How long do we wait?

[Gers4Life 0]

Changing the manager with ten games to go wouldn't be ideal, these players must be reminded whats at stake at this club and the consequenses of failure, and the backlash from the fans, its time to stand up and be counted and play for the jersey, this is not finished far from it! The mopes may have won the battle, but they certainly wont win the war!!! Stand up and be CHAMPIONS!!! fight fight fight... :box:

[Norris Cole 0]

Changing the manager with ten games to go wouldn't be ideal, these players must be reminded whats at stake at this club and the consequenses of failure, and the backlash from the fans, its time to stand up and be counted and play for the jersey, this is not finished far from it! The mopes may have won the battle, but they certainly wont win the war!!! Stand up and be CHAMPIONS!!! fight fight fight... :box:

 

Thing is Gers4Life, you could look back at this board a year ago and there were no doubt similar posts. It simply isn't happening.

[Zappa 0]

I might be in the minority, but I personally would give Walter & Ally another season unless we don't win any silverware & lose the league by more than 10 points.

[ascender 352]

Like Frankie, I'd rather have seen change immediately after Kaunas. There's no point doing it now when we're still very much in the title race (despite us doing all we can to throw things away).

 

By keeping WS in charge, SDM has actually made things even more difficult for himself if Celtic win the title to make it 5 in a row. By getting rid of WS, he risks bringing someone in who clearly deserves time to turn things around. But by then it could be 6 in a row for Celtic. He could stick by Smith, but while the players clearly respect him, many are clearly under-performing and there's a definite "old boys" network in action around the club where favourites are picked regardless of form for example. Can Smith turn things around next season if we finish second again?

 

The other scenario is that we win the league and all will be rosy around Ibrox again. If that happens, all we're doing is papering over the cracks again. I'd love for us to win the SPL this year, but my worry is that in doing so, we won't get the wholesale changes which are clearly needed, both on and off the park during the close season.

 

Even taking Celtic out of the equation, we should have a good enough squad to beat all the other teams in the SPL, 9 times out of 10. There's always going to be freak results, tight games, draws when teams defend with 11 men, but for the apparent calibre of player we have, with what they're earning, there should be no excuses. With the way we've been playing for large parts of the last few seasons, we should have saved our money on big transfer fees and just bought up the best players from other SPL teams, supplemented them with our own youngsters and with the right management, surely we'd be no worse off than we find ourselves at the moment?

 

Let me clarify, I don't think finishing second is a failure if we're seeing progress on the park and moving in the right direction. But unfortunately we've failed to build on the momentum from last season and could easily finish trophy-less this time round.

[calscot 0]

To have a good chance of getting another season, WS really HAS to win the league and after losing the League Cup and having an reasonable run in to the Scottish Cup, a double would be a better help to his cause.

[craig 5,199]

To have a good chance of getting another season, WS really HAS to win the league and after losing the League Cup and having an reasonable run in to the Scottish Cup, a double would be a better help to his cause.

 

I agree, I dont see the Scottish Cup being sufficient for WS to keep his job. To keep his job he HAS to win the league

[ascender 352]

To have a good chance of getting another season, WS really HAS to win the league and after losing the League Cup and having an reasonable run in to the Scottish Cup, a double would be a better help to his cause.

 

Even if he does stand down by mutual agreement or whatever, all signs are pointing to Ally McCoist being our next manager which is worrying. Apart from anything else, at the moment he's a part of the management team which is under-performing and apparently struggling to motivate the players. So if Smith goes, surely McCoist and McDowall should go too?

[calscot 0]

Like Frankie, I'd rather have seen change immediately after Kaunas. There's no point doing it now when we're still very much in the title race (despite us doing all we can to throw things away).

 

Can you imagine the SDM's talk with him?

 

"Well Walter, you took us to our first European final for 26 years, won both the cups and very narrowly lost the league due to an unprecedented fixture pile up. However, you just lost to Kaunus, you're fired!"

 

Harsh indeed. With thinking like that we'd have had about 30 managers instead of 12. Eck would have been sacked three times including in his treble year for Victoria Zizkov, Advocaat in his third season, Souness for finishing 3rd in his second season, John Grieg in his second season etc.

[Super_Ally 0]

Agree, anyone who thinks a chairman would sack a manager who took his team to its first European final in decades, won both cups and lost out the league in the circumstances we did, would then sack the manager for a disastrous European exit is deluded.

 

Whether you agree with it or not I just don't see any club sacking their manager under those circumstances.

[Zappa 0]

Whether you agree with it or not I just don't see any club sacking their manager under those circumstances.

 

Gutted at the Kaunas exit as we were, I think that probably about 80-90% of Gers fans would have seen sacking Walter Smith because of that exit from Europe as a sign of complete insanity on Murray's part.