Tannochsidebear

I'm guessing the headline is rhetorical ? I'd still have him before Wilson but that's a race to the bottom.

Another week has gone past and it is match day again with still no centre half or striker signed. Lots of tosh in the media but nothing sealed. Sighs. Incidentally, to add to the debate above, I would be happier with signing two, or even three centre halfs and letting go either Wilson, Kiernan, or both as, let's be honest, neither are any good. So I don't see it as a one or the other between Lescott and Senderos. I think it would be a real struggle to sign a centre half and not be better than Wilson, who has went backwards in his career at an alarming rate.

While I admire the sentiment , the facts don't bear that out. Walker, Sutton, Hartson, all in high profile media positions in commercial companies. Of non-players, the list is endless from andrew smith to mark guidi with dozens in between. Our decades of dignified silence has lost us the media war, and it will probably take a decade and more to reverse IF there was a will to do so.

Why did we not keep him until 1 September to see if anyone came in for him so we can get a development fee? As i understand it, as we have released him without offering him a contract, if he goes and signs for Hearts tomorrow, we get nothing? Several years developing him thrown away for the sake of working the system like everyone else. If I am wrong then fair enough, but these threads about development fees crop up regularly and I think that is how it works?

Too early for predictions! Will Waggy be fit to play? Will we sign a new centre half before Saturday? Will MW give Dodoo a chance or retain Miller? Who will get the midfield roles, will it be the creative types or the destroyers? All these and more need to be answered before you can make an informed decision as important as a score prediction! Ok, i'm taking this too far. Rangers 3 Motherwell 1. FGS Forrester.

Just had a look at the line-up for the 2005 LC final to see who you could have picked for that sentence, and what struck me was boy, how on earth that team won the title that year remains one of the greatest achievements in management in our history. And by somone who got it so horribly wrong the following season and was rightly sacked at the end of it for coming third in a two horse race. The team that day of Wattereus, Ross, Kyrgiakos, Malcolm, Ball, Ricksen, Ferguson, Buffel, Vignal, Prso, Novo is not going to go down as a hall of fame team. Ferguson was not the same player second time around although he still had his moments, Prso was a whole hearted player but not prolific enough, wee Novo was a good impact player to bring on but rarely did the business as a starter, and Buffel had lots of talent but was inconsistent. The rest were pretty average at best and honking at worst. This was the direct result of Murray's Advocaat gamble failure and we were in a period of "downsizing". Look at the difference between this team and the team that won the 2003 LC final and see the difference in just two years. Klos, Ricksen, Amoruso, Moore, Bonnissel, Canniggia, Ferguson, Arteta, Lovenkrands, Do Boer, Mols. Ok, the full backs are still rotten, but the rest of that team was top class and a joy to watch as we scored over 100 goals for the season with 3 or 4 players all getting over 20 goals and winning the treble against a very good tim team. Will we ever see a similar quality side again in Rangers colours?

Nice one COOW, however did you really put "magnificent talent" and Rae and Ricksen in the same sentence? Of course the intention might have been to give the reader a wee chuckle at the start of the piece, and it definitely worked for me! Cheers!

I cant imagine we would take anything like a first team for this match, given it is international weekend. Indeed, I would absolutely hope not one first team player (Miller aside perhaps :-) ) makes the trip.

He spent £500K on MOH!

I know these things dont happen overnight, but that is over a year and not a sniff of any other market apart from England? Are we genuinely saying we have nobody watching European league football, even on the telly and then trying to see a player that will fit our system, then send for scouting reports? I just find it incredible we are not able to bring in a centre half from anywhere in the world within our budget and playing style that is better than Wilson or Kiernan. I cannot believe that there are not dozens that would be better.

Is it only me that is exasperated about the number of lower league inferior quality players we are being linked with, or has-beens with injury concerns, but again all coming from the English market. There must be a whole host of decent (better than current players) centre halfs around Europe's equivalent leagues that would jump at the chance to come to Rangers. Are we even looking at the Polish, Swiss, Belgian, Croatian, etc leagues to see what is there? Any time I see football from the English Championship downwards it is truly awful in terms of ability and skill, vastly overhyped and overpriced, yet this is the market we seem to be exclusively trying to work in. Terribly insular for my liking.

from FF: So says the sun: RANGERS are working on a deal to sign ex-England star Joleon Lescott. SunSport Online can reveal Ibrox boss Mark Warburton has targeted the experienced big-name centre-half to bolster his defence. Lescott - 34 today - is contracted to Aston Villa but been told he can leave for free if he can find another club. Mark Warburton wants Joleon Lescott to bolster his Rangers defence Mark Warburton wants Joleon Lescott to bolster his Rangers defence EMPICS Sport He's been in talks over a severance package and has various options from Premier League clubs in England. But sources down south have revealed Gers are serious contenders to land the stopper and are hopeful they can lure him to Glasgow.

Totally in agreement with this BD. Its the same with the Garner thread with youtube clips. I am never going to click and watch that, no matter what. I dont want audio blasting from my pc during the day, or ipad in the evenings. usually someone will comment on it or give the headlines and that suffices for me.

The responses are typical. Ignore it, it's banter, don't stoop to tims level etc. This is why we are continually the punchbag. Everyone knows they can take a free kick at Rangers (or their fans) and nothing will ever come of it. Bigotry is hatred, and this chap, and the PA guy at Dolly for that matter, have hatred for us in abundance. It's calling a rape victim a slut. It wouldn't be allowed in any other circle of society, but feel free to have a pop at Rangers, they are sub-human after all. If we stood up for ourselves, we could stop this nonsense. I have good banter with lots of supporters of other clubs that I know, but nobody would dare call me a Hun or a new club supporter as that is not banter, it's bigotry.

As much as idiots like this deserve to be ignored, our club need to be tackling this stuff head on to send a message out to others. Insist the grubby publication this was printed in issue an apology next issue, and insist Jags bin this bigot from their employment. Nothing less is acceptable, and if any employees of any club go down this road, they should know that trouble is about to follow follow them. Bigotry should be opposed in any shape or form. Its not banter, its wholly offensive. This is our club that nearly died here due to fraudulent actions, and instead of sympathy we get non-stop abuse. I doubt any other club could have survived what we did, and we must not allow it to become a mocking topic for jealous bigots. Of course our club and Club1872 will do nothing, as is our way.

For all the great work King has done in getting rid of the ****s, taking on Ashley and settling things down he does have a tendency to let his tongue get away from him at times. No Rangers chairman should ever publicly concede that second is ok, even if this season it would probably be ok as long as it is not a distant second. There would have been nothing wrong with saying we will always set out to win the title at this club while conceding it would be a monumental achievement given the vast difference in resources. We should always be playing up the huge gulf in resources, thus applying the pressure to celtic that they can only blow it given their budget compared to ours, while taking the pressure off ourselves a little in the media. Behind the scenes of course it would be different.

Thanks Ian, we may get a worthwhile bid for Tav at some point then without having to worry about that low buy-out. Waghorn isn't prolific for us either. Take out the pens and last season was fairly average IMO. He is a good forward player, but not a lethal striker and his career stats for goals have been backed up by what I have seen from him so far. Misses far too many chances and doesnt get into the right positions naturally often enough to be a predator, but his work-rate, desire and commitment make him a decent player and I would certainly have him in my front 3 in this system, although I think he would be better suited in a twin striker partnership with a predator alongside. Waggy doing all the work pulling defenders away and a Boyd/McCoist type in the right spots to finish. Not going to happen under Warbs so pure speculation on my part.

I can only watch games he is commentating on with the mute button pressed, a grade A buffoon and a bigot. There is no professionalism, no impartiality, but the slavering ramblings of a bigot. Same on SKY with the Crock-a-shit & Wa*ker double act. As for Suttons columns in the papers, I plead again with Gersnet admin not to put them in here. There is a general football room where this belongs as Sutton talking about Rangers is not something Rangers fans should be concerned with. Same for Hartson/Waddell/Smith and all the other Rangers hating scribes.

Did Tav sign an improved deal with us in the summer? If not, his original buy-out clause will still be valid which I heard about from a nailed on source when we signed him, and it is quite a low number! It was a bargaining chip due to the fact he could have got a LOT more money elsewhere but came here knowing that if he was sold he would be able to negotiate better with a small buy-out figure. As for this PNE lad, a striker scoring 6 goals in a season is dreadful, but their fans dont want him to go???

Only seen the game live so not had the benefit of any replays, but FWIW here's my two cents; Started very sloppily, I counted 10 mistakes (misplaced passes mainly) in the first 10 minutes, then we get a goal out of nothing. Probably the worst we have started a game for a long time but we get in front when we have destroyed teams without scoring. Thats football. My bugbear with the team selection was that he has brought in Hill as last seasons defence everyone knows is not good enough, then plays last seasons defence. You know for a fact that we will concede from a set piece, and of course our woeful defence obliged. I also believe Halliday is a championship player and is not good enough for the first team this season. He doesnt create anything in this advanced role, and doesnt read the game well enough to assist his fellow teammates with opening up space often enough. If we are to play Rossiter & Barton, we need a creator as the third midfield player, be that Nico, Holt or even Forrester/McKay. Playing Miller up front is playing a man down. He was truly awful again yesterday, one good finish aside his general play was awful, he was never up with play, he failed to run into space, and the sitter just before half time was typical, as was when put clean through and didnt even get a shot off. If we continue to play him, we will continue to struggle. Its that simple. I acutally thought it was his man that scored as when the big ging got his free header, from my angle in the main stand at the corner flag Miller was closest to him marking nobody so I thought it was his man, but I read from here it was more Barton or Kiernan. The very fact there is doubt shows how badly we defended it as a team. Rossiter had a very good first half and a very quiet second half. Perhaps to be expected given his lack of pre-season and experience. Forrester was good first half and then went on a suicide mission in the second half. I thought the booking he got was a terrible decision where the defender conned the ref (a willing victim!) into the card and as soon as it was given he was up and ready to play on. But having been booked he lunged into a couple of tackles and it was very poor management not to hook him off right away. What was more worrying to me was that after we replaced our weaker players with better ones at the same time as Dundee made two subs, it was Dundee's subs that had the greater impact on the game. The number 20 caused us no end of grief, a real terrier like player that got stuck right in and we couldnt contain him. I correctly named the two subs off and on and the minute they would come on before kick off. MW's policy of using subs as squad rotation and nothing to do with game management is truly the most ridiculous strategy I have ever seen. For all the fantastic work he is doing off the park re-building our club upwards and onwards, his 90 minute management is non-existent. If he is to reach the top in football (cant quite believe managing Rangers is no longer seen as the top!), he must learn how to alter tactics and use his subs to change the flow of matches during the game. No idea how Thomson can see the off the ball kick (didnt see it myself either-going on reports) by diddly dee and not send him off. How is it possible to kick someone off the ball and not get sent off? Can you imagine Barton being afforded the same luxury? As usual Thomson wants to be the star in a tv game, controlling the game with his usual mixture of arrogance and errors that more often than not ends with both sets of supporters cursing him. How he remains a top class ref is a sad reflection of the standards in Scottish refereeing. I was very pleased with the professionalism shown by us in the final 10 minutes by seeing the game out. We should have scored at the death if McKay squares it to MOH for a tap-in instead of forcing a good save but other than at corners Dundee didnt seem much of a threat when our focus was on defence and not attack. Glad to come away with the three points, it gives us another week to get in a centre half (2 would be better) and a striker and gives the squad a full midweek without a match to work on defending set pieces.

Shocking team selection byMW. We better win or he is going to get slaughtered.

That is my fear as well that he is going to be too loyal to players who cannot play at this level, or who are simply not in as good form as others. He tended to do this last season also, although it was not as noticeable given the lack of options.

If they could be arsed I'm sure the SPFL could sell to right to the second tier to BBC Alba for 30 bob and a bottle of Irn Bru, then move lots of games to Friday nights, Saturday mornings, Sunday afternoons etc and let's hear them moan about games being moved for very little money and they can begin to feel what we went through. Dundee Utd, Hibs, St Mirren, Raith, scummy clubs one and all.

Miller by all accounts is a perfect trainer, a model professional, and would no doubt be an excellent role model for younger players to look up to. He just has a dreadful first touch, is a really poor finisher, terrible in the air, his positional sense leaves a lot to be desired and his pace has long since ceased to be a threat. In short, I have no problem with Miller the man being around the place, I just dont rate the player on the park and dont want him in the team because I believe he weakens it by being there.

From MW's presser and other guesses, I think the team will line up thus; Gilks Hodson Wilson Kiernan Wallace Rossiter Barton Forrester OHalloran Dodoo McKay I am not sure if Holt is ready yet to start the game, but would like to see him get some game time as from what I have seen so far, he is still the type of player we need in midfield. Barton needs to be doing his work much further upfield, I was very frustrated watching him take the ball off Wes and after looking about for a wee while pass it to Kiernan or Hill. He cant use his passing accuracy effectively from our own 18 yard box. He has to be getting the ball at the half way line and looking forward, not at our 18 yard line and looking sideways. I will also say that on Saturday his two midfield partners were like statues when barton is looking up for a pass in these situations, so that didnt help him. More pace in midfield is required with willing runners going into space to ensure we have forward options. I want to see more of Dodoo to see if he can be a positive influence, and also can MOH play a central role for us. We desparately need someone to step up in the central striking role with Waggy out as we cannot afford to play Miller there from the start of games. I agree this is the type of game McKay should be rested in, but I think MW knows he is by far our most creative player and without him we are a worse team, therefore will play him to try to win the game, then we can save him at the hour mark. As long as I dont see Miller in the starting line up, I will be happy to back us to win both halfs tonight (10/11), plus perhaps a -2 handicap (10/11). I believe we need a good performance and result going into a really tough looking game at Dens on Saturday lunchtime.