Anything wrong with this point of view?

[Guest cail]

WIN the Second Division and do it in style â?? thatâ??s what Rangers fans will demand of Ally McCoist next season.

 

And the Ibrox boss was last night told he needs a budget of just £350,000 to deliver what they want.

 

The message came from Queen of the South chairman Billy Hewitson who watched his side romp Scottish footballâ??s third tier this year.

 

Hewitson also saw them do it by playing free-flowing football under rookie boss Allan Johnston, ensuring the fans were entertained.

 

Their success this season â?? Queens are 25 points clear at the top â?? led to Hewitson fearing Gers would come and nick Johnston away from Palmerston Park when rumours persisted that former chief executive Charle Green was unhappy with McCoist.

 

The Doonhamers chief knows the Light Blues will be looking at their success this season and wondering how to replicate it when they go up after winning the Third Division.

 

But as McCoist continues discussions with interim chief executive Craig Mather over a budget for next season, Hewitson is adamant he wonâ??t need buckets of cash.

 

All they need, he said, is a group of energetic young players and a football philosophy.

 

Hewiston â?? whose side knocked Rangers out of the Ramsdens Cup on the way to lifting the trophy â?? told Record Sport: â??Rangers will be required to do what we have done this season â?? or even better.

 

â??I donâ??t know how you get much better but we achieved what we did on an annual playing budget of £350,000.

 

â??Allan Johnston didnâ??t even use it all at the start but eventually did because when injuries and suspensions kicked in, we had to sign a couple of players for cover.

 

â??Apart from that, he was within his budget. And Rangers could do the same â?? they donâ??t need players on huge money. Why sign players at that level? Play to the division youâ??re in, move up and spend again. And youâ??ll probably find the youngsters will grow with the club.

 

â??Allan Johnston is keen to say this is his first season in management and heâ??s only learning the game.

 

â??If he does it in the First Division then people will certainly start looking at him.

 

â??His budget for next season wonâ??t be much different but obviously players want a little bit more so weâ??ll have to tinker with the budget and create a financial model that works for us.

 

â??If the income comes in, weâ??ll spend it and if it doesnâ??t then we wonâ??t spend it.

 

â??A lot of the players were already at the club from the youth system.

 

â??Weâ??ve got seven local kids in the squad and Iâ??ve never known that in 30 years.â?

[der Berliner 4,047]

Weigh it up against the decades of "failure" and you get a clearer picture.

 

Sure, it is all fine to look at clubs for whom something/-one did a wonderful job just now. And learn. But there are dozen other clubs who tried the same in Scotland alone and who fell flat on their noses, for various reasons. QotS assembled a good squad, got a good manager and it apparently all clicked (though I doubt it were all shiny shiny throughout the season for them either). It works every now and then, just take a look at them, Barca (a few years back), Bayern and Dortmund now. Johnston did a marvellous job ... in the Second Division of Scotland. No more, no less. I hope his success will last and QotS will become a force in the Scottish game. We - like anyone else - should look how he did it, where he did it and against whom, and learn. No more, but also no less.

[craig 5,199]

We should just purchase the QoS squad (we would get them for, what, a million ?) and pay them 500k collectively, thus saving ourselves a 7 million annual wage bill in the process. Job done for SFL2 - and we save about 5 million quid. Easy.

 

If only it WERE that easy....

[calscot 0]

I can see few lessons to take too seriously from a one season wonder in the 2nd division. We're talking about a club that generally finished about 4th in one division, were then relegated and, without the biggest shock in the world, immediately won the lower division. We don't even know that they could do the same thing next year.

 

As I've said before, people seem to have forgotten that a team wins the 2nd division EVERY YEAR. Are they all geniuses with lessons to teach?

 

I would like the people who advocate this to choose a team they think are doing the right things that we should copy and tell us which to watch next season BEFORE IT STARTS.

 

There is only ONE manager in the last generation who has shown a repeatable ability to win championships - or coming incredibly close. Without fail. That man is Walter Smith. Should HE not be the one to learn from? And guess what? We have his protégé...

 

That just leaves us with style - but the guys who advocated putting that before results all FAILED - Burns, Mowbray and Hughs to name three. Can anyone name three such managers who succeeded in Scotland? (please don't mention PLG)

 

And the question is - were Queen of the South playing the type of football we really want to see? I have no idea as I didn't watch them apart from cup highlights against Rangers, so maybe someone can enlighten me.

 

There are 42 managers in Scotland, by all accounts Ally has been pilloried as below average. That leaves 21, make it 20 with the bigot. There must therefore be 20 teams playing much better football than us. I rather doubt it.