DMAA

Every starting player we sell introduces risk, and it will be very difficult to decide how much risk to take ahead of absolutely massive Champions League qualifiers. 
 

These qualifiers are arguably the most important in our club’s history. Progressing to the groups this season would make us massive favourites to win the league and therefore attain the big prize at the end of next season, automatic qualification to the groups. It would be far easier for the board to re-invest prize money from this season when there is an enormous cash prize guaranteed to the winners of next season’s title. 
 

That was a bit of a digression to say the least. 

49 minutes ago, Frankie said:

 

Saw this, an excellent analysis. Seems he could be someone who could play a Sadio Mane type role as a wide forward. He doesn’t look particularly suited to being a central target man. 

On the face of it, it's a great piece of business. He's an ideal age, just turned 24, isn't costing us anything and looks like he is improving every season. Very hard to judge from the limited footage of him though. 

7 hours ago, Rousseau said:

I've actually been disappointed in his most recent season: he's only been able to play a couple of games... for Wycombe. 

 

Although, I don't know when his loan started or ended, or if he's been injured?

He's been injured. But I'm not expecting much from him at all to be honest, at least not next season. Even when he was fit he struggled to get game time in a very weak Wycombe side.

A few candidates for this but Kent was superb. His confidence was at its peak yesterday and he reached another level. 

6 hours ago, Bluedell said:

Simpson lost Ajer at a couple of corners, one of which caused their goal. He ended up getting taken off marking him. 

 

He got turned inside out by Edouard late in the first half and had to be saved by a great tackle by Davis. 

 

He failed to stop the cross which led to the Turnbull chance. 

 

He even got turned inside out by Kenny late in the game and looked decidedly dodgy every time he was one on one with an opponent. 

 

He looked comfortable with the ball at his feet and had a good interception in the first half but defensively I thought he was relatively poor. 

This is pretty much what I saw. To be honest I’d be concerned if he was backup to Helander, who has an unfortunate habit of picking up injuries which can cause him to miss chunks of the season. 

1 hour ago, JohnMc said:

Celtic's financial problems came later

I was referring to the 15 year period I mentioned in a previous post with this, Celtic’s problems seem to have extended the period of the old firm not finishing top two for another few years. 
 

1 hour ago, JohnMc said:

Bosman and freedom of movement can't be overlooked DMAA, that has had a massive effect on football. Aberdeen had players like Willie Miller and Alex McLeish and they couldn't leave without Aberdeen agreeing, even if their contracts were up

I didn’t realise the extent of the Bosman ruling, thanks. 

On 27/04/2021 at 09:36, JohnMc said:

From Ness? ?

 

I understand your point but in reality if we assume most Rangers supporters are living in Central Scotland, (simply because most people live there) then away trips to Motherwell, Hibs, St Mirren, Kilmarnock, Hamilton, Livingston, Celtic and St Johnstone are short journeys and even Ross County and Aberdeen are hardly treks. I'm not convinced we'd get much more of an away ticket allocation at EPL grounds either. Belgium, Holland and Denmark aren't much further away than London for most of us. 

 

While any Atlantic type league would involve international travel and make it probably prohibitively expensive for most people to attend regularly, I suspect many would take in a couple of away trips each season making a weekend of it. Most of the guys I know who go on European away trips seem to really enjoy them, I suspect they'd love an Atlantic League, although I'm not sure their wives would! 

The fact is though that an Atlantic league is simply not realistic, everyone knows it would be fiercely opposed by UEFA and it would also be less popular with our own fans. I've seen a couple of polls among our fans on joining the English set up and both came out at about 70% in favour.

On 27/04/2021 at 09:48, JohnMc said:

Rangers were rebuilding Ibrox during the late 70s and early 80s, had Rangers been able to invest that money on players it might have been a very different time for us. Also home gate receipts were split 50/50 with the away side, an enormous benefit for every other side in the league, there was very little TV money and sponsorship and no one had thought of corporate hospitality yet. So while Rangers and Celtic were still the richest clubs the gap between us and everyone else was much smaller than now. Also the gap between salaries in Scotland and England was much smaller, the top sides in England were paying more but nothing like the difference we see now. Footballers contract's were very different too, there was no Bosman rule then, the club decided if you stayed or left, the player had far less say in it. This allowed clubs to keep good players for longer or cash in on them when they wanted. Lastly Aberdeen and Dundee Utd were managed by geniuses, something we can all hope never happens again! 

That’s interesting. Presumably, the gate receipts being split 50-50 went way back and though and this didn’t change the fact that the old firm always dominated, so it seems to me that it was the combination of exceptional managers at those clubs along with Rangers being cash strapped for a spell due to investing in Ibrox that were the primary causes. Celtic then had their own financial problems then of course which allowed the dominance to be challenged to another few years. 

51 minutes ago, Scott7 said:

Hibs, Hearts, Dundee were the teams that could compete with and indeed beat Rangers when I was a lad more so than celtic who were pretty average post-war. For the sake of the game, it’s a pity they weren’t able to keep it up past the 1960sI

It’s all before my time, but I find it interesting that there was a period where old firm dominance was dented as late as the 80s. In 15 years, the top 2 was only Rangers and Celtic once. How did that happen? Because contrary to what many think, the record books show the old firm have always dominated, just not quite as much as they do today. Since 1890, the longest period without an old firm title winner is 3 years, which has happened twice. 

38 minutes ago, Thinker said:

My preferred day-dream solution would be to see us join an Atlantic League or equivalent where we can escape to play against other teams currently "trapped" in smaller national leagues. I could get excited about games against Porto, Anderlecht, Ajax and the like, without feeling the need to sell our soul in order to compete.

In reality, most Rangers fans would rather a longer bus/train journey every other Saturday than not being able to attend at all, realistically. It is actually easier to get to Manchester than it is to get to Dingwall.

On 23/04/2021 at 08:10, Rousseau said:

I've always been in favour of us moving.

 

Last season Norwich City, finishing bottom of the league--by some distance--had revenues of £119.3 million. 

 

Rangers, £59 million (?).

No brainer for me. We are being left behind. 20 years ago we could make the Champions League groups and put up a good fight against big teams. Those days are long gone, year by year the gap has grown between us and Europe's top clubs. We do have a rare opportunity to qualify directly for the UCL next season but that will be near impossible to maintain without loads of Europa League qualifiers to top-up the coefficient, with a 5th Scottish side in Europe diluting our coefficient and, at some point, without Gerrard. And without direct entry, qualification is going to get harder and harder. Going back only 5 years, the Champions route qualification play-off losers were Viktoria Plzen, Hapoel Be'er Sheva, APOEL, Dundalk and Red Bull Salzburg. Next season, the champions route losers will be one of Salzburg, Dinamo Zagreb, Slavia Prague, Olympiacos, Young Boys, Crvena Zvezda, Rangers, Midtjylland. All those teams are on a high, most are thrashing their leagues.

And as things stand, even tiny clubs who are relegation candidates in the EPL have at least twice the revenue we do and far more than twice the draw we have to attract players from across the world. If we played in a British League, you would back us to rise to the top and become a European force once again. Things are ok just now but we won't be beating the odds in Europe with Gerrard forever and without that we have no access to decent funds.

It's a difficult question actually. In order of priority:

1. Centre midfield - I would love big money (if we have it) to be spent here. A strong player who can tackle but can build attacks too. Davis and Arfield will be a year older, Ryan Jack isn't available enough and when we play tough opposition Aribo seems to lack the aggression and defensive discipline we need.
2. Striker - I think Morelos will leave so we will need to spend good money on a replacement. Roofe is like Jack, we can't rely on him being fit often enough. Itten is unproven still, particularly in terms of how much of a goalscorer he can be. I think he has shown quality in other areas of his game but we don't really know whether he can be a 20+ goal striker yet. 
3. Attacking midfield - With Kent, Hagi, Roofe, Aribo and Wright do we need a senior player here or just reinforcements? Stewart, Jones, Barker, Middleton leaving makes space for....yougsters McPake and Kennedy?
4. Centre back? We are well-stocked but an injury to Helander (19-20 style) would leave me a bit concerned history would repeat itself. He ended that season with 22/24 league points and only 4 league goals conceded (despite only 2/8 of those being home games). This season Balogun has improved our record without Helander, though we've still conceded 10 goals in the 15 games when he hasn't played (3 conceded after he's been subbed),  and only 6 in 24 when he has played and that includes 3/4 Celtic games and 3/4 Hibs games who have posed by far the biggest goal threat to us. Having said that, I don't think we can attract better back-ups than we already have.

So in short, a big signing in centre mid and a big signing up front (if Morelos leaves) would leave me happy (I would prefer 1 big signing in centre mid than 2 signings). Sales to any of our current starters would obviously need replaced.

3 minutes ago, Rousseau said:

Injured.

I missed that, thanks. Calm again.

Why on earth was Helander taken off? He's our best out and out defender, and I don't think we concede a free header in our six yard box if he is on the pitch. Very frustrating.

Really gutted to go out. It is a mystery how Gerrard continues to work miracles in Europe but still can’t crack the domestic cups against weak opposition. 
 

When we went to penalties I knew we were going out. The psychology is always in favour of the weaker side but would also be in favour of a team who have scored a late equaliser. 

17 minutes ago, Frankie said:

Roofe should be fined for a silly shot from 70 yards when, if he'd kept the ball, we win.

As soon as he did that I was getting flashbacks to Arfield in Portugal. There is no logical reason why it should lead to us losing a goal and yet it happens again. 

That penalty was an absolute disgrace. Not the first incredibly soft penalty given against us. I know it’s a meaningless game but it annoys me, I want as high a points total as possible. 

15 hours ago, alexscottislegend said:

Losing Kamara is a blow, sure. But Roofe is not always a certain starter and if we can't get through the qualifiers with Hagi and Zungu as replacements, then we must be in a bad way indeed.

When he is fit he is a certain starter, has been since coming in. I’m a big Hagi fan but Roofe may be starting up front next season. And when Roofe plays behind the striker we certainly have more goal threat. 

He's a player who lost a bit of pace quite young, no doubt because of the constant injuries. I remember when he first burst on the scene with Hibs and his pace was frightening. 

Our bans are totally disproportionate. This is a serious blow to our chances of making the champions league groups too, both players are automatic starters (when fully fit in Roofe's case).

18 team league isn't the answer. Our league is already terrible quality without adding the top half of the Championship to it.

51 minutes ago, craig said:

As soon as I saw the split and saw we had Hibs, Celtic, Aberdeen at home my first thought was "guaranteed if this league was still there to be won at least one of those games would not have been at home".  Given the league is over they may as well give us the toughest games at home as it doesn't matter - then if it is competitive next season they can point to this season and say we had the toughest games all at home.

I think it just rotates every year, presumably by league position. What is interesting though is that last season there was no split but they chose to act as though there had been. So we had Hibs, Celtic and Aberdeen at home in 18-19, then we would have been away to them last season but we didn't reach the split, and now we are back to playing them all at home for the second time in a row. You'd have thought they would have just put us away to them since last season didn't happen.