Walter Smith

[bmck 117]

if there is floundering in water going on, lets have it spelled out why, and what the significance is for the actual issues being discussed; or if there is irony ringing dull-ly, lets have it spelled out and why its important to the debate. not in a moderating sense, just for the sake of worthwhile reading.

[bmck 117]

well argued post maineflyer. there are a million different hats you can adopt when you talk about this stuff. the man under the hat worn watching that game the other night would have had them all shot, walte smith included, because how hurtful it was to watch. when i get back home, i stick on the pragmatics hat, and think about wider factors and all that. when i think about smith with a managerial analyst hat, i just dream of replacing him with an astute tactician with an overarching philosophy, and will and energy and drive to bring it into being. i think about how good it would be to see people routinely run into open space. and when i think about us and where we could be in ten years i want him out asap, so that the future can happen more quickly. and then i stick on my good-of-the-club hat and the in the immediate future i think it would be completely ridiculous to folow the plans of the guy thinking ten years ahead because there is league to be won and walter smith gives us a great chance of doing it. we arent really debating the facts here, mostly, but really just the most pressing concerns to conceive the problems in.

[maineflyer 0]

Bit of a magnet for you then. :fish:

 

A bucket-load of irony in this post.

 

Gentlemen,

 

I've no stroke here, I just come along and say my bit, try to learn a bit from others and enjoy the experience. If it was any of my business, I'd be tempted to knock your heads together and ask if you both to grow up a little. Frankly, you're spoiling this and other topics, for me at least, and I'd like to ask if you could stop the tedious squabbling. Thanks.

[spanner 0]

FFS here is me thinking it's the internet only to discover some think it is fekin mastermind, I have no problem with Super Ally and I would like to think he takes the jousting in good part even if there is a hole in his lifeboat, the whole surreal situation is a bag of spanners at the moment, someone will eventually find the right spanners to tighten the nuts. If someone doesn't to put it in the venacular we are up shit creek without a paddle, take the hole in Super's lifeboat into the equation and we are well and truly fucked, my faith is in the good Doctor Muir putting the patient on the road to a full recovery, he really should not be seen as the Grim Reaper.

[ian1964 10,761]

NAILED for being negative, panned for being positive.

 

Walter Smith has found he can't win.

 

Yet after sifting through all the wreckage of a catastrophic Champions League campaign the Rangers boss last night offered no excuses.

 

The blame, he insists, lies squarely with him. Gers are out of Europe and it's all his fault.

 

Four days on from his side's shocker against Stuttgart and Smith has revealed he regrets tinkering with his team's formation.

 

His tried and trusted 4-5-1 approach was ditched this season in favour of a more expansive style.

 

But with his squad bereft of quality, the move backfired as Rangers crashed and burned.

 

Ten goals were shipped at Ibrox with Smith's side the embarrassed whipping boys of Group G.

 

He confessed: "Part of what has happened this year I take on myself.

 

"I've gone away from what I felt was the necessary way for Rangers to play, to try to play more forward players in these games.

 

"We've maybe not been strong enough to handle that aspect of it.

 

"The Champions League is an unforgiving arena.

 

"You only have to look at the likes of Liverpool, and other big clubs who have invested far more money than us, going out or struggling to qualify.

 

"Even though we did better in our previous Champions League campaign, we received a lot of criticism for the way we played.

 

"Maybe on reflection it was the right way to play with what we've got.

 

"This year we lost a lot of players in the close season and, because of injuries, we've not had the option to play in a similar manner.

 

"We have played more attacking players and that, if anything, has weakened us as a unit.

 

"We basically haven't been good enough. If I look at it right now, I would have been better sticking with the old strategy. But it's one of those things, you've got to try something.

 

"Maybe now I've got to say I was wrong about that.

 

"However, maybe everybody who criticised the way we played in the previous tournament has to hold their hands up and say they were wrong. We were all wrong!"

 

Rangers have been humiliated on the European stage this season.

 

Damaging home defeats to Sevilla, Stuttgart and tiny Unirea Urziceni have been hard to bear for a boss who 18 months ago led Gers to a UEFA Cup Final.

 

Smith confessed: "It doesn't do the club's image any good, but there's not a lot happening around the club right now that is doing the image a lot of good.

 

"You have to say that, at different times, you get good European runs.

 

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"There have always been peaks and troughs throughout our European campaigns historically, and it is still happening at the present time.

 

"But the worrying factor is it looks as though the gulf is liable to get bigger between ourselves and the rest.

 

"So it falls on the manager to find a way of playing that can bring us a level of success.

 

"The obvious way was the way I tried beforehand, that turned out to be great for us at the time.

 

"In Scotland, when we don't have the really top players, there is more of an onus on the manager to make his team competitive.

 

"This year I have not been able to do that. We have missed Maurice Edu and Pedro Mendes in midfield.

 

"That would have allowed us to play Steven Davis in the position he has played. It hasn't worked out for us and the responsibility is my own." A cold hard winter is about to set in with Smith offering a bleak assessment of Scottish football.

 

The talent to compete on a stage as grand as the Champions League is no longer there. Neither is the money needed to arrest the decline.

 

Smith, who aims to keep Gers top of the SPL with a win at Aberdeen today, added: "The Champions League group we were in two years ago was stronger I believe.

 

"But we can't run away from the fact we have not been as good in this campaign.

 

"Like I said, unfortunately, in Scottish football the onus is on the manager to make us competitive.

 

"I say unfortunately because it means we no longer rely on players.

 

"In my previous spell here I was never defensive, that is not my way of playing with Rangers.

 

"But when I came back I had to make an assessment of the situation.

 

"I realised we didn't have the same level of player so I set out to make us difficult to beat.

 

"We did that and we reached levels I never thought possible. I never thought we'd reach a UEFA Cup Final, but we did."

 

Yet Smith now fears the gap between the Old Firm and Europe's best is growing.

 

He explained: "I went as Scotland boss to watch Celtic play in the Champions League.

 

"Gordon Strachan was always an advocate of 4-4-2, but he changed in these games to try and find a system.

 

"The gulf between ourselves and the rest is getting bigger.

 

"It just means we need to work harder to find a way of playing. It may not resemble Scottish teams of the past but it can be effective."

 

http://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/scotsol/homepage/sport/spl/2749762/I-cocked-it-up-because-I-listened-to-punters.html