Official Manager Discussion Thread

[calscot 0]

Care to point me out all the champions league winners who have been incapable of performing to a high level and retaining possession?

 

Care to point me out the champions league winners who have our budget? I'm sure we'd perform to higher level if we spent about half a billion Euros on transfer fees with matching wages.

 

Hoofing the ball might work in Scotland because it's a dire league.

 

That's true, hoofing it has been part of our game forever, even the best Aberdeen sides in the 80's were known for it with Miller, Eck and Rougvie. It's part and parcel of our game and our problem is we're part of that game. There are plenty of good sides who struggle to play the ball around against Scottish teams. But it's even worse when you're playing them four times a season and they all raise their tempo against you. BTW We also mostly play the ball on the deck, although I would agree that the long ball is used more often than I'd like.

 

It's why we get embarrassed constantly against anyone half decent in Europe and internationally.

 

We've done our fair share of embarrassing other sides. It's not long ago that we were in the Europa cup final - I really shouldn't keep having to point this kind of stuff out to a Rangers fan...

 

As soon as a Scottish team comes up against any side with a shred of tactical awareness and technique, it's a lost cause.

 

Like Barcelona who looked crap against us and needed a cheat's goal to break our defence? Even Celtic beat them recently and before you bring out the thrashing Celtic took later, the case you're making is "always" and obviously that's just plain wrong.

 

I'm after seeing a Rangers side that is worthy of being named as such. Like in 02/03 when we played excellent football and won the treble.

 

Again, I seem to have to remind you that Rangers are in a different place right now - you do know about the club don't you?

 

It will take a while and a lot of investment to get Rangers back to the top of the Scottish game and even then it will not be possible, in the current state of the game, to be able to afford a team like the one in 02 - which even then we couldn't actually afford. It put us 80m in debt and Murray had to pump 50m back into the club a couple of years later. In fact that team was the beginning of a long decline due to overspending, and helping take us to where we are now. You really don't seem to know the club's history.

 

The same manager of that team then had to sell all the best players and bring in much cheaper replacements (although incredibly expensive compared to now). He struggled and the football became very poor and in the end of his tenure we finished an ignominious third place to a side that had a hell of a lot less resources. Something that our current manager, whom you think is the worst ever, has never fallen to.

 

PS - You also seem to struggle with the fact that outside the old firm everyone in Scotland is absolutely skint. Clubs literally hardly ever pay any fee at all for signing players. It's all youth development, freebies and very nominal fees, often buying players from the bottom end of the English leagues.

 

I don't disagree but don't see the relevance. It just adds to the fact that Scottish football is not of the best quality, and so I can't see why we expect great quality at a certain Scottish club while its having the hardest off-field struggles of its history.

[calscot 0]

Even allowing for the fact it's the most turgid big league around the football on display in the EPL is light years away from ours.

 

Could be anything to do with the £70m minimum that clubs get from TV? How much to Rangers get again? Even Celtic only get a few million.

[calscot 0]

Loads of teams manage to win things without hoofing the ball constantly.

 

I don't think there is any team who hoofs the ball constantly, so you're probably correct.

[Rangersitis 0]

Could be anything to do with the £70m minimum that clubs get from TV? How much to Rangers get again? Even Celtic only get a few million.

 

Money doesn't come into it. It's a matter of attitude.

 

Setting up a team to play possession football, keeping the ball on the deck, encouraging attacking play etc, costs the same amount as setting up a team to play kick and rush football, reverting to defensively-minded tactics when pressurised etc.

[Ser Barristan Selmy 222]

Care to point me out the champions league winners who have our budget? I'm sure we'd perform to higher level if we spent about half a billion Euros on transfer fees with matching wages.

Care to point the CL teams playing against part-time opposition? We have huge resources compared to these teams, spending £14m on wages alone. Your excuse is invalid.

 

That's true, hoofing it has been part of our game forever, even the best Aberdeen sides in the 80's were known for it with Miller, Eck and Rougvie. It's part and parcel of our game and our problem is we're part of that game. There are plenty of good sides who struggle to play the ball around against Scottish teams. But it's even worse when you're playing them four times a season and they all raise their tempo against you. BTW We also mostly play the ball on the deck, although I would agree that the long ball is used more often than I'd like.

No, we don't mainly play on the deck. This is another example of you expressing an opinion based on fantasy and not based on actually watching the games. Scottish football is stuck in the dark ages and that's why as a footballing nation we are pathetic.

 

We've done our fair share of embarrassing other sides. It's not long ago that we were in the Europa cup final - I really shouldn't keep having to point this kind of stuff out to a Rangers fan...

1 win in our last 23 European games is it? Or is it more than that? We have had two successful European campaigns in the last 20+ years and an awful lot of money has been spent.

 

Like Barcelona who looked crap against us and needed a cheat's goal to break our defence? Even Celtic beat them recently and before you bring out the thrashing Celtic took later, the case you're making is "always" and obviously that's just plain wrong.

All teams will have an off day. Barcelona won 3 CL's in the space of 5 years. The old firm are diddy teams in Europe that can't buy a win and usually fail miserably at the first or second hurdle. Quoting 1 or 2 bad results proves nothing.

 

 

 

Again, I seem to have to remind you that Rangers are in a different place right now - you do know about the club don't you?

My point there was you seem to think playing well and achieving success is mutually exclusive, when generally the opposite is the case, at least on the grander stage than our tin pot league. Regardless, the best performing Scottish side generally does win the league...

 

It will take a while and a lot of investment to get Rangers back to the top of the Scottish game and even then it will not be possible, in the current state of the game, to be able to afford a team like the one in 02 - which even then we couldn't actually afford. It put us 80m in debt and Murray had to pump 50m back into the club a couple of years later. In fact that team was the beginning of a long decline due to overspending, and helping take us to where we are now. You really don't seem to know the club's history.

If we adopt to the modern world and actually implement the required infrastructure instead of just splashing cash at short term fixes there is no reason we can't have sustainable success long term. We need to actually start signing and developing talented players that can be sold for large profits though. That is the way big clubs in little leagues achieve success and we are atrocious at it.

 

 

The same manager of that team then had to sell all the best players and bring in much cheaper replacements (although incredibly expensive compared to now). He struggled and the football became very poor and in the end of his tenure we finished an ignominious third place to a side that had a hell of a lot less resources. Something that our current manager, whom you think is the worst ever, has never fallen to.

Eck is useless too so you are preaching to the choir there. His current employment status speaks volumes. The 02/03 side was Advocaat's players, not Eck.

 

 

 

I don't disagree but don't see the relevance. It just adds to the fact that Scottish football is not of the best quality, and so I can't see why we expect great quality at a certain Scottish club while its having the hardest off-field struggles of its history.

Our resources dwarf the opposition and as such there is no excuse for playing so abysmally.

[calscot 0]

Money doesn't come into it.

 

That just seems naive in the extreme. You're not going to win any football debates with that argument. If you're going to compare other clubs, they should have a similar budget. But even then they will not have the same experience as us. Four games a season, other team upping their game, damage limitation instead of going for a win etc.

 

It's a matter of attitude.

 

I would say form experience, you can have any attitude you like, it doesn't mean you'll be able to play how you want to.

 

Setting up a team to play possession football, keeping the ball on the deck, encouraging attacking play etc, costs the same amount as setting up a team to play kick and rush football, reverting to defensively-minded tactics when pressurised etc.

 

That's all a bit simplistic. If it's so easy and works, here's the big question - why isn't EVERY club in Scotland doing it? And why aren't you some managerial guru that is rising up through the ranks by doing this seeing as no-one else is? If it's not about money then surely you can start off with a pub team, making them look like Real Madrid and winning at the same time...

 

But it's all very well doing it in training but it's totally different in a competitive game where you have another team to contend with. The fact is that teams now set themselves up to stop other sides from playing like this - even the most skilful of sides. I don't remember Barcelona allowing Rangers time on the ball and space to play, which was weird seeing as they called our game "anti-football" which was exactly what their game was by not letting us play, they just did it further up the pitch as they had more skilful players.

 

Another telling thing happened on here recently. People have been saying that we don't practice short, fast passing in training, then some photo's are shown with the players doing exactly that, and it was quickly joked about negatively and glossed over.

 

But then people keep saying we can't string three passes together, and I now can't help myself counting to seven and eight etc throughout the game.

[Rangersitis 0]

That just seems naive in the extreme. You're not going to win any football debates with that argument. If you're going to compare other clubs, they should have a similar budget. But even then they will not have the same experience as us. Four games a season, other team upping their game, damage limitation instead of going for a win etc.

 

 

 

I would say form experience, you can have any attitude you like, it doesn't mean you'll be able to play how you want to.

 

 

 

That's all a bit simplistic. If it's so easy and works, here's the big question - why isn't EVERY club in Scotland doing it? And why aren't you some managerial guru that is rising up through the ranks by doing this seeing as no-one else is? If it's not about money then surely you can start off with a pub team, making them look like Real Madrid and winning at the same time...

 

But it's all very well doing it in training but it's totally different in a competitive game where you have another team to contend with. The fact is that teams now set themselves up to stop other sides from playing like this - even the most skilful of sides. I don't remember Barcelona allowing Rangers time on the ball and space to play, which was weird seeing as they called our game "anti-football" which was exactly what their game was by not letting us play, they just did it further up the pitch as they had more skilful players.

 

Another telling thing happened on here recently. People have been saying that we don't practice short, fast passing in training, then some photo's are shown with the players doing exactly that, and it was quickly joked about negatively and glossed over.

 

But then people keep saying we can't string three passes together, and I now can't help myself counting to seven and eight etc throughout the game.

 

I really couldn't give a fuck whether I win a football debate or not, so you can claim yourself a wee victory, you sad little man.

[the gunslinger 3,366]

Could be anything to do with the £70m minimum that clubs get from TV? How much to Rangers get again? Even Celtic only get a few million.

 

The style of football? No nothing to do with it. Teams with a hundredth of our budget don't do it.

[the gunslinger 3,366]

I don't think there is any team who hoofs the ball constantly, so you're probably correct.

 

We try to. ..

[calscot 0]

Care to point the CL teams playing against part-time opposition?

 

I can't see the relevance, but basically it's because top CL teams are irrelevant to us. They have the top players (and managers) in the world. I don't know what you're trying to equate. Being better players and training better than other teams doesn't mean you play "beautiful football", it means you generally beat them - which we do.

 

We have huge resources compared to these teams, spending £14m on wages alone. Your excuse is invalid.

 

Firstly you're kind of arguing against yourself here as you're counting wages of the likes of Jig whom you don't rate. Secondly, if you're going to throw numbers around at least make them relevant. Paying more for a load of non-playing staff to run a large stadium is not going to make you play "nicer" football. I think it's your excuse that invalid.

 

No, we don't mainly play on the deck. This is another example of you expressing an opinion based on fantasy and not based on actually watching the games.

 

Sorry, but you have demonstrated many times that you don't watch ANY Rangers games. I really don't think you do - it's easy to make it up on the Internet and most of your arguments are made up. I explained how much I watch games, your own explanation for your watching was noticeably missing... I wonder why? I think you keep saying that about me to deflect from yourself. Even if you are actually in front of a game, you obviously don't watch it. All it takes is to count a string of at least four passes on the deck to realise you don't watch the game.

 

Scottish football is stuck in the dark ages and that's why as a footballing nation we are pathetic.

 

I don't disagree with that but it only argues against your own points.

 

1 win in our last 23 European games is it? Or is it more than that? We have had two successful European campaigns in the last 20+ years and an awful lot of money has been spent.

 

I'm not sure what you're trying to say here, it's not that relevant to now. You seem to be saying that we used to play better football and still failed... Kind of against your original argument.

 

All teams will have an off day. Barcelona won 3 CL's in the space of 5 years. The old firm are diddy teams in Europe that can't buy a win and usually fail miserably at the first or second hurdle. Quoting 1 or 2 bad results proves nothing.

 

I don't expect Scottish teams to compete against the likes of Barcelona these days, the world has changed and population of your country is incredibly important for TV money, leaving our clubs and those of similar countries as provincial teams. Our only hope was to have switched to England in the early 90's.

 

The point is though, that Scottish teams can achieve results against the likes of Barcelona, not by playing lovely football, where they'd be taken apart, but by playing a more ugly style. It's always been the way for less skilful teams to have a better chance of a result, which is why it's used on us all the time.

 

 

My point there was you seem to think playing well and achieving success is mutually exclusive,

 

I have never said that. I have said that with the kind of players we have, in the football climate we're in, it's just not easy to turn on the style, especially when not winning league is more catastrophic than any other time in our history.

 

If we adopt to the modern world and actually implement the required infrastructure instead of just splashing cash at short term fixes there is no reason we can't have sustainable success long term. We need to actually start signing and developing talented players that can be sold for large profits though. That is the way big clubs in little leagues achieve success and we are atrocious at it.

 

I would say that's easier said than done, especially in our position where we can't really attract the best talent - as they will want to play in a better league. Which is why we're going for short term contracts to almost guarantee us to get to where we need to be, before we can actually achieve any of that.

 

Our resources dwarf the opposition and as such there is no excuse for playing so abysmally.

 

I would say it's the absolute level of skill that makes you play "nicely" not the relative. Otherwise you'd see great football at all standards when their is a gap. But you change your argument to suit you, one time you're saying our player are crap, and not worth the money, and the next you're saying we've spent more money and so have great players.

 

I don't think we ever get value for money and less so in the lower leagues where we're effectively paying sweeteners for players to drop a level or two. We have better players but they are not great players and just because you spend more money doesn't mean you always play well. It does usually mean you'll usually win though.