bmck

ive not voted yet. in general i tend to like the more dignified approach - but it's hard to argue with the claims that if it hadn't been for the recent mini-uprising we would have had less good signings this week.

i think spiers is another one best left ignored. i cant stand him - but he delights in the controversy he creates. if he were to be banned from ibrox he would delight in becoming some intellectual martyr for the cause of anti-bigotry or some such nonsense.

anyone who listens to him and nod approvingly are their own punishment.

best response is to just not listen to it.

McGregor

Whittaker Webster Bougharra Smith

----------Thompson

-----Davies --------Ferguson

---------- Mendes

-------Valucka ---- Lafferty

think that team has mobility and grit in midfield and in most games we could have two wingbacks providing width. either thomson or ferguson could sit in and the rest of the midfield play wee pretty triangle passes generally going forward.

craig, sent you a pm. i talk pish more than you take the hump, but i dont think this is some obscure thing here. hopefully that should sort it out.

OK, here's a poll to try and find some consensus about what people think about the protests.

Are you happy that people are protesting?

Sorry, should've been more specific:

Are you happy about the (attempts to) protest on Saturday?

if i should be on a debating team m8, you should have been a politician. you're a dab hand at avoiding simple questions and shouting "semantics" to cloud the issue.

no bother.

firstly, there's no diatribe. if you dont want to debate this, then just dont. i'm trying to get to the heart of this and you seem to be taking it as some sort of personal insult. if you dont like it, dont reply.

I would have thought that by saying "everyone has a right" would have been plain enough to see - I believe that YES they have a right and are ENTITLED to protest - is that plain enough for you Barry ?

no, it isn't clear enough. EVERYONE IS ENTITLED TO PROTEST AT ANYTHING ALL THE TIME. PEOPLE ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS have the right to protest - that doesn't mean that they SHOULD be protesting. is this that difficult to work out?

whether we should be protesting is the question fraser was addressing, and the one you avoided.

fraser said they should 'gtf'. he isn't happy people are protesting. why would you think their having a right to protest would be an answer to that?

if i said "craig, saw some people marching to legalise paedophelia - they can gtf" would you take me to be discussing people's rights to protest? do you think "oh, they have a right to protest" would be an anwer?

ok, here it is.

you are the only person that brought rights to protest into this. fraser wasn't talking about rights to protest. he said they shouldn't be protesting.

saying people have a right to protest is to say absolutely nothing constructive. saying "everyones rights are the same" isnt an answer.

people can protest to bring the age of legal sex down to 4. those people can GTF. my point was (and is) that this brings nothing to the debate - it's certainly no response. its true but pointless. it's not about rights to opinions, its about whose opinion is right.

and it's not a trivial subject - whether we, as fans, should be protesting is what this is all about. your rhetoric dances round it. fraser thinks no - you think, well, "everyone has a right" - ie: nothing.

and why have you started going on the defensive? it's only debate ffs. its alright for you to question fraser but not me question you?

Who said that he couldnt ? I said that the other side have AS MUCH right as he does, not that he shouldn't have his opinion.

nonsense m8. you said "they have as much right to protest as you do to dismiss them" as if it were an answer to his saying 'gtf'. you didn't say, "yes, you are entitled to that opinion" or "there's another opinion". it was a rebuttal.

you suggested he was in some way wrong for having that opinion.

having equal right to speak isn't the same as the contents of your speech being worthwhile. fraser said they should GTF, not that they shouldn't be allowed to speak.

why is it as soon as someone takes a definite position on something other people turn round and go "well, that isnt the only way of viewing it", as if it were a response no-one had thought of.

fraser doesnt like the protesting. he is probably fine with the idea of protesting, and people's general right to it, but doesn't like it in this instance. why would you think saying "people have a right to their opinion and protest" is an answer to that?

given that we're bringing all the "entitled to speak their mind" stuff out, why isn't fraser allowed to speak his mind that they should gtf?

im not optimistic about this mob. im not sure why anyone would go to the press while their plans were in their infancy.

I actually have high hopes for Webster,if he could just keep free from injury I honestly think the guy will go on to be a great CB for Rangers,letting him go out on a short term loan is an ideal way of getting him back to what we all know he can do.

agreed. 100%. tis common sense.

im so pleased with the signings!

Agreed. The fact that there is nobody who wants to take on the club is the major stumbling block. what Murray wants or what the support wants is irrelevant unless someone emerges that can take the club forward.

aye, that's the unfortunate truth. i've said it a few times - murray cant steal from what he owns. well, he can, but you know what i mean. i liked the old rst's approach, but militant isn't going to wash with murray as he currently holds all the cards.

he's impossible to trust because you know he knows how to present things to his own aggrandisement, if that's a proper sentence. but this doesn't make him an evil liar out to rip the heart out of the club.

someone with big pockets needs to dig deep. i'd like them to come in and say: "right, yous, cuntos, keep buying the season tickets. we're starting from the start. the philosophy for our club is X, so we're going to do Y for Z years, and turn us into a team that can produce sides capable of competing in the latter stages of europe. you'll have to endure pain until this point, but unless we start from the start, we'll not get anywhere."

or something.

i think everyone just knows something is fundamentally amiss - we've been the second club for nearly a decade, and despite how irrational (and how arrogantly irrational) some of the criticism is, there's undoubtedly a sickness of sorts.

i would quite like walter to start playing young lads and see if everyone's still shouting for them when their inexperience loses us a few games.

i sympathise with murray to some extent - you've just got loads of people, shouting loudly, often about contradictory things. he's being canny by using that to dismiss everything, as always, but to some extent i sympathise.

think long term! dont waste money on youngsters! play the youngsters! we must, must win the league this season!

but, still, there's nothing that can be done until a new buyer comes in. easy to point out where it's all gone wrong when you dont have any better options.

we should've been able to beat kaunas with the players we had - we didn't. that's smith's fault, and the players.

the rest is just to argue unknowables.

you cant know that a midfielder would've got us through against kaunas.

you cant know that there were players walter could've had.

you cant know that he's spent poorly until we give the players he's bought (and will yet buy) a chance.

i'm quite sure walter, like the rest of us, thought we'd get through the first round against kaunas and he was biding his time to get a properly good midfielder. that was his gamble, and he lost. he can be blamed for that. but you cant just create either/ors out of thin air. it would have been nice to have a solid midfield for that game, but that's not to say it was possible and/or could've been brought about by not signing lafferty.

personally i'm most happy with the lafferty, naismith type signings. i wish they'd get to play more, and be given the time to do it. i'm quite sure if any of the rangers management staff and board were to say "we can't afford to take a longterm view" they'd be slaughtered when the latest fashionable point for deriding them is that they are short termist.

the real things we should be concerned about, i think are:

the lack of transparency and honesty about plans

the lack of plans

the contentious stance taken with the fans

the inexplicable selection choices

etc.

He had a budget of at least �£6m and he decided to spend it on 3 forwards, 2 of whom were deemed not good enough to merit a starting place in the CL qualifier. Why not spend, say, the Lafferty cash on a player that we actually need?

none of this changes the point. i said that if there was a player he thought was good enough in midfield, then he would be here probably.

buying good young players (which naismith and lafferty are) needn't be thought of in either/or terms. it's not difficult to say why they have been - we desperately needed a midfield player for the qualifier, but we also should've been able to beat them with what we had, but if buying players of that quality and age is a policy of the club, and walter's still got money to spend if he can get the right person, then it's not his fault.

walter smith's got a lot of blame to take for the way he set us out, but i still think some of the blame is just going a little too far.

arguing "if we'd spent all that on a midfielder we would be fine now" doesn't magically make a decent midfielder available for all that cash. these players are long term signings - the very sort of thinking we've been crying out for. everyone gets accused of short termism at ibrox, then the longer-term deals get decried as a waste of money.

great article frankie. some of the reactionary shite that is kicking about after what will probably be the furthest we've got and the furthest we'll get in europe for a long time is ridiculous. walter smith has to accept his share of the blame, but i'm quite sure he would have gotten a midfielder in if there was one in budget.

what i mean is, negativity is contagious, and there's lots of reasons just now to be negative. but petty protests and irrational complaint will only work against us. murray cant change the league we're in - he's acted in an astute manner. if he were only a little more honest, and had a little bit more drive and ambition for rangers left, i'm sure we'd get a lot further. but if there really were buyers lurking just round the corner then he'd have sold already - too much reaction could work against us.

the team needs support, and i think the support just needs patience - very little will be gained in some of the plans i've seen spouted. we need some vision - some consistent youth policy, some sort of Rangers Way in playing football. ach, who knows.

that's a lot of money. what is it he's in charge of?

yes, you're actuallly right too. my only point is, if we start becoming too sensible about all this then we might as well call the whole thing off.

ach, no man. sorry. i'm in bad spirits. you're right.

i've got no real objection other than that i could twenty different people and they'd all come up with a different definition, equally rational. it's hard to take the charge of "extremity" seriously.

extremity is death threats and violence for me. anyone else got a definition?

there's no logical objection to saying a rivalries extreme when you can pick examples to measure it against.

ours is timid when compared to boca's say. pointless.

this is hardly bain's fault. interesting quote though.