Record Back Page 01/05/2017

[Uilleam 5,948]

Waghorn is a headless chicken Pete. He misses lots of passes, can't score and for someone of his physical build makes no impact on defenders. He's English Div 2 standard. He's garbage mate.

 

I tend to agree.

I harbour similar sentiments about Garner.

[ian1964 10,724]

While Rangers were being torn to shreds by Celtic Ibrox chief Dave King was nowhere to be seen - Jackson

 

Keith Jackson says surely the alarm bells must be ringing loud and clear while King couldn't even bring himself to watch Saturday's derby humiliation.

 

Mike Ashley once nicked the naming rights to Ibrox for a pound. Perhaps Dave King should consider selling them to Celtic .

Because on Saturday they pretty much gave the place away for free.

 

By the time the champions were done singing and dancing with their own supporters – celebrating their club’s biggest win there of all time – they could have rebranded it the Brendanbeu.

 

The Parkhead manager and his players hadn’t just visited their home of their nearest and dearest. For 90 minutes they absolutely owned it.

 

And if the alarm bells aren’t now clattering inside King’s boardroom then the chairman’s stewardship of this club is going even more badly wrong than this latest derby day humiliation suggests.

 

Not that he would be there to hear them of course. Heaven forbid King actually attended a game of football or put himself through the agony which he is inflicting upon the supporters who pay handsomely for the pleasure of being embarrassed by a team which is not fit for purpose.

 

Some of these supporters also let their club down shamefully on Saturday. One attempted to get at Scott Brown before being huckled away while others pelted Celtic’s players with coins and lighters and another moron was caught on camera, apparently racially abusing Scott Sinclair.

 

All of it ought to have been condemned immediately by King but whether he’s even aware of what took place at his own stadium is anyone’s guess.

 

He was nowhere to be seen at the weekend just as he was not present at Hampden six days earlier to witness Pedro Caixinha’s first hair-brained attempt at dealing with the many threats posed by Rodgers and his players.

 

But if Caixinha’s tactics are a source of bewilderment then King’s business with the club is even more difficult to comprehend.

 

What a curious case King has become. A man whose ego insisted that he appoint himself chairman but whose leadership qualities make Jeremy Corbyn look like the prime minister in waiting.

 

Yes King was undoubtedly acting in the best interests of his club when he grappled control of it away from the previous regime. He and his fellow directors deserve credit for successfully carrying out that boardroom coup.

 

The trouble is the longer he has stayed at the helm like some sort of wartime consigliere, the more collateral damage he has done to the reputation of Rangers and his latest run in with the Takeover Panel has the potential to be the most disastrous of the lot.

 

If you recall King’s initial plan was to mend Rangers and get the club in a fit enough condition to be launched on the stock exchange in order to raise enormous sums of cash.

 

But his own truculence with the financial authorities has effectively torpedoed any hope of that. As far as the money men in London are concerned, King’s Rangers is even more toxic than the one Charles Green once brought to market.

 

So what is King’s plan now? Is he guilty of putting self interest before that of the club he so strongly purports to love?

 

From the outside at least, Rangers look like a club which is operating with even less of a strategy off the park than on it. And given the mess Caixinha has made of these last two Old Firm obliterations that really is saying something.

 

Word has it, in King’s absence, a couple of his directors copped some serious flack on Saturday in the main stand at Ibrox, shortly after Mikael Lustig had smashed a fifth Celtic goal into Wes Foderingham’s net.

 

And that one of them responded to the abuse in a manner which, now that the dust has settled, is likely to be causing some regret.

 

But at least they were there to witness this result, which has already been described as the club’s worst since records began in 1890.

 

At least they were there to front it up.

 

King? Not only does he show little or no interest in watching his team play but he also opted out of the process of recruiting its manager.

 

Managing director Stewart Robertson is the man who has been told to shoulder the responsibility for Caixinha’s appointment even though there is little evidence to suggest he has that kind of autonomy.

 

Fine. If the lightweight Robertson really is the man who handpicked Caixinha then perhaps he should be addressing the club’s supporters himself and explaining to them exactly what it is that this manager is bringing to the party.

 

In Caixinha’s defence, he’s inherited a group of players who are quite clearly not up to the job of establishing Rangers as a force in the top flight.

 

But while this is true, Graeme Murty was able to organise these same players into a team which was robust enough to offer immeasurably stiffer resistance to Celtic in their own backyard just six weeks ago.

 

While Murty made Rangers hard to beat, Caixinha’s tactics left them wide open to Celtic’s plentiful attacking threats. They were cut to shreds at the weekend as a direct consequence.

 

Also before this slaughter had begun Caixinha had managed to alienate many of these players by ripping up the previously agreed summer schedule which had them off on holiday for three weeks from May 22 to June 12.

 

Instead he reduced their annual leave to just nine days and in so doing created an atmosphere of shock and incredulity inside his own dressing room.

 

Perhaps sensing the potential for a full-scale revolt Caixinha quickly added another four days to the rota but it just might be that this was too little and too late to win back hearts and minds.

 

After all some of these players may have been struggling to believe in the manager’s methods – or even understand them – since he arrived here in a blaze of indifference from a desert outpost in Qatar.

 

They certainly did not give off the look of a team giving the boss their best efforts at the weekend. If they were then Caixinha is in more trouble than he thought.

 

What he needs now is to implement wholesale changes to his first-team squad this summer, with or without the help of a director of football – another post that Robertson has apparently been tasked with filling. The longer this hunt goes on the less credible Robertson appears.

 

But it’s Caixinha’s credibility which matters most of all to the fans and they’ll need to see huge improvements in his team over the summer if they are to afford this man their continued backing.

 

It will be up to King to find a way of financing this rebuild if he ever gets round to the football wing of this business in between his rumpus with the Takeover Panel and his various ongoing disputes with that man Ashley.

 

If not then Ibrox is likely to remain under the control of Brendan Rodgers for as long as Celtic’s manager desires.

[SteveC 150]

Well, that was a depressing read

[ian1964 10,724]

 

 

https://twitter.com/CoplandRoadorg/status/858979221590429698

[aweebluesoandso 290]

 

 

https://twitter.com/CoplandRoadorg/status/858979221590429698

 

Excellent, but who found the key to the boards bollocks cupboard?

[trublusince1982 243]

The hatred is clear in that piece. Not really sure what canixiha has done wrong other than not being 100% perfect at all times. We need a full media blackout. Direct contact from club to fans, the media middle man is no longer needed in this day and age. Any fan able to discuss the merits of decisions wouldn't read the record anyway

[boabie 230]

Is somebody on the Board(s) or in the administration leaking stories to this chips' wrapper?

 

When will they ever learn?

 

I wouldn't think so. The word from a couple of bears I know is Jackson got barred from Ibrox last week for his guff.

[boabie 230]

 

 

https://twitter.com/CoplandRoadorg/status/858979221590429698

 

That fits in with what I was told. Thanks mate.

[Uilleam 5,948]

I wouldn't think so. The word from a couple of bears I know is Jackson got barred from Ibrox last week for his guff.

 

I wasn't commenting on Jackson's attack on Rangers' people, but on the "back page lead", or, perhaps more properly, "back page leak".

[scotjo 19]

We need about 8 players i imagine.

 

12 apparently