Super_Ally

He wasn't comparing our situation to Juve's just stating our response would be the same. Max getting his knickers in a twist for no reason IMO and missing th fact that it's great all round comments from Smith.

He's the head of their sports dept.

Didn't know that. An even more embarrassing childish rant then.

I think and hope most readers will realise this is undignified and embarrassing for King and the Sun and not Green.

CHARLES GREEN is facing his most difficult journey yet as the new Mr Rangers, a trip called dignity.

 

Watching cancer-stricken Light Blues legend Sandy Jardine’s emotional address to over 44,000 Gers fans before last Saturday’s 3-1 win over East Stirlingshire should have been an education for the man who would be king of Govan.

 

Jardine spoke of his battle for life, of the inspiration he was taking from the touching tribute the fans now pay in every game by applauding through the second minute to honour the no2 jersey he wore with such distinction in his days as Sandy in royal blue.

 

Anyone who believes Jardine would have backed the bile-filled gesture to offer Celtic’s Champions League rivals Juventus training rights at Murray Park is sadly mistaken.

 

That crass, classless stunt was for me the lowest ebb of Green’s tumultuous 10 months at the helm of a footballing giant he somehow managed to wrest control of for just £5.5million.

As much as I read. The last part quoted killed it for me.

That makes Green undignified? A simple gesture that no doubt occurs hundreds of times a year across the continent.

King's argument makes him seem like a simpleton of epic proportions.

The attendance given figures will include season tickets holders as far as income is concerned so they are the ones that matter i would have thought, although the massive difference should be of concern to them.

I don't believe that 15-20,000 ST holders aren't turning up to some games.

The numbers are pure fantasy.

Cheers Ian I've wanted to see a definitive list all season.

Glad we have people on here who can sift through the jargon and explain it to us plebs!

Anyone think this line would have been jumped on and the headline been different had it been about us:

“But don’t engage in racist, sectarian or offensive chanting

If they strip them the club should ignore this and still count them in our official history,

I subscribe to the theory that they are just trying o bump their average up to keep up with or overtake ours.

I obviously wrong and don't understand what I'm watching, strange I don't remember seeing any of you at Murray Park on a regular basis. So I'll bow to your superior knowledge on players you've never seen.

I don't think anyone is denying your knowledge of the youths. But unlike kuznetsov's assertions anyone's views on anything are open to questioning.

Your input on the youths is invaluable and highly appreciated. Don't let trolling behaviour think that is not the case.

No restriction in Scotland only limit woukd be travelling for the player, so someone in from Aberdeen may not what to travel to Glasgow, but by the same token the reverese is true, but Abderdeen managed to sign Craig Storrie one of the best u17 players and he is from Carluke.

 

You seriously think Rangers are competeing with another 41 clubs for youth players ? How many scouts would Rangers have compared to Killie, St.Mirren or Motherwell ? Never mind your Elgin, Berwick and Clyde's. Even Hearts have pulled out from the West of Scotland due to cash.

 

Of cousre being selected for international side taken individually means little, but when the biggest club in the country has less than 5 or 6 other clubs there is a reason, genereally its because they are not very good.

 

Nobody I am talking about was released because of Jelavic or Prso, that is total nonesense, it is YOUTH players. The players I am refering to were released at 13,14, 15 & 16 so were never a threat to the first team. This is were your youth department and coaches are supposed to come in. They are supposed to spot that potential. Falkirk seen the potential of Murray Wallace, so much so a club that were skint paid Rangers a development fee for him, two years later they sold him for 300k. A club that seems to know what they are doing, as I said totally skint, but they found the money to pay a development fee for Ryan McGeever from Queen's Park in the summer. Watch for him being sold at a significant profit in the next couple of years, our lot have paid development fees only to release them ONE year later.

 

These players that have left have progressed after leaving Rangers and I have said its not 2 or 3 but its now beyond double figures. Our u20's lost 5-1 to a Kilmarnock side in the youth cup, a Killie side that included 3 players Sinclair released, it wasn't a narrow defeat 5-1 and could have been more.

 

If you really think we don't have a few issues go to Murray Park and watch them, then tell me you still think all is rosey.

I have never said we don't have problems or that everything is rosey.

All along i've merely argued the fact that players we let go playing for a Scotland national side is not, in itself, enough proof to say we wrong to let them go.

I fully agree we have issues with our youth set up. I worked in the Falkirk set up for a little while as an S+C coach.

I didn't pick any age group to suit my argument, indeed I didn't make an argument. I made a flippant post as this thread was started whilst I was involved in a 'youth discussion' on another thread.

 

As a matter of interest what's the correlation between representing Scotland at youth level and say representing Scotland at senior full international level? Has anyone ever worked out if youth internationalists are more or less likely to become full internationals or indeed full-time professionals? It isn't a question aimed at you just a general question of everyone. Other than prestige is there any demonstrable benefit in being a youth international?

 

The Republic of Ireland, with similar population and arguably fewer resources than Scotland finished third at the Fifa Youth World Cup in 1997. Of that squad, probably the most successful ROI side ever, only one player, Damien Duff, had what you could describe as a successful career. Indeed almost all except Duff spent their careers in the League of Ireland or non-league English football. Of the Scotland under-19 squad who lost the final of the European championship to Spain in 2006 about half of them have made a career in football. 2 are with English Premier League clubs and 2 playing in the SPL, the remainder are at lower levels than that. Lee Wallace is obviously with us and should be considered of SPL standard at least. But again that squad has under-delivered, in terms of the potential it showed back then.

Interesting post with some good points and the middle paragraph is part of what my argument has been about but written far more succinctly.

Where have European opposition trained previously if never at scots teams facilities?

The lame excuse for not banning Britney was making him a martyr.

Is Keevins (or whoever it is who's banned form the scumhut) a martyr?

Good read. Shame it's not in the national press like Bills ramblings!

To comapre Man Utd in England to Rangers in Scotland is complete nonesense.

 

In Scotland there are at most half a dozen teams with any reasonable youth budget competing for a small pool of players.

 

In England there is around 50 clubs that spend significant sums on their youth setup and the pool of players is much bigger, which is reflected in the fact that Scotland very rarely even get even a draw against England at youth level. Clubs like Crystal Palace spend more than any Scottish club with the exception of the old firm.

 

Also up until this season there was a rule that English clubs could only sign youth players within 1 hours travel of the club, meaning Man Utd couldn't sign anyone from London for example. Of the 36 players that Man Utd have in their academy 19 are not English, and 13 of these players have been capped at youth level by their country. Of the 17 that are English 9 have been capped at youth level. Three were purchased from lower league clubs in the last year.

 

This is reflected across all the big clubs as they cast the net wider, Scottish teams youth sides are 90%+ Scottish.

 

At what time did I say all our youth should be starters for the national sides ? But I do expect us to be the best in Scotland and the moment we are know where near that. 17's are good and the younger ages are very good if they can avoid the Sinky cull. Inverness Caley Thistle completed the double over our under 15's today a 3-2 win at Murray Park adding to their earlier win in the highlands. All due respect to Inverness Caley but Rangers shouldn't be losing to them at any under age level. To use your Man Utd comparison, its like them losing consecutive game to an Accrington Stanley side.

Can Rangers take players from all over the country? Are there any rules similar to the one hour one in England.

Also your "small pool of players" comment can also count against us. There aren't that many decent players to pick up out of Scotland and it is unreasonable to expect any team to have a great majority when they are only 1 team out of 42. Be they the biggest club or not.

"At what time did I say all our youth should be starters for the national sides ?" It is inferred by the point about other clubs players being ahead of ours in the national squads.

Just because a boy at Hearts makes an u17 squad ahead of a player we have of the same age and position does not mean the jambo is guaranteed to have the better career.

I admit some of the analogies there are not perfect and taken in isolation can easily be picked apart. The point I was making is that just because we let a player go who then plays for ICT for example and gets into national teams, does not mean we made a mistake.

If we let a forward go because he couldn't get a game ahead of Prso or Jelavic for example, but he latterly plays well enough to get Scotland caps it does not mean that the wrong decision was made at the time we made it.

The same Craig Beattie, who was punted out of Rangers, picked up for free by Celtic, done a job for them then they sold him for £3m. Meanwhile we discard Charlie Adam for pennies after him scoring in CL games and against the Tims, and within 2 seasons he's worth £6m.

You can't keep every player who could "do a job". You aim to have the highest quality available. People forget that you have a wage budget etc. At the time we let Beattie go he would have been deemed not good enough and I dont think he was that spectacular that it can be deemed an error. You have to look at the bigger picture. And it was just one example of a point I dont want to get away from.

Merely being selected in a Scotland squad whilst at another team is not enough of a reason to state we were wrong to let players go.

The point I was trying to make elfi is that not all of our youths will be starters for the national side. And that also goes for teams with better resources dominating in better countries. There are no doubt guys who were getting selected ahead of united players down south who never made it, yet these man u players have gone on to star for the biggest club in that country.

Sure it would be ideal if Rangers players all played through the national squads, but players who don't do this often go on to have better careers than players who do.

It is not the be all and end all of a players career and some players develop, blossom and reach their full potential at different times.

I wasn't questioning your judgement on youths and I'm sure you are more than happy for people to do so and for you to educate them or argue your points back. I was merely stating that just because we let a player go who happens to make a Scotland team doesn't mean we were wrong to let them go.

Craig Beattie is an example of this point. We let him go, he played for Scotland. Hardly any of our fans would have wanted him in the Rangers squad despite him being good enough for Scotland. Just one example of what I mean. Being good enough for Scotland doesn't make you good enough for Rangers and at some point we have to make a decision on these players. They may continue to represent Scotland but it may still have been the right decision to let them go.

Comparing a player at this level to our current div 3 squad is not a far comparison with my points about the relative strengths of Rangers and Scotland players prior to this period.

rubbish. most, if not all, of the scotland squad based in the premiership have been out of our league for quite some time. you can throw in kris commons, james forrest and scott brown in there too.

You're at it with the Brown comments. I've had enough of your nonsense though. Don't respond to my posts and I won't respond to yours as I have zero respect for your views on football. Thanks.

So the fact they are getting in ahead of our youth players doesn't say anything about us ? I would say it says an awfull lot about us.

Do Man Utd have a full compliment of heir youths filling the berths of every available space of every Englsh youth squad?

hahahaha this isn't the 90's anymore.

Bar this exceptional season it is still the case. But I'm used to your contributions being amusing.

Surely the fact that there are 12 players that used be at Rangers would suggest we are recruiting good enough players but somewhere down the line poor decisions are being made. It's not an exact science and mistakes will be made, but 9 in recent squads, and there a few others around these squads that were released by Rangers. Maybe if it was 2 or 3 it would' t be a concern but when it's hitting double figures alarm bells should be ringing,.

 

As for questions, without even commenting on the style of play, the facts above must be one question.

 

Why is there such a poor record in players we have paid development fees progressing to a pro youth contract, 80 % + never got pro contracts. The latest two lasted 1 season at the club before being released.

 

Why do "Rangers supporting" boys choose to move to Celtic, players that in at least 2 occasions Celtic have been happy to pay fees for.

 

In my opinion that is three questions that should be asked without a fan a fan having to suggest it.

Regards the first paragraph, generally speaking being good enough for sccotland is a lower bar than being good enough for Rangers. So players getting into national squads that we let go does not necessarily say anything about us.

I've met Ross a few times and he's a good lad.

 

I'm surprised he's given an interview to Spiers but I'm not overly upset about it as I'd prefer we gave our side to even up such articles - even if we know Spiers (or his paper) may edit stuff to suit.

 

As for Leggat questioning if he was at the game, I think that goes a bit far and I doubt he'll retract it given his incorrect criticism of a couple of FF users the other week. Perhaps Leggo would be better concentrating on others instead of our own fans. It's a shame he feels the need to spoil some of his better work with that kind of stuff.

Dunno how we can defend an interview with Speirs? Represent the fans but be completely out of touch with the support?

Thought they had to appeal on a point of law and no fair minded person could logically think they had one?!

43,652??? From the pictures it seems Celtic on are posting how many tickets they have got left available for purchase rather than attendance.

This one made me laugh. :-)

Ian, if Leggat appears to be able to get the numbers with a phone call it would be great if he would get the definitive list for all their fixtures and calculate their true average.