WS or PLG?

[CammyF 7,981]

If David Murray had backed PLG the way he has WS in the transfer market, things could have gone differently.

 

The whole BF v PLG affair is something that we'll never know the full / real story to. Other than knowing that SDM was willing to back PLG all the way if PLG agreed to commit to Rangers for the entire 3 years of his contract. PLG opted not to give this commitment, we all know the rest.

 

I said at the time the biggest SDM and PLG made was not insisting on having a 'Rangers' or 'Scotsman' on his backroom staff. When DA took over, he insisted on John Greig helping him and giving input. Another failing of PLG was to address the defensive frailties at Rangers, everyone could see those and it was something that WS addressed immediatley.

 

Not an easy answer, but given that WS has taken us to the UEFA Cup Final (as well has having a decent CL run last season) and within touching distance of a treble, his record is apparently better than PLG. PLG was probably the wrong manager at the wrong time for Rangers. he is undoubtadly a talented coach, but the French clubs are set up differently from Rangers. At Lyon and PSG he has inherited established youth set-ups and both clubs have directors of football who solely deal with identifying and signing players. At Rangers, PLG had Bain to deal with.

 

Cammy F

[CammyF 7,981]

I think the reason I wish PLG had been given more of an opportunity is because he symbolises the kind of changes I'd like to see at the club - even if his tenure was flawed in itself.

 

As such, while I may not wish to go back to him, I would like to see changes in our managerial approach to embody a more continental strategy.

 

But that has to go further than the manager Frankie. This type of change would require Martin Bain to be replaced by a football minded person who can identify and attract the type of player the manager requires. Maybe someone like Graeme Souness with a continental manager (Michael and Brian Laudrup) below him

 

Cammy F

[johnnyk 158]

In hindsight I would have stuck with PLG if he was committed to the club but as Bluedell said he wasn't and he left without a pay-off. We all wanted change to win the league back but a manager will never be given 3-4 years to do that at a club like Rangers (and if he's good enough he shouldn't need to IMO). We are not any further forward now than when PLG took over IMO. I don't mean how many points we are closer to the scum but our long term future doesn't look good and we are much more in debt than when PLG was here.

[Frankie 8,552]

But that has to go further than the manager Frankie. This type of change would require Martin Bain to be replaced by a football minded person who can identify and attract the type of player the manager requires. Maybe someone like Graeme Souness with a continental manager (Michael and Brian Laudrup) below him

 

Cammy F

 

Of course mate. It would require a different mindset from the board of directors and all at the club - including senior players.

 

A mindset that will have been flushed down the drain with the PLG debacle.

[bmck 117]

I think the reason I wish PLG had been given more of an opportunity is because he symbolises the kind of changes I'd like to see at the club - even if his tenure was flawed in itself.

 

As such, while I may not wish to go back to him, I would like to see changes in our managerial approach to embody a more continental strategy.

 

that really sums up my attitude entirely. the philosophy with plg was 100% right and should've been seen through to the end. i cringe when i think that bf et al might have objected to the new eating/fitness regime and been supported in it from on high. whether plg was the right man to see this through, though, is less certain.

[Super_Ally 0]

Smith by an absolute donkey dick's length.

 

Even if Smith had proven to be a mistake that does not mean we go back to the previous even bigger mistake.

 

Irrespective of his performance at PSG which means fuck all to us, PLG was the absolute worst Rangers manager by some stretch.

 

Whatever excuses people want to make for the man, he was criminally incompetent and if players showed the same lack of preparation for their role they would rightly be lambasted.

 

I pity anyone who still yearns for Le Flop, but it also ires me to regularly read the misty eyed bullshit about him on Rangers forums.

 

I see absolutely no basis for the blind faith "but he'll come good" arguements you regularly read.

[calscot 0]

If David Murray had backed PLG the way he has WS in the transfer market, things could have gone differently.

 

I don't think that stands up to scrutiny as I'm pretty sure that WS's net spending is pretty low due to the 17M brought in for Hutton and Cuellar - you sometimes have to make your own player fund.

 

Also PLG was offered more money to spend and didn't use it. There was a story he was also offered the likes of Thomson and Brown for a combined 3M but turned them down without looking at them.

 

The whole BF v PLG affair is something that we'll never know the full / real story to. Other than knowing that SDM was willing to back PLG all the way if PLG agreed to commit to Rangers for the entire 3 years of his contract. PLG opted not to give this commitment, we all know the rest.

 

That seems the most logical scenario - SDM might be poor in some ways but there is little chance in my mind he'd support a player over a manager - even on a social level I think you'll see him out dining more with his manager than any player.

 

Bazzagate was more about PLG completely losing the situation and what would be the point of getting rid of who was regarded as our best and most influential player, if the manager was going to leave soon after. It would have just made an even bigger mess to pick up.

 

I said at the time the biggest SDM and PLG made was not insisting on having a 'Rangers' or 'Scotsman' on his backroom staff. When DA took over, he insisted on John Greig helping him and giving input. Another failing of PLG was to address the defensive frailties at Rangers, everyone could see those and it was something that WS addressed immediatley.

 

Agree wholeheartedly with that. Didn't PLG think Grieg was just a "driver" that picked him up?

 

Not an easy answer, but given that WS has taken us to the UEFA Cup Final (as well has having a decent CL run last season) and within touching distance of a treble, his record is apparently better than PLG. PLG was probably the wrong manager at the wrong time for Rangers. he is undoubtadly a talented coach, but the French clubs are set up differently from Rangers. At Lyon and PSG he has inherited established youth set-ups and both clubs have directors of football who solely deal with identifying and signing players. At Rangers, PLG had Bain to deal with.

Cammy F

 

Agree again. I don't think PLG was mentally prepared to take the reins of Rangers.

[Norris Cole 0]

Smith by an absolute donkey dick's length.

 

Even if Smith had proven to be a mistake that does not mean we go back to the previous even bigger mistake.

 

Irrespective of his performance at PSG which means fuck all to us, PLG was the absolute worst Rangers manager by some stretch.

 

Whatever excuses people want to make for the man, he was criminally incompetent and if players showed the same lack of preparation for their role they would rightly be lambasted.

 

I pity anyone who still yearns for Le Flop, but it also ires me to regularly read the misty eyed bullshit about him on Rangers forums.

 

I see absolutely no basis for the blind faith "but he'll come good" arguements you regularly read.

 

 

Perhaps the poll could have been worded differently (no offence Gazza), and asked whether we were right to take Smith back or would another x amount of time under Le Guen have seen him come good. Taking him back is purely hypothetical since the club is now so petrified of 'revolution' that our next manager will be Alistair McCoist.

 

The longer I think about it - and this is only hindsight since no-one can possibly know what might have been - the more I regret getting rid of Le Guen. Okay, he wanted to leave, but perhaps if he'd received stronger backing from Murray he'd have carried on.

 

I thought Le Guen underestimated what Scottish football was all about, yet I think he would have learned had he been given the time. His ideas were always going to be new, revolutionary even, but was that not exactly what we were looking for after the trauma of 2005/06? I remember the fans being delighted at his hard-line approach to training and discipline when he first arrived, we seemed to recognise that this was exactly what was needed at a club where standards had slipped alarmingly and whose players appeared to be drifting from mediocrity to mediocrity. It's just a pity certain players didn't recognise this.

 

Speaking of Ferguson, our decision to back him and eventually reinstate him as captain was a terrible move, and it would be pertinent to ask what it has achieved us in the two years since. The Le Guen experiment was packaged as a revolution so why did the club and the support forget that so quickly? We were heading for fourth place but we'd have got a revolution. As it turned out, none of us will ever know what could have been achieved. He may well never have turned it round, I don't know, but he should have been given the three years he was promised by the chairman. Three years should be seen as a minimum timescale for a 'revolution'. Le Guen said so himself before he arrived.

 

The above may be "blind faith" as you say, but surely that's all you can have when you only have six months to go on? It's certainly not long enough to deduce that he's a bad manager. This shouldn't be construed as being "misty-eyed", but rather recognising that the very nature of the Le Guen experiment required it to be given time. He wasn't being asked to continue a period of recent success like Advocaat and McLeish for example, he was being asked to create such a period anew just as Souness was. Souness's methods were revolutionary and unpopular with more than a few but look where it took us as a club.

 

As for your lack of preparation argument, that may have been the case - as I said he underestimated Scottish football but would most likely have adjusted in time. But his lack of preparation was no worse than the man who, as Basile Boli once claimed, left it until half an hour before kick-off to discuss tactics in a crucial Champions League qualifier against AEK Athens in Greece.

[pete 2,499]

I don't think that stands up to scrutiny as I'm pretty sure that WS's net spending is pretty low due to the 17M brought in for Hutton and Cuellar - you sometimes have to make your own player fund.

 

 

How does money coming in, change in any way the money he spent. If he spent 20 million then he spent 20 million no matter how much came in.

The total money expenditure\losswill be different but the fact that we should have got 20 million of talent does not change one bit. Did we get that?

 

I am with all the guy's who think PLG should have been given more time for the same reasons the others have already stated.

[Super_Ally 0]

 

 

How does money coming in, change in any way the money he spent. If he spent 20 million then he spent 20 million no matter how much came in.

The total money expenditure\losswill be different but the fact that we should have got 20 million of talent does not change one bit. Did we get that?

 

I am with all the guy's who think PLG should have been given more time for the same reasons the others have already stated.

 

The point Cal was responding too was that PLG was not backed in the same manner as Smith. It is not that Smith was backed to a greater extent but that he could spend more because he brought more it (perhaps indirectly) through player sales.

 

He is correct in that.

 

You are correct in that he should have spent more wisely, but Calscot was just pointing out another one of the excuses for PLG does not stand up to scrutiny.