bmck

As far as I can see, other countries have rivalries but they still buy and sell players to each other.

 

It's extreme enough not to buy from your rivals but it's way over the top IMHO to a avoid a player because he USED to play for your rivals. I don't see why management should pander to that kind of perception from the support.

thanks for your criteria on what counts as extremity.

If you are happy for our club to not sign players who have played for celtic then that is your opinion and I respect that, but I find it totally narrow minded and gives the wrong impression on the subject of bigotry.

dont speak out both sides of your mouth mate. you don't respect someone's opinion by calling it narrow minded and bordering on bigotry.

For me football and the football club is more important than any rivalry. I am a football supporter and I support my team, I am not a celtic hater who supports Rangers, I am a Rangers supporter full stop.

the rivalry's part of the football club. i'm not a celtic hater either - stop trying to lump the world into two categories that you've suggested to make yourself look good.

there's not two groups rangers-lovers (like you) and celtic-haters (like me). you don't have to be more-of-a-celtic-hater-than-a-rangers-supporter to be animated by rivalry. it's part of the game.

Since when is being rational dismissed as nonsence?

it isn't. rivalry is irrational, but it's part of the game. no-one's dismissing rationality as nonsense.

1) Surely a footballer should be signed and judged on his qualities alone, not from where he has played?

nonsense. utter nonsense. we can get rid of the bigotry, but if rivalries don't mean anything then the whole game is pointless.

Good final point also, although I cant agree that signing a former celtic player should smash the spirit of the fans. Surely we are not that parochial?

mate, if we were all completely rational we probably wouldn't even support a football team at all.

i mind when we sold hutton i was worried about the implications 'beyond economics' or something. i think it's happening - no matter how good business it is, something unquantifiable goes when you just sell all your good players.

you ask the supporters to have pride in their team -ask them to pay big money, constantly, to watch them in times where pennies are tight. you get asked to renew these commitments saying we're keeping our best players, then you sell them. sad times.

Not many of course.

 

But it's difficult for many to be so when leadership is lacking in ALL areas.

that's true. i reckon there'd be protests long before any long term plan had time to come to fruition though.

We have a team full of average versatile players of whom only a few excel in any one position.

 

There is no continuity and that's why we have no consistency.

 

Short-termism can be found under SDM in the dictionary.

do you honestly think that the fans are long termist?

Of course The_Insider did tell us about the minimum fee release clause in mid-June...!

 

http://www.gersnetonline.net/newsite/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=649&Itemid=2

he even got the fee right - 10 million euros.

Obviously that was my opinion - not one shared by the management team.

 

Dailly is a useful squad player but Alan Lowing or Jordan McMillan should have been playing right back on Saturday.

thought you were saying that In The Know there man. as an opinion, i totally agree.

after being repeatedly told he would be staying by all and sundry this is just a hard one to take.

And, for the record, Dailly and Weir should not be playing for Rangers except in absolute emergencies.

Dailly played on Sat. if he's only playing in emergencies, i think we'll be having an emergency-laden season.

walter smith brought cuellar to ibrox and has now (presumably) sanctioned his departure.

he's been one of the best players we've had in modern times, and i'm glad to have seen him in a rangers top.

given that we're not in europe, though, you'll probably not need defenders as good as he is for the spl.

if we do get any of the money from this, and get a midfielder, it may be the thing that wins us the league?

grasping at straws loyal

utterly horrible.`

so, you're arguing that there isn't a single good thing murray's done?

still too hard to take seriously. i can hardly wait till murray moves on, because we need a new injection of life, but i'm always suspicious of people who can see only bad in everything. i'm very, very sure you were loving the substantial part of 9iarow that was under murray's tenure, just like the rest of us. i bet you were at the 9inarow party like the rest of us.

nah, i can hardly wait till murray goes, but scapegoating's never really worked out that well, so you can go on all you like - scapegoating, and inconsistent scapegoating, is not something i can support. people who think every problem can be attributed to one person tend to be wrong.

i think this sdm-is-the-antichrist talk is too much. his record in the -90s was outstanding, his record in the 00s is horrible. he's done good and bad. what good does it do anyone to paint him as some supervilian? it's hard to take seriously.

charlie adam got the most goals from midfield last season, did he not?

I would disagree there, I think it's far more personal for him and is connected to his ego. Our fans are more worried about which badge a player kissed, which religion they are, and how prettily we play football than any success.

i've read enough to know all about SDM's ego. it was the motivation for overspending money that wasn't his in the DA era. i think he's just lost animation for it - i think he finds it hard to care one way or the other right now (he's trying to sell the club ffs, how much ambition can he have?), and so he's trying to do a sensible job. and that he is. sensible but not long term. sensible but not visionary. you can argue all day that he's being sensible - which he is. but he's not prudence combined with driving determination. he's prudence combined with short termism (to some extent).

its not an sdm bash here calscot - for any bad he's done he's done good - but i dont think even he would argue that he's got the same drive as he had before. he's being a responsible steward, not a glorious leader. the latter's what we need.

oh, and fans should be worried about that sort of thing, they're not businessmen.

He also knows he has to look after the long term finances of the club, something which most of our fans just don't seem to understand.

its not their job to understand - its their job to pay their money and see a decent product. like every consumer, sometimes they moan, sometimes they rejoice. i think people are weary because since AM we've went downhill, and it's been a good many years now since we played consistently good football. the truth is, AM has probably been the best of the tight-budget managers.

we needed a PLG type to change the culture at ibrox to take us forward. for a million reasons, that never transpired, and for people paying premium money week in week out to see crappy football and ground out results, its hard to take any talk of moonbeams seriously.

we've been consistently patronised and lied to, and now we're out of europe in the most embarresing fashion yet.

fans arent meant to be analysts, their job is to demand a high standard of product and watch the people who take their money do their utmost. fiscal prudence is one part of 'utmost' - the rest isnt there.

i think he's more into locking down finances. season tickets will be bought anyway - he knows this. the books have to be balanced, though. that's not his fault.

the main problem is that he just has no drive or determination and no aspiration for rangers to win anything other than the league every now and again. it's less that people think he's happy if we don't succeed than that he doesn't have the same hunger as us for success.

Well, you may be right. I just don't think Smith is at the stage of his career where he is capable of fundamental change. Since we all apparently agree there needs to be a change to his negative tactics on the field of play, let's see if this starts against Falkirk on Saturday and continues thereafter. If, as I suspect, he continues with the dreadful negative approach of the last season, we might all be able to agree he should go. And since it will take him another couple of seasons and a bucket of money to change out his playing staff to allow a different style of play, the outcome seems inevitable.

 

More than anything, I see Smith as incapable of developing new young talent and being able to trust himself to bring them into the first team. His track record in this respect is appalling and this is something we desperately need to be able to do.

i fear you're 100% right about all this. i think if we do wrestle the title from celtic it will be with horrible football, no growth as a team, and no introduction of youngsters - no sustained vision. but there's no ambition or long-term view at all at the club just now. murray park was an excellent idea, and it's produced a few good players, but there doesn't seem to be a plan for integrating them into the first team, there doesn't seem to be a style of football taught as The Rangers Way from youngster to first team. everything is looking one result at a time, and i dont think it'll change till we have a change of board. in the mean time, we've just got to pray that it works out somehow.

aye, we definitely should let him and the whole board know how unacceptable this is - but in practical terms, i think sacking just now wouldn't be good, and in general decency terms, well, it's 50/50. if he hadn't been so abbrasive with the fans then i would have said that anyone who'd sack a manager who'd done that is an idiot: but there's something rotten there, and everyone picks up on it.

it's not about what would best appease our sense of anger, though, its about what makes us most likely to stop the tims going onto another league title. walter smith's obstinancy last season lost us the title, i think, but he's as good as we're going to get. he's unfortunately our best chance, like it or lump it. lets just hope he's got the balls to admit he's made mistakes and make changes.

Basically, what you're saying is that as long as you do some good in the past, failure in the present should be forgiven.

no, that's a rephrasing of what i said that make it look silly and easily dismisable.

i'm saying that sacking a manager two seconds after one of the club's greatest achievements is reactionary - it's neither good for our current predicament or our worldwide standing or for the season ahead. the reason uefa are even running a "one of the biggest sides ever to fail to qualify" is because of ourstanding results in both champions league and uefa cup. last season raised our profile more than anything that's happened in recent history

You also appear to base your arguement on a belief that Walter Smith will in fact turn this mess around in the future - without providing any reasons for this belief - other than Walter once did something you quite liked. Hell, you even appear to think Le Guen deserved more time, which in light of his achievements at Ibrox is bordering on the perverse.

this is ridiculous - "you seem to think he can turn it around given only his track record for turning things around". i'm not sure if he'll turn it around, but i think he's our best chance for this season. and i think sacking him would do more damage for us as a club than giving him a chance to rectify his mistakes.

Then, amazingly, you try to suggest that sacking Walter us unacceptable because it would bolster Murray's position.

yes. that is what i said. walter smith's assignment itself was bolstering murray's position as it satisfied his lust for short termism. he'd be quite happy to sack smith to satisfy the howls for blood, appoint someone like super ally who'll get the average fan's backing for at least a year until he inevitably fucks up and murray will have another year where success can't really be demanded because its another transitionary period. it'll buy him some time without any major investment to get someone to buy the club.

Actually, I think you're just finding it hard to face up to difficult decisions. Walter isn't someone who just arrived at Ibrox.[ The players in the team today are Walter's pick. The tactics we have been employing are Walter's tactics. The backroom staff and the way they prepare this team are Walter's staff. If a year and a half down the line the best we can do is what we all witnessed on Tuesday, then I think it's fair to say that Walter has not only had the time you think fairness demand but that he has failed in his task.

that was the same picks, backroom staff, motivation that got us to our first european final in years. there's no excuses for the other night, but reactionary sackings are for tims and morons. it doesn't help in the short term, and it wont help in the long term because murray's not going to go scouring the globe for a worldclass manager as no-one will come as he's not going to be splashing the cash.

we'll agree to disagree.

its definitely up there.

Failure demands its own reward and it's time Smith got what he richly deserves.

i think getting us to our first european final in a million years means that he doesn't deserve a reactionary sacking - we've already started down the reactionary sacking road with le guen - regicide's addictive, but it's never really worked out well for the countries that have started it.

he deserves, at very least, time to change.

Tuesday evening showed us all exactly what state the team is in. We all saw it, there was no ambiguity and no doubt how bad we were. Given the stark clarity of the situation, given the absence of doubt, is it not right that someone should assume responsibility? That someone being the manager.

that was one of the worst results in the club's history, but if you start sacking after every bad result you never have anyone long enough to build a team. taking responsibility doesn't mean resigning - it means getting it sorted quickly. sacking a manager before the first kick of a domestic ball since he got you to a european final will make us more of a laughing stock.

The question for me is this. If Walter Smith is man enough to sit in Bill Struth's chair, is he also man enough to accept the consequences of the responsibility he bears and resign now? Or is he just another part of Murray's world where you are free to say one thing and do another.

you're the one playing into murray's hands. i dont think murray would be too fussed if walter resigned as it would satisfy people like your demands for blood, and give him the light monetary load of another transition season.

walter's clearly erred - but he's given us what most of us haven't seen in our lifetime. to sack him before the season begins is just to hand another title to celtic.

sacking a manager whose spent a deal of money before the season starts is unthinkable. he'll have to change, though - he's been contentious with the fans, made poor signings and inexplicable tactical choices. he's got to dare to change it.

every team in the league, in almost all the leagues, is going for the treble at this time of the season. it's too soon. it's a consolation if you go out before january, but not before the season starts.

^ your joking, surely. who gets to go?

it was coming. utterly disgusting. after walter's many early european exists, i never thought we'd go out to a team of this poor quality.