DMAA

I think it’s would be a mistake to let him go when his stock has fallen. 6/12 months in a much stronger side will bring the best out of him. Definitely good enough to be in a title winning side in my opinion but preferably not up front alone.

Yes I think we’ve taken that far enough. Time to be patient I suppose and see how much we actually have to spend and who is brought in. There’s no doubt Skrtel is exactly the kind of defender we’re desperate for.

Yes I listed Rodgers' signings yesterday and as we discussed he's made some blunders. But in general yes they've been leading the way with their recruitment for about 6-7 years and that's been widely recognised among our fans. It's made them a fortune and will continue to do so. You take away the £6.3m for Ki (bought for £2.1m aged 20), the £13m for Wanyama (bought for £0.9m aged 20), the £11.25m for Forster (bought for £2.25m aged 24), the £14.1m for Van Dijk (bought for £2.7m aged 21) and we'd be facing a different Celtic today. I didn't say we have no assets on the books, I'm just discussing how we should be spending our millions this summer to set us up to be genuinely challenging Celtic for the title in the coming years. I'm being realistic. I'm not saying it's the only opportunity obviously, but worst case scenario (and most likely) that will be our last and best chance to stop them. I didn't mean he'd be no use as a player, I meant no use realistically for stopping 10IAR. Ok he might age fine, but at 36 it's unlikely he'll be better than what Celtic have. I've said that a number of times on this forum. I'm not speaking exclusively but generally. But as I've said it's the millions of pounds transfer fee that is the real issue with Skrtel. As Celtic have shown, £2m can get you huge talent in undervalued markets. That's fine but a team of players in their prime is better yet and countless sides have shown that over the years. In any case we have Alves in there. Look I like Skrtel as a player, I just don't think spending such large sums of money on him is going to get us where we need to be in the coming years.

That's missing my point though. My point wasn't that Alves will be here in 2021. It's that in 2018 we are ploughing our money into people who will be no use to us in 2021. Whereas Celtic are still leading the way by putting their money into players who can deliver today but who guarantee them continued success in years to come. And that is either by staying or by bagging them another windfall. And that's why even a player of Skrtel's quality doesn't make 10IAR less likely (remember that I'm assuming we're talking at the very least £2m transfer fee and 20-25k a week which is £1m+ a year) . The only way it does is if he can help us miraculously win the league this year or next or deliver Europa League success which would generate revenue for the club. Otherwise we've only achieved a very expensive 2nd place with less and less money available to take us to the next level in the following seasons.

For example, whilst the prospect of Skrtel replacing Martin sounds pretty darn good, all the millions we'd have spent to get a 33 year old Skrtel in 2018 will not help us stop 10IAR in 2021 when Skrtel will be 36, Alves 39 whilst Ajer will be 23, Hendry 26, Simunovic 26, Boyata 30. The money will have been spent on the 18/19 & 19/20 seasons with no thought for what happens next.

My view on that is that it's common sense to utilise the loan market, but only in a limited manner. You'd probably be foolish not to aim to have one quality loan player in your starting line-up. If Gerrard can get a hold of a player like Solanke in this way then nobody would argue with that. It's reliance on loans (Aberdeen & Hibs style) that I have a big problem with. If half your starting line-up is made up of other people's players you have nothing to build on and improve from, you're almost starting from scratch every summer transfer window. Hyndman and Toral would have cost us far more than people realise, but that money has not made 10IAR less likely it's made it more likely because the money is gone and so are they. We should be spending our limted money on players who are capable of winning the league in 2/3 years time, not a squad of players who can maybe get within 10 points of Celtic now but will be long gone or retiring in 2/3 years time.

Agree with that, Rodgers' has gone short term and non-profit with most of his signings. He'll most likely make a big profit on Ajer and Dembele, whilst Kouassi, Ntcham, Morgan and maybe Hendry will likely be sold for some kind of profit. Sinclair, Gamboa, De Vries, Musonda, Hayes, Commper, Benyu, Edouard, Roberts won't make the club money and in the case of the loan signings were very much large sums of money thrown away in search of short term success.

Surprised Hamilton are winning this league. Is this normal at youth level? How can they compete with us given the different budgets and less attractive facilities?

Of course not. Gerrard was always bound to have pals who were willing to sacrifice their wage and come and be part of this. I just don’t want to see us shelling out millions on these guys or to have too much of the wage allowance going out to them. But there’s no question Skrtel and Lucas in particular are way above our standard. Well it’s too soon to say what he can pull off yet. EPL academy prospects have a poor record up here, and the best ones are sent to the Championship instead. It will be interesting to see if he can pull off one that is unusually good, similar to Roberts at Celtic.

As I said above it’s about the strategy. With less money to spend they wouldn’t be in 6th place but they’d still have had a similar level of appreciation in player values across the squad and in turn strengthened their position as a club considerably.

My response to this would be that both Rangers and Celtic are in a very different place to back then. The main point being that we have a huge financial gap to close. As long as that gap is gaping (and widening) we can forget about being no 1 any time soon.

Oops I was a bit lazy in not looking that up ? Yes but the point is the strategy which is clearly paying off (literally!). On those figures the value of each acquisition has risen by a multiple of 3.5. RB Salzburg have even better figures and Monaco are another good example.

To be fair there is no suggestion Rangers would be paying those sums. However under a loan or transfer Rangers would probably pay around 20-25k, which is hard to justify for even more players with no sell on value. We need to be building something with a mid to long term perspective or - like Hibs and Aberdeen - any success will be short term and built on the sand of loans and aging players. This approach weakens the club over the mid to long term whereas an investment-based recruitment strategy makes the club stronger gradually even if it doesn't offer the same prospect of instant results. RB Leipzig are a great example of this approach. They barely sign a player over the age of 23, and with a transfer deficit of £94m over the past 6 years have assembled a squad with an apparent value of £316m which finished 6th in their first season in the Bundesliga. With their patient approach, Bayern and Dortmund will fear them far more than if they were signing ageing players and loan players scrambling for instant success.

Did he confirm interest in both?

Who is this? He probably was one of the highest earners in the side given his history so it was probably a cost benefit analysis. They definitely need more defensively minded full backs. However I don't like the idea of half decent senior players on the bench (Hodson style). I'd rather have a few quality subs with the rest of bench being made up of young hot prospects.

Having said all that, I'd imagine he struggled being part of a defence that was constantly being attacked. He sounds like a left back who would look far better in a team with posession and on the front foot.

Well they specifically said he wasn't offered a deal. Had a quick look at the responses to the announcement on Twitter and the Dundee fans don't seem to care, they're more concerned about Holt who apparently started ahead of him for almost all of the second half of the season. Jon Aurtenetxe apparently got off to a great start and then started putting in some poor performances.

It really begs the question why though. It’s really hard to imagine why Dundee would choose to release a Rangers quality left back.

Hopefully this is more rubbish.

So do I, I wasn’t actually advocating for 4-2-3-1 I was just commentating that we lack a real playmaker.

It’s a good sign that he’s just won player of the year at Hull and apparently been offered a lucrative contract to stay. Hopefully his contract with us is fairly modest because our wage bill will be rising this year.

The problem is when it is denied the latter usage and definition of the word exists when it clearly does, and I’d suggest it is now by some margin the primary understanding of the word in Glasgow.

Some of the criticism of Allardyce is very unfair. He has an excellent track record of immediately drastically improving the defensive performance of his sides. The only manager in about 2 decades to come away from managing Sunderland with an improved reputation. Why is defensive performance so undervalued these days? Do I think his style is right for Rangers? No. But he is a quality manager who has proven his ability time and time again and will not struggle to find another EPL job if he wants one.

After getting close to their record last season I think their numbers will be well down this season after so many drab performances, including 4 home league games they couldn't even score in.

I'm expecting Alves to stay and I think he deserves another season with better players around him. If Skrtel was free and we didn't have Alves then you'd definitely take him but not for millions of pounds.