DMAA

39 minutes ago, der Berliner said:

... oh, some whispers about Jaime Mata, a 29-year old striker from Real Valladolid, who scored some 32 goals in 39 games for this 2nd tier team last season.

A bit of a strange one. He’s had a decent but not great scoring record in the 2nd and 3rd tier in Spain up until last season when he scored 32 aged 28/29. It’s worth noting that 8 of those were penalties, so 24 goals in 36 league games is a fairer reflection of his goal scoring ability in my opinion. 

Luca Toni was 26/27 in his breakout season in Serie B with Palermo when he scored 30 goals. Up until then his goal scoring record was very average. Of course the rest is history. However at 6 foot 4, 2 years younger and probably less penalties in his tally if any at all he arguably had much more potential than Mata today. 

3 hours ago, Ser Barristan Selmy said:

Allardyce plays honking football, has never won a single trophy of significance and never will. Managing the mediocre EPL sides is his level, and referring back to my original point, he is probably the best in terms of the mediocre EPL manager merry go round. In the modern era we have seen defensive minded managers like Mourinho, Simeone, Conte etc being hugely successful and winning lots of trophies. Allardyce is no such manager.

 

The end.

You’re overlooking his achievements because of his brand of football. The test for mediocrity is not how many trophies you’ve won, that is a very narrow minded way of looking at it. The test is what a manager has achieved, how successful he has been. Allardyce has delivered success in pretty much every post, often success which was well beyond the expectations of the board. 

Great player but please let’s try and make our money work for us by signing younger players on a permanent basis. 

1 hour ago, Franc Ergs said:

if it's so much of an honour for him to play under Gerrard ,then why is money even an issue ?

It’s one thing for it to be an honour to player for Gerrard, it’s another thing to essentially pay about £2.5m out of your own pocket to do it. He is apparently on 70k a week and we would probably only offer about 20-25k. 

I think it would certainly be inconceivable back then that Rangers could afford to hoover up the best of the rest of the league without even having to play them (Christie, Cifci, GMS, Allan, Hayes). 

1 hour ago, buster. said:

It was also pre Bosman and clubs like Dundee Utd, who had an excellent football operation were able to take full advantage.

What difference did this make?

I’ve had a quick look at the transfers of the main Scottish clubs over the last number of years compared to the 90s and it does appear clubs had far more to spend back then. In the last few years clubs have spent next to nothing and when they sell players only a % of it goes into their budget. In the cases of Hibs and Dundee United they’ve run huge surpluses over the years. 

In the late 80s and 90s it seems the enormous budget inequality we know today wasn’t there, everyone was spending quite a lot of money (even before inflation) and not many were making money out of the transfer market. 

On that basis it seems it was definitely a tougher league back then. 

33 minutes ago, ian1964 said:

 

I’ll be glad if Skrtel isn’t a target. Very contradictory reports though, there must have been a change in mind somewhere. 

5 hours ago, Rousseau said:

Allardyce is very good at what he does, but he'll not get passed a certain level. His sides are dull. 

I think there are very few managers who have his ability to dramatically improve the fortunes of struggling sides, therefore he just can’t be called mediocre. However I agree his abilities don’t seem suited to being a top 6 team. 

8 minutes ago, SteveC said:

But his condition is not good. He first had muscle problems, then he hit his head, played with injections… Finally, we have agreed that as an older player he needs more rest, so he can get things right.”

The other big reason why we should be limiting exposure to players this age

3 hours ago, Darthter said:

He has no connection with Rangers now and hasn't had for several years - who cares about anything Whittaker says or does???  Maybe he should withdraw from playing against us in the future, coz he once played for us....

 

All this guff about Whittaker.....yet no issues with Mo Johnson or latterly a certain Mr Miller, who not only played for them, but I believe scored against us.... 

Geezo calm down, I just said I was bit gutted when I saw the picture. I was a big fan of his, he played a big role in the road to Manchester and played 150 times for us including 3 titles in a row. For me it added insult to injury. 

7 minutes ago, Ser Barristan Selmy said:

If Allardyce is so good it's a wonder Arsenal, Chelsea etc haven't been looking at him. 

 

The mediocre clubs he coaches are his level. 

They’re not exactly in the lookout for a manager who specialises in defence. He’s quality at what he does, he’s just not mediocre. 

22 minutes ago, Darthter said:

Remember, we still require squad players of a decent enough standard to step in IF required.

 

Out of the list there, I think it's safe to say MOH, Dodoo, Wallace, & Probably Wes will be offski.   If Hodson can't get a game when 2 left backs are out, then I'd expect him to be looking else where.  I don't see Cardoso or Holt being moved on (just yet).  I think Halliday, Herrera & Pena, may hang about until SG determines if they have a future at the club....that may be the same for Dodoo.

Holt is the only one who I like as a backup but centre mid is too crowded. He’s probably 5th choice which means he doesn’t even make the bench unless there are 1/2 injuries. That’s the job of a youth player IMO. 

Assuming those two sign, and assuming we stick with the dreaded 4-3-2-1, our starting line-up currently looks like this IMO. Improved from back to front.

Macgregor

Tavernier             Skrtel              Alves        John             

McCrorie             Rossiter/Jack

Wilson                  Arfield/Dorrans          Murphy                  

Morelos

Next priorities are;

• Sell Halliday, Hodson, MOH, Herrera, Pena, Cardoso, Dodoo, Wallace, Holt, Wes and/or Jak, Forrester. BOGOF everything must go
• Sign a second quality striker (McBurnie?)
• Sign a young quality centre back (Goldson?)
• Sign a young winger who has pace and dribbling skills

6 minutes ago, Craigy1881 said:

why though?  He wasn't a rangers fan and is pals with Scott Brown.  If his kids grows up to support Celtic then who cares.  

He grew up a Jambo so he has no excuse.. After everything he achieved with Rangers he's really twisting the knife publicly parading his son at Parkhead in a Celtic kit.

Can’t wait to see how this team shapes up. What a difference to have a transfer window where the signings actually go straight into the starting line-up. 

This time last last year our loan signings were Dalcio and Nemane 

I’m surprised at people’s negativity towards Murphy. Without him we’d have been blown away by Hibs, he got 3 assists and was instrumental in most of what went right. He’s also one of the only players we have who can dribble past his man, and he’s been better at this when he’s playing through the middle. 

22 minutes ago, Devil's advocaat said:

Whittaker thing?

Pictured at parkhead at Brown’s testimonial with his son in full Celtic gear

Have to say I was a bit gutted about the Whittaker thing last night so It was good to see a lot of positive headlines this morning from the DR and ET. 

3 minutes ago, buster. said:

Is Skrtel running for President ?

No. He has bodyguard commitments with Erdogan that he can’t get out of. Erdogan knows he’s the only man for the job. 

With McGregor in I’d like Alnwick and Wes off the wage bill tbh.

Kelly is 22 and McCrorie is 20, what’s the point in having these guys at the club if we don’t even trust them to stand in on an odd occasion and play a few cup games at that age!?

Capturing Wilson & Skrtel would prove that he can attract a higher quality player to the club than would ever be possible under an ordinary manager, even an accomplished one like Walter Smith. Very excited to see who else he can attract if these are confirmed. Hoping the rumour regarding Goldson is true.

Claim from his agent in the paper is that he contacted the SFA for a ticket as a neutral and didn’t realise till he was there that it wasn’t a neutral area. He almost joined Motherwell in January apparently. He is dressed neutrally to be fair and if he had been celebrating you can guarantee there would be a video of it. Interesting that Rangers haven’t even bothered to contact him about the whole thing.

8 hours ago, ian1964 said:

 

Watched that video a few days ago and this guy looks brilliant. As I’ve said I think we should use the loan market sparingly but he’s a perfect example of the kind of player we should be trying to loan. Someone who walks into the starting line-up. 

On 17/05/2018 at 01:04, Ser Barristan Selmy said:

Possibly me? It's a well known fact. 

 

It's a testament to how poor English football is outwith the top 6. The same crap teams keep employing the same crap managers.

 

If mid to lower clubs in Italy, Spain, Germany etc had the funds England do, they'd be lighting hell on fire. 

 

This says it all: https://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/may/01/qpr-higher-wage-bill-than-atletico-madrid

It’s still very harsh to include Allardyce in this. He’s been a success at pretty much every club he’s been at bar Newcastle. And he’s proven time and time again that he is almost peerless when it comes to improving the defensive performance of his sides. 

He took over Blackburn, Sunderland, Crystal Palace, Sunderland and Everton half way through a season where all had struggled to keep a clean sheet and were in the relegation places. In each season he saved them and kept loads of clean sheets in the process.

He also steered Blackburn, Everton and West Ham to top half finishes from those weak positions.