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Been watching a lot of old matches recently, and it reminded me how good Ferguson was. Easily the best Scottish midfielder of his generation and IMO a true Rangers great/legend. I know there are also a lot of negative things aimed towards him from Rangers fans however his Rangers career is up their with the best Rangers players, thoughts?.

Clearly such option would never have been on the table.

What we do know is that liquidity is essential. Companies across the UK were /are stretching every credit facility in an unprecedented way. The govt is bailing out to some degree businesses and individuals. Our liquidity which is non-existent is going to depend on operational cost reduction, loans, player sales and fans buying ST. It really isn’t rocket science. It doesn’t matter what blue tinted spectacles we put on it this is a real danger moment for us - and we still have Ashley court case to deal with.

You think you heard it all before? Think again ... 2 Auchinleck had NINE games in hand when the virus hit As outlandish as the table looks, the mathematics in Talbot's favour is fairly straightforward. Tommy Sloan's side have cut great swathes through the junior ranks in recent years and the fact they still had nine games in hand on Kilwinning gives them the title on the account of their average points per game ratio of 2.56, which comfortably outstrips Kilwinning's 2.12. In the last season before a major re-organisation of the Scottish game is set to place with the formation of the West of Scotland league within the Scottish senior football pyramid, Blantyre Vics and Darvel shared the Championship title. Vics actually had a marginally superior points per game advantage from their matches to date (46 from 18 = 2.55) to Darvel (53 from 21 = 2.523), but the league decided that a joint award was the only fair way to decide. ?⚽️ McBOOKIE SJFA WEST CHAMPIONSHIP | We are delighted to confirm that @BVFC1890 & @darvelfc have been declared as Joint winners of McBookie SJFA West Championship 2019-20. ??????? #SJFAWest pic.twitter.com/rYM66IIF8L — West Region SJFA (@SjfaWest) April 21, 2020 Elswewhere, Shettleston Juniors are the champions of West Region League 1. Johnstone Burgh get the honours in League 2. No fewer than 67 clubs from the junior ranks have an expressed an interest to play in the West of Scotland leagues from season 2020-21 onwards. https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/sport/football/5517193/auchinleck-talbot-west-premiership-champions-third/?utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=scottishsunfootballfacebook&utm_source=Facebook#Echobox=1587501531

I meant to ask you how your new job with Hollicom is going, Bill. ?

If the roles were reversed and the circumstances the same. Personally, I´d allow them to make the noise up until the title is awarded, then as a club put out a statement saying that although we´d take the CL entry, we wouldn´t consider it a full title and the number going into a prospective 2020/21 would still be 8IAR.

I can honestly say I wouldn’t.

Barca have said they would give the proceeds from this to corona-virus charities, not for their own coffers.

Employees can only be furloughed if they agree to it. In most cases, people agree to it because the alternative may be redundancy. However that's obviously not the case with players. It needs to be public pressure for them to look to help, rather than them sitting back and collecting cash being paid for by supporters who are on furlough or reduced hours.

Cracking footballer. Media lapdog. To be fair, he surpassed his older brother in footballing terms (mainly because he put his career first) but they are both a waste of column inches.

IMO no sport that relies on mass spectators should be allowed until scientifically proved to be safe to do so.The importance to health totally needs to be foremost.

Over 700 deaths today and as long as we have people dying then there should be no sporting events were you have mass gathering of people I think we're about to see the grasping side of football soon were administrators will want to play behind closed doors just to get the sponsors money and keep their television deals they used to call it the people's game well you cant ha e a people's game with no fans . If need be I would scrap all football until January then reassess the situation.

eh ? That lot seriously have an alternative reality. I actually had a Hibs supporting friend, normally logical and a smart guy, said to me "Do you think that the ICT CEO had been got at ? Inexplicable vote". I had to reply to him... "I know what you're getting at (ex-Rangers and/or rumours RFC were offering him a job) but no. How is it an inexplicable vote when his team are sitting in the play-off spots in the Championship and could have been promoted to the top division had they been successful. That opportunity has now been denied them". How is that inexplicable ? He clearly voted for what made most sense for ICT. Self-interest ? Absolutely. Inexplicable ? certainly not.

That isn't using the Ayrshire calculator though if comparing Rangers to Talbot. If Rangers win all their games they need Celtic to drop points elsewhere. Talbot could win their league with plenty of games to spare. Kilwinning COULD end up on 68 points if they win their remaining 5 games. That would leave them 27 points ahead of Talbot. However, if Talbot won their remaining games they would finish the season on 83 points - a full 15 points, or 5 games, ahead of Kilwinning. Your comparison is flawed compo, significantly. Either way, this still shows (despite me being a Talbot fan) how much of a farce it is to award team's league titles in this manner. Look at Raith Rovers getting promoted at the expense of Falkirk...1 point separated them and Raith still had to go to Falkirk yet. It is utter lunacy.

That is a very good question and I suspect you are right. There's a growing bandwagon to curtail social distancing measures and I'm unclear whether it's the usual sheep syndrome or just a reflection of the lack of stamina for anything in current society. I'm fairly clear about one thing though - if we lift restrictions to soon and too quickly, the repercussions will be a damn sight worse than persevering until infection rates are much lover than they are today. People need to show some bottle and get through this, not f*ck it up at the half way stage.

The buffs wont be to happy

Most footballers and their agents will be fully aware that the whole of Europe is affected, so pissing off a current employer probably won't bode well when looking for a new one. "You're skint so I'm leaving! Oh, everyone else is skint too.".

A good post is a good post. You are very capable of good objective anaylsis when it doesn´t involve politics of any kind.

@Craig will come up with one. I’ll start him off. The keeper’s McCloy. Eric Caldow. Sammy Cox. With Cox in the side you don’t need many more. Has Kevin Thomson got a granny from Auchinleck?

Grangemouth apparently. He’s in the east XI.

Thinking back to Barry Ferguson, it re-enforces the old adage if you are good enough, you are old enough. Barry was a real player but also had a real attitude that helped him cope with the huge pressure of playing for Rangers. I think you need both at Ibrox. Regards youth development, if they aren´t good enough for the first team sqaud by the time they are around 19, I doubt they are going to be much practical use to Rangers. The economic fallout may mean more get a chance.

An unpredictable pandemic, economic chaos and the very questionable quality of political leadership around many parts of the world is a toxic mix. Who knows,...geo-politics might end up kyboshing any thoughts of a 2020/21 season.

As you say Ian best player of his generation and a player who'd be in your team every week. Been to a few Q&As with players who played in the same Rangers team as him and they all say how good a player he was. For DA to not only build a team around him, shows how good a player he was. Would take 11 Barry Ferguson's in the team now that's for sure.

I can´t think of a comparable precedent in terms of scale and unifomity throughout the world and industrial sectors and that´s not taking into account of uncertainty wrt to timescale/evolution of the virus ,..but that is drifting to Lounge territory. - Will the upcoming economic situation reduce ST/ other revenue numbers ?................Yes (will be the same for all clubs) - General downsizing will mean lower quality of squad as a whole - It will come down to good/bad management of what resources you have. - Going into next season, we already have player contracts to honour that must be at a level that any up to date projected budgets might struggle to cover. - Big cost cutting hopefully starting weeks ago - Should be wage cuts, not defferrals (needs to change) - We are accustomed to running at a structured loss but approaching the time when projections/plans pointed towards breaking even and not requiring shareholders to fill holes. - Are the major prospective investors (looking at proposed share issue) doing it for emotive or investment reasons ? We were in the process of making the club more professional at various levels (eg. commercial, youth development, etc) as well as edging towards on the pitch success and employ Steven Gerrard who adds glamour. What happens now is that the player trading market will bomb for at least the short term and in Scotland, may never get back to the numbers we were starting to see Celtic receive. That would severely restrict potential to make any money and discourage investors. Brings us to individual assets, eg. Morelos. Do we accept what would be a cut price deal to get some money in and his wage off the books ? I think the risk that he loses interest in a sea of red mist is too great and we sell, even if the fee is low. Needs be. In hindsight, re-signing Davis and Defoe was a mistake. McCrorie and Docherty should be kept IMO. They are the type who might excell at a Rangers forced to downsize. Gerrard might not be madly keen on them but SG is going to have to consider a practical Plan B or he´ll be for the off. etc, etc. Brightside is we have some decent youths coming through. I´d like to think players such as Kelly are ready for the step-up to a squad with what will have to be a significantly lower wage bill. ps. I apologise for the disjointed and rambling nature of the post.

It’s wasted on them. They don’t care.

Barcelona already looking to sell the naming rights to Nou Camp for a season to try to help them through it....

I think Barry Ferguson was summed up when he left Rangers at the top of his game to be an average player in England and return to rangers half the player he had been. The nature of his exit from international football and his conduct during the le Guen era further enhanced his reputation as a downmarket ned.

Agreed. But talking about his football ability and career he was outstanding, especially in matches against Separate Entity FC and in Europe.

I should be so lucky.

I can't understand why Rangers isn't already locking away the chequebook and taking every step possible to minimise cash outflow. More companies go to the wall in challenging times due to hesitation than the challenge itself. It's for situations like this that companies carry a cash reserve. Rangers, as far as I can see, has no reserve, other than soft loan commitments. Such commitments can no longer be guaranteed because every director whose wealth is founded on his business will also be under pressure. With no end in sight to current restrictions, what Rangers is effectively doing at the moment is bleeding cash. The danger is that, by the time it becomes clear how long it will be before income streams are flowing again, Rangers may be in existential difficulties. I have no insight into Rangers' operating finances but, if it were me, I'd be assuming no crowds (ST income) before (say) October and ruthlessly minimising outgoings between now and then, regardless of the emotional stuff about laying off staff. Any other strategy is irresponsible. I spent my business life in the oil industry, where there is a constant cycle of boom of bust and if you didn't make provisions for and react early to hard times, you likely went to the wall. Rangers don't normally operate in an environment like this and it worries me we may not have the required survival instincts. Far too much attention is being given to the SPFL and awarding titles. Of much greater concern to me is the condition Rangers could be in six months from now.

There's no war chest. The directors had to guarantee that they would put in £10m during the season just to keep us going. There's none domestically. We don't have any rights to show games in the UK.

There may be a government guideline which insists on social distancing.

Funnily enough we have plenty of precedents, albeit the cause (in this case a 'disease) is different. It is scary and what bothers me is that the government continue to insist that they're listening to their medical advisers. That's crazy. They can only give one side of the issue to the government but history tells us that far more deaths occur in depressions and in poorer economies than this disease can ever cause. I could give you those numbers but they are very frightening so I'll refrain from that on here. One additional thing w are beginning to see also is a sharp decline in the value of certain stocks. This lockdown has shown how vulnerable certain businesses are and as a result their intrinsic value will be lowered to reflect that. This means that pension funds and other investments will be widely affected too. The long term effects of this lockdown are way greater than the threat of the disease. Rangers must tap into its supporters better. I don't know how much room there is to manoeuvre on Rangers TV so that we can show all away domestic games on that platform. We need to look at all avenues of income.