craig

Again biased reporting. Whilst they mention Mendes (I never saw the incident) why don't they balance it up when they speak about "artform in diving to obtain a penalty" by using Nakamura as an example ? Ohhhhh, that would just not be right would it ? I always thought you guys were over the top in thinking that the media were biased but the prevalence of it is incredible. Whilst we are at it, he uses the NFL as some standard to aspire to. Perhaps if he watched enough of it he would see that there is plenty of blatant cheating in that sport too - a simple instance I see EVERY week is where a pass is thrown, the receiver catches it (but after it has hit the turf) and then claims (elaborately) that he has made the catch. That sport is no less tainted than ours. Ridiculous journalism which uses one sport as a standard yet whilst pillorying (is that a word) another sport doesnt realise that the very sport he uses as a standard has the very same issues regarding cheating.

This open letter should have been split into two. The "olive branch" to Rangers officials should have been done in a separate release as it dilutes the attempted message regarding the Famine song and the biased media reporting. They stole my synopsis of Reid saying the famine wasn't sectarian too :devil:

Pete, I am not the one who is using anyone to measure WS success. YOU were the one who said that we would have fared better in the CL and UEFA last season with a more positive coach. Therefore you were the one who began the measuring process. So who should we use to measure this "positive coach" vs "negative Wattie" ? For me the only appropriate measure is PLG as he managed the team and was positive in his approach. How did that end up ? See, you use very vague terms ("positive coaching") to tar WS the way you want to but the old adage "be careful what you wishfor" could never be truer - just look where we got with that "positive coach" we desired. NOWHERE - actually BACKWARDS. Tell me who we should measure WS against ? I tell you this - with the players we had at our disposal last year WS did a fine job of having them compete on FOUR fronts (you can say we had a poor team and that was due to WS purchases if you like but he isn't the first and won't be the last manager to sign some duds). I don't think there would be many managers out there (positive OR negative) who could have done much more with what he had. Pete, WS HAS built his own team - of the "starters" players signed by WS are : Weir, Bougherra, Broadfoot, Beasley, Thomson, Mendes, Davis, Miller - so 8 players from 11 bought by WS (you could possibly even throw Lafferty in there). Playing entertaining football ? I think so. Excellent performances against Celtic and, it would seem, Hibs away (never saw it) and also the most dominant 1st half performance I have seen us put in at Pittodrie too. Sure there have been some matches which we haven't performed great in but no team performs to very high standards every week. Winning things ? Check. He won the two domestic cups last season - they are still there to be won and he did just that ! The ONLY element that he hasn't met your criteria yet is in winning the league. His first 6 months the league was gone anyway and last season had extenuating circumstances (I HATE using excuses but it is definitely valid that the wheels came off right when we had a ton of games to play). There are some supporters that STILL wouldn't give WS credit even if he DOES win the treble this year. And that, for me, is a nonsense. We need to look at where we are now with where we were 18 months ago and just realise the transformation that has been made in our club on the pitch - it is like night and day.

736 million as at end of June 2007. So your 800 could very well be right. And again you are right that they dont need to worry as long as he stays interested.

1. Chelsea's debt is much higher than that I believe. 2. They have an owner who can pump money into the club at will. If you look at the personal wealth of Abramovich vs Murray you will see why their debt isn't as much a concern 3. Chelsea play in a league which is saturated with money. 4. We need to worry about OUR debt - another club's debt is irrelevant to us, at least in the grand scheme of things. Actually..... to be fair to the mhanky mob - OUR Euro performance this year has done as much to put the automatic entry at risk as their away record has.

Pete, to say that with a more positive coach we would have done better is not your best argument because we had a more positive coach and he did absolutely NOTHING...... or are you forgetting the bad old days of Paul Le Guen ??? I won't get into the politics of the club at that point but he was also culpable. So we had a positive coach in PLG would you agree ? And just what did our club do with him at the helm ? Nothing. I know this is conjecture but I would be willing to bet that if we had ANY other coach at the club we would not have got to the UEFA final last year. ANY other coach. It truly amazes me that WS gets dogs abuse because we finished third ina group that included Barcelona, Lyon and Stuttgart and one in which we were expected to win ZERO points. WS took us to the brink of qualification and, but for a missed sitter from JCD, would have done so. Yet WS gets lambasted. I have said it before and I say it again - very harsh on the management team. When will WS receive the credit he is due for just how far our club has come in the last 18 months ? I wasn't a huge proponent of bringing him back in at the time (don't really believe in back to the future) but the improvements we have seen certainly have me convinced he is the right man for the job. And for those who say that he will get us nowhere in Europe..... getting to the group stages and every now and then qualifying out of that is a reasonable target for us - but getting to the group stages is crucial financially - which means that it becomes more important to win the league as it, right now, guarantees automatic entry.

From a purely short term perspective WE added nothing to the coefficient either. Obviously longer term (i.e. more than just THIS season) we did.

But I didn't - I said pro athletes needed more, didnt say Charlie did :devil:

Before we lay the blame of this at the door of the Rangers fans should we not make sure it IS Rangers fans before casting aspersions. As BD says, Strachan is disliked more by his OWN fans than by Gers fans so I wouldn't be surprised if it was them in an attempt to force Strachan out. Also..... is no-one else suspicious of the media in which it was sent out ? Text message.... much harder to determine if that person is tied to either club than if it was through, oh I don't know, an unofficial supporters website which is OPEN in it's disgust of all things Rangers..... Sceptical ? You bet !!!

What dodgy decisions took place in the final which would have changed the course of the game ? I didnt think there was that much contention in the result.

interesting reading - hahaha http://img257.imageshack.us/img257/6926/celticawayrecordus0.jpg

I wasn't getting at you my man. What is the restaurant as it seems it may be a nice place to eat !

The batter certainly won't help his diet but the sea bass will have lots of good Omega fats in it but as Cal says, pro athletes need higher calorific intake anyway so it shouldn't matter too much (Phelps calorie inhtake is off the charts !!). I suspect that this is more of a story because it was Charlie Adam - had it been Mendes or Bougherra or Davis et al then because they don't "seem" to be overweight then it is a non-story.

Wait a minute Pete..... so going by your "unlucky good" and "unlucky bad" scenario then it could also be argued that going out to Kaunas was "unlucky good" management, no ? Or is it going to definitely be bad management when things don't go our way and just "luck" when they do go our way? I think that would be harsh on the management. Yes, we lost the league but look at the circumstances Pete. Yes, at the end of the day we lost the league and history will show only that. But the number of games to be played in a short space of time did not help and neither did the VERY dodgy refereeing decisions which went Celtic's way. Also don't forget just how far behind the team were in the previous two seasons when WS came back in. He came back and our club was an utter shambles from top to bottom - it can be argued it is still a shambles in some regards but, on the pitch, I don't think so. He came in and, from what I see, had his first objective as being to steady a sinking ship. Mission accomplished in just 6 short months. He made us much more difficult to beat and that was his aim when he came in, again mission accomplished. The football was dire at times but the formation & tactics were a means to an end (making us hard to beat). So after steadying the ship in that initial 6 months I don't think that any of us could have EVER have expected that 10 months later and the team would be on the verge of a QUADRUPLE. The fact that we didn't get it surely doesn't take away from the fact that we were so very close to accomplishing it. Now, new season, having seen the dire performances (at times) last season he adds faces who actually look like they may make a BIG difference to our club on the pitch. We are 2 poins short of maximum having played away to, arguably, the three most difficult grounds for us to go to and won two and drawn one (should have been a win) CONVINCINGLY. I think that WS and his management team deserves a lot of credit for just how far he has dragged our club up from the bootstraps in just over 18 months. But no matter what he will never win in some fans eyes. Slagging off the manager is no better than slagging off players who give their all, in my opinion of course.

That bad workmen as you put it Pete.... got us two trophies after two very barren seasons and a whisker from doing an historic quadruple, including the first European final in many of our lifetimes (not yours I know..... :devil:). That same bad workmen has us sitting atop the SPL after 7 games having dropped just 2 points (which themselves shouldn't have been dropped) and at the same time playing some very decent football. A draw (which should have been a win) at Pittodrie and very comfortable wins at Parkhead and Easter Road, whilst playing some very good stuff is also very good form. If that is the sign of a bad workmen I can only wish that I was as bad. One other thing... at the time of the Kaunas debacle Mendes wasn't available and we have no idea about Bougherra or Edu. Davis was the only one who we were actively seeking that we know was available. So how do you KNOW that it was mismanagement from top to bottom ? Mendes became available through circumstances and AFTER Kaunas, Edu wasn't available because he was at the Olympics with Team USA and don't know about Bougherra. Could it just possibly be that these players weren't available when we needed to have them registered for Kaunas ? Yes, it was suspect that the signing of these players occurred right after we sold Cuellar but we don't know for sure that availability wasnt an issue too. It is certainly as plausible as the suggestion that we only bought because we got the cash from Cuellar. Playing the game for a minute..... lets say that we knew that Kaunas would prove to be very difficult and overcome us. Would you prefer that we strengthened the team with players that we didn't really want but because the players we DID want weren't available we took the next best thing ? If we had that approach then we may never have ended up with Mendes - personally I am quite glad that we waited to get Mendes (although I do say this with hindsight). I am not happy it cost us Europe this season but I AM happy with his addition and what he brings to the team. I am also much happier with the brand of football we are playing and we all know how painful it was watching Rangers last season.......

Smacks of 1993 and Marseille all over again. However, nothing will change the end result. And it seems there is contention over the allegations anyway. Doesn't really affect us so not that much to comment about.

I didn't say the management weren't culpable though did I ? Even with Dailly we should have had enough to overcome Kaunas.

Pete & Dell, I am not confusing anything, it is two separate issues in my mind. Let me try to clarify : Issue #1. Was our midfield poor ? Yes Issue #2. Should our squad have been good enough to beat Kaunas ? Yes. My argument is that all this "we would have beat Kaunas had we strengthened" and "we should have strengthened before Kaunas because we wouldn't have beat them by not strengthening" is where my issue lies. That most definitely IS said with hindsight. Regardless of whether we needed strengthening (it was obvious to all that we did) we STILL had a squad and team that should have taken care of Kaunas comfortably. This is my point. All of the arguments are suggesting that people knew we wouldn't beat Kaunas without strengthening. That is hindsight. I am not disagreeing that it was blatantly obvious we needed strengthening (I was saying as much back in January and February that I felt it could hurt us in the title run-in as we were not playing good football throughout the team). But I am surprised that anyone can think that we didn't have a team and squad that should be capable of beating Kaunas. And those that are saying they knew we didn't are fooling themselves I think. We definitely had both team and squad to come through that round of matches. The players let us down in that regard more than the management did.

Pete & Dell, I am not confusing anything, it is two separate issues in my mind. Let me try to clarify : Issue #1. Was our midfield poor ? Yes Issue #2. Should our squad have been good enough to beat Kaunas ? Yes. My argument is that all this "we would have beat Kaunas had we strengthened" and "we should have strengthened before Kaunas because we wouldn't have beat them by not strengthening" is where my issue lies. That most definitely IS said with hindsight. Regardless of whether we needed strengthening (it was obvious to all that we did) we STILL had a squad and team that should have taken care of Kaunas comfortably. This is my point. All of the arguments are suggesting that people knew we wouldn't beat Kaunas without strengthening. That is hindsight. I am not disagreeing that it was blatantly obvious we needed strengthening (I was saying as much back in January and February that I felt it could hurt us in the title run-in as we were not playing good football throughout the team). But I am surprised that anyone can think that we didn't have a team and squad that should be capable of beating Kaunas. And those that are saying they knew we didn't are fooling themselves I think. We definitely had both team and squad to come through that round of matches. The players let us down in that regard more than the management did.

Again, this is said with hindsight, all an advantage we didn't have over WS. Also, Mendes wasn't available when we had to submit our players for the CL (as far as I am aware) because Muntari had just been sold. Sorry if you don't see the point I am making but giving the obvious statement you did isn't answering the question at all. There is NO DOUBT, to me at least, that we had a squad more than capable of beating Kaunas but they just didnt perform - that cant all be put at the management's door. And we dont even know if we would have went through even if those players WERE here - as Calscot says it is hindsight at best. Pete, you are now saying you WANT BF to stay, or wanted him to play against Kaunas ? You have been wanting shot of him for a long time so why the change ?

Your point is ? We STILL should have MORE than enough in the tank to beat Kaunas without those two players.

I disagree with your disagreement Pete :devil: That team which went and played against Kaunas was the same squad (bar Ferguson and Davis - for the most part) which dumped Werder Bremen and Fiorentina from the UEFA Cup just a few months prior and had a very good run in the CL against top sides. You are seeing this with the benefit of hindsight. However I fully believe that the squad we had going into that game should have EASILY had enough to overcome Kaunas - I mean, Kaunas is full of players that Hearts DONT WANT because they arent good enough - so why shouldn't WS, AM and KM have felt we had enough in our squad to put them out ??? The simple truth, for me at least, is that the PLAYERS let the club down with their performances. Yes, there was mismanagement too but the players didnt perform - it really IS that simple !

Hold up..... Reid can't have this both ways. I quote Reid himself : "Few of those who sing this song will have stopped to think that famine is non-sectarian and the millions of people who died or were forced into mass emigration - some of them to Scotland - were from all faiths and traditions within Ireland" So he is actually saying that 1) famine is non-sectarian and 2) those immigrants were from all faiths and traditions. My question therefore is that if the "problem" in the song is that line "the famine is over, why don't you go home" then he himself by his own statement is saying that it is NOT sectarian. To look at it another way, is he inferring that Rangers fans singing the song are suggesting that all Celtic fans are of a particular faith and that Celtic are not actually inclusive as a club ? Or is he simply "assuming" that the Rangers fans are doing so ? As far as I can see he is making the assumption and that, in and of itself, isnt enough to make this a sectarian song. I am happy to stand corrected on my way of thinking.

If we sold the shops a couple of years ago then we pretty much sold when the market was high. IF we can buy similar properties now we may get them at deep discounted prices, thus making money on them. We would, of course, have to kit them out though which could be a significant outlay. Did the club plan for the eventual termination of the contract and having to establish merchandising again ?

Get him into the WSOP