Bluedell

54 minutes ago, Devil's advocaat said:

I can only dream of another Brahim Hemdani 🥰

My recollection was that he didn't play that much in the league for us, and checking back, sure enough, he only started 12 league games in the 2007/8 season, but I was surprised that he started 36 out of the 38 league games in the 2006/7 season.

If we had a DoF, is there any guarantee that he would have overruled Beale on some of his signings?

Beale did a good job with regards to getting in the players he wanted. The quality of these players is a different matter but that's easy to argue about it with hindsight.

Where the board did let us down in not having a DoF was moving some players out. It doesn't seem that Beale was too invested in ensuring we got players out the door.

The other area that Beale totally ignored was looking at the make-up of our Euro squad and the lack of homegrown players. Again, I'd have hoped a DoF would have insisted that more attention was paid to this.

4 hours ago, Bluedell said:

I'm hearing Clement has been offered the job. 

Apparently my source was talking crap. Apologies. I posted in good faith. Sorry again. 

I'm hearing Clement has been offered the job. 

I don't understand the clamour to drop Davies.

St Mirren 3 Gers 1

Tav

The SPFL have announced that cinch will terminate their title sponsorship of the SPFL at the end of the season - TWO years early.

The used car dealer has triggered an early exit clause in the five-year contract they signed with the Scottish football's league body in 2021, forcing CEO Neil Doncaster to look for a new sponsor next season. The £1.6million per season agreement - hailed at the time as the SPFL's 'largest-ever' sponsorship - proved hugely controversial as Rangers refused to take part in any promotion for cinch, citing a conflict with former chairman Douglas Park's own used car firm, Park's of Hamilton.

The long-running dispute went to court before the deal with the online car company was eventually revised last year, excluding Gers from having to display any cinch branding within their stadium or press conferences. The Light Blues later claimed another off-field victory as the SPFL were forced to offer a grovelling apology over the embarrassing episode and pay towards legal costs.

And now in a statement, the SPFL have said: "The Scottish Professional Football League has announced that cinch has exercised its right to conclude its title sponsorship deal at the end of the current season. The SPFL and cinch signed a five-year contract in 2021, which gave cinch the option to exit after three seasons. The deal played its part in helping the SPFL deliver record-breaking revenues back to its 42 clubs in the last 12 months."

Doncaster said: “cinch has been an excellent sponsor for the SPFL and has been clear on the significant boost to its brand awareness from our partnership. We will, of course, ensure that cinch continues to enjoy the many benefits of its sponsorship of the cinch SPFL for the rest of what promises to be a hugely exciting league campaign.

“The passion, drama and excitement of the SPFL has played a leading role in driving cinch’s considerable brand growth in Scotland and across the rest of the UK. Working closely with Scottish Football Marketing, we will now begin the process of securing a new title sponsor for next season and beyond, and anticipate strong interest from businesses which recognise the unique value of partnering with Scotland’s premier football competition.”

Robert Bridge, Chief Customer Officer of cinch, commented: “Over the past three years, cinch has become the UK's leading online used car business and built a household brand with awareness of over 85%. Its successful partnership with the SPFL has been an important contributor to this achievement. As cinch looks to the future, its marketing focus is evolving to ensure continued success and growth.”

SPFL announce cinch sponsorship will END two years early as deal to be terminated in 2024 - Football Scotland

It's interesting to see that there's no clear favourite, if we are typical of the wider fanbase, which is good as it seemed that the board went with the fans' favoured candidate on the last 2 occasions.

It's also interesting to see that nobody has gone for Lampard.

The poll on FF had some interesting names that weren't covered on here:

Papszun
Moe
Boas
Nistelrooy
Favre
Pereira
Kuntz
Glasner
Lopetegui
Wicky
 

I don't know if these guys are realistic but some have more experience and are more appealing than some of the ones on the rumoured shortlist.

40 minutes ago, 26th of foot said:

If the odious Tom Boyd is appointed our new Manager, I will continue to attend despite his appointment.

You've taken that too far!

59 minutes ago, Rousseau said:

I wondered why it wasn't on. I was missing it.

 

I'll need to look into Discovery+ now... 

It's free if you have Sky. However you then need to register to get access to TNT Sports within Discovery+. I followed a QR code that they showed onscreen last night that took me into the Discovery+ website and it worked. I had thought it happened automatically but it doesn't, but at least there's no additional costs.

12 minutes ago, Bill said:

There are no candidates who are not risks. It’s the nature of the beast.

But some are riskier than others. I've highlighted where I felt the risk was at too high a level....but as I said, I don't really know that much and my views are fairly uninformed.

It's a pain that the CL goals show is no longer on Sky. Have to watch it through Discovery+ and it took a while to figure out how to tell it I've got a TNT Sport subscription.

4 minutes ago, weebluedevil said:

What about McInnes? If he hadn't knocked us back previously (which shouldn't be the only reason not to consider him), would anyone see him as an option? I'd certainly prefer him to many of the names linked. 

Nope, no way. Not interested.

I'm not sure what he's done as a manager to suggest that he should be Rangers manager. The style of football his teams play isn't endearing either.

The fact that he turned us and Sunderland down suggests a major lack of ambition on his part. I can't see him coming in a shaking up the place and making difficult decisions. He didn't feel up to doing it in 2017 so why would it be any different now?

Aris 0 - 1 Rangers

FGS - Tavernier

11 hours ago, Sutton_blows_goats said:

Genuinely the likes of Muscat and Jansen strike fear into me. They will be lucky to last 6 months.

Why does Jansen strike fear into you?

1 hour ago, ranger_syntax said:

I think that people were right about Beale's role under Gerrard.

 

Being a good coach doesn't guarantee that someone will be a good manager.

 

I agree with that but I can't figure out why the team this season looked as if there had been little coaching and didn't have a style of play. Gerrard's team was structured and did have a defined set-up and way of playing and Beale must have had a fair bit of input into that so where did his coaching ability disappear to? All very strange.

54 minutes ago, yuddie said:

Aye of course - I'd be talking about Devine, King, Lowry, Rice etc.

 

I think most fans would support the new gaffer if Tav was rotated with Devine this season to phase him out. He hasn't put a foot wrong really when he's played and a few of them have been at left back.

 

The quality of Scottish players in the league and gettable talents abroad is a bigger question granted but hopefully in the next few years we won't pass up talents like Doig, Stewart, Nisbet, Ferguson etc. Add in a couple of academy players and you've got a good core of good Scottish players in the club.

 

Hypothetically.

 

Some will disagree and say those players aren't good enough but let's be honest, they're better than what we have now.

They really aren't better than what we've got now. 

While I'm not against giving Devine some game time (he's better than Sterling IMO), he's still not as good as Tav, even if Tav's not having his best season again.

King has 4 better centre backs in front of him.

Lowry isn't getting many starts at Hearts and still needs to work on his game before he's ready for regular first team appearances.

I haven't seen seen that much of Rice but when he was brought on the other week, he didn't go looking for the ball in the same way as some of the other midfielders. It could be that it was just nerves or was understandably overawed but I didn't see enough of him to say that he's better than, say, Lundstrom or Jack.

I haven't seen the goals back but I thought Davies was the best of a bad lot.

Alex Rae was in the directors' box yesterday.

3 hours ago, Gonzo79 said:

I'd swap losing a European final for winning the league.  

I've seen us win the league loads of times. 

Our run in Europe has 4 or 5 of my all time favourite games. The Leipzig game was better than any other game I've been to. 

Fair enough if you'd swap all that for yet another league win but I wouldn't. 

5 minutes ago, CammyF said:

It might have been but hindsight is a wonderful thing. 

 

Kamara at £50K was never really a gamble and we finally got £5M for him. 

 

Alfie was th one who maybe should have gone then, he was in his prime. 

 

I don't know to this day if we ever received a firm offer for Kent

I totally agree that it's with hindsight. 

My view is that selling some or all of these players may have meant that we didn't get that Europa run, and I wouldn't swap that for anything.

5 minutes ago, CammyF said:

I also don't understand why we would have wanted to dismantle a team that had just won the league and had been unbeaten in that league campaign. 

I'd largely agree with that view but many have said that was the ideal time to have sold Kamara, Morelos and Kent.

1 minute ago, CammyF said:

That may be true, but there is another rumour that Gerrard was promised funds. In fact if you watch his interview after we collected the trophy at an empty Ibrox , he says as much in his interview with Emma Dodds on RTV. 

 

I also don't understand why we would have wanted to dismantle a team that had just won the league and had been unbeaten in that league campaign. It would have been better to have added really quality to that squad, not rip it apart. 

I guess we'll never know what was said but perhaps the funds were promised on the basis that we sold players?

Adding real quality costs money, and I'm not sure where that would have come from if not from player sales. We'd lost £40m over that season and the prior season.

3 minutes ago, CammyF said:

After securing 55 the board stood back and admired the achievement whilst Celtic reacted and we are still paying the price for that. 

Rumour has it that it was Gerrard who didn't want to sell any of the players which meant there was limited funds to spend on new players.

We spent a lot over this summer but it's been seen that it was funded by player sales.

I'm not sure that the board are to blame for the lack of transfer activity after 55.