game if we keep the pace up, but we need to close down the space for them outside our box.

When I saw all your YouTube posts there, I knew you had the battle fever on

The silence from Auchenhowie this week has been fantastic. Yes it has, although even if we had been making noises, there's no way anyone would hear it for all that noise Brenda is making. I'm loving seeing him under pressure. Even if they win today, he knows they are under huge pressure next season from us. I have no doubt that he will go in the summer because how can he take the risk of us winning 55 while he's in charge. I bet our season tickets are all sold within a few days this year.