Tannochsidebear

I was told the other day that the first round of the diddy cup is on 25th July, which is only 40 days and 40 nights away. I think Warburton will need every minute of this time to be ready, which seems a task of biblical proportions.

What was that Frankie? (cant watch the presser from here.)

Congrats to Warburton and SDOW on getting the best (but hardest) job in football (slanted opinion obviously!). I don't watch English Championship football usually so I dont know anything about how they play, how good he is at changing things around if plan A isn't working etc, but the general feedback is positive and I am definately glad it wasnt just given to an ex-bear and look to continue in our old ways. I hope they come in and shake things up all over the club. It will be interesting if guys like Durie/Durrant keep their jobs, get new jobs within the club, or are let go. Similarly interesting will be the quality of signings made, and how quickly this will happen to try to get a squad gelled through pre-season as the action starts very soon in terms of where we are currently. As for giving the guys time, that quite simply is not going to happen at our club from a large number of our support. He must hit the ground running and get an early lead in the league, with no shock defeats to Alloa/Dumbarton etc along the way. For the season as a whole, winning the league is obviously a deal-breaker, winning the diddy cup at the 4th time of asking should be a given, and we should not be losing to anyone outwith the top 6 in the top flight in any of the cups. At our peak we could always lose a cup tie at Tannadice or Sheep Central, so no expectations of winning one of the two main domestic cups from me, but I do not expect to lose in the cups to a Hamilton/Kilmarnock or lower. I was always going to renew this season (bought a 4-game ST once the ****s were removed) anyway no matter even if McCall stayed and gave Jig a new contract (shiver!) so it is good timing my renewal came in over the weekend, and will be sent away over next few days. Onwards and upwards hopefully from here on in.

Murray is acting CEO just now and King is doing very little, as was always going to be the case. For Murray to have a meeting with Wotte is just good business sense, and there is absolutely no need for him to report back to King on every meeting he has with football people. The football side is not King's remit anyway. As one that doesn't have a lot of time for Murray, I am glad we are hearing back reports that he is doing some good background work with qualified people in order to see where things can be improved.

Dont often disagree with you Craig, but I do this time, and even more strangely, I agree with dB here. Chris McLaughlin has been Ashley's mouthpiece on Rangers affairs for a long time, and the picture has definitely been picked to suit the slant of the piece. Instead of the BBC asking the biggest question to come out of today, namely what facts are SD so afraid of getting out that they had to go running to court to gag the club, they come over with this bluster puff piece weighted heavily in Ashley's favour, and pick out a lovely photo of Ashley pissing himself to rub it in further.

You know what I can't help smiling about in this otherwise ridiculous article - "former" yippee, 8 long years of overpaid mediocrity finally over. Thanks for the memories Jig, probably the worst technical captain in our clubs long history, and I will always remember opponents from all four tiers of Scottish football drifting past you as if you weren't there, which I wish was actually the case.

What use is a 6 second video? (especially without porn!)

Aye very good, WTF is Vine? Some sort of Facebook/twitter/YouTube/ type thingy I'm guessing? Don't think I'm ever going to get down with the kids with this technology stuff!

A great servant to the club, and the tireless work he put in to the Benevolent Fund for former Rangers players who fell on hard times or needed medical care due to old football injuries, should never be forgotten, yet he shunned the limelight and didn't like getting praised for this work. I met him at a CL final screening in the Members Lounge a few years ago when he put on a buffet and bar to watch the game on the screens in there as a way of getting Bears to sign up to the Rangers Lotto with the Benevolent Fund as the agent getting the commissions. It was a great night and he went round everyone and spoke to us all without pushing for us to sign up. I signed up that night and still pay my £2 a week for this, although sadly I have never earned the Fund a commission from winnings! Maybe next season! RIP big man, your work won't be forgotten.

Doesn't make any sense to me. If he didn't fancy the job (understandably) after our failure to go up, he still won't fancy the job next week if he loses his current job. Are we to believe that no other club would approach this guy after winning a domestic double in a tough league and not having any compensation to pay?

At least it is not green. I absolutely detest the shitty green strip that Bell was wearing towards the end of the season. No Rangers goalkeeper should ever be wearing a green strip, and it is no wonder his performances were abject while wearing it. White, Yellow, Blue, Red, Black have all been good colours for our goalie strips, no need to go for that minging bright green pish.

More and more contracts are ending on 31 May as there is no football in June and having the contract end in June was just a way for players to get an extra month's pay while lying on a beach. It was reported a couple of weeks ago that all our players (and Motherwell and Hibs for that matter) contracts ended on 31 May and that if Falkirk had made the SC final, the 2nd leg of the play offs would need to be put back to June, and therefore these players would need to be re-signed for a week to allow them to play.

Any man who continued to pick McCulloch as a centre half, make substitutions that only bring the opponents back into the game, and take over a team in second place and take them to third then blow the play offs despite having everything in our favour has already done enough to prove he does NOT have what it takes to be given an extended run as manager. He brought in Hardie for a couple of games, including a MOTM performance at Dumbarton, and then binned him for the Hearts dead rubber and the play offs, despite him looking a much better option than Miller or Boyd, who both played a lot of game time during the play offs. I'm guessing he thought the play-offs were needing more experienced players than a rookie, but the results showed we needed good players in form rather than big names who had consistently failed. Decisions like that show he is not the man to take us forward.

Pathetic, as expected. Dignified silence is back!! Hung Mohsni out to dry and never targeted the instigator. McCall tore Mohsni apart on radio without having even seen the incident. Clearly he thought little of the player, and was happy to deflect away from his own disgraceful team selection and tactics which seen him fail to win his 10th game out of 17 attempts, in the second tier of Scottish football, following a second defeat to a team who had conceded almost 70 goals in the season yet we waited 70 minutes to have a shot on target. Yes, lets all jump on the blame Bilel bandwagon. It is easier than admitting we royally fecked up a great position to get promotion. Thanks for your efforts wee man, but dont let the door hit your arse on the way out.

My initial optimism was totally destroyed inside Fir Park at around 2.15pm when I read the team, which I must admit I thought was a bad joke when someone told me earlier and I didn't believe him. McCulloch ferguson Boyd miller with a clear long ball tactic. If you play it up to Boyd you need a strike partner, not that idiot Miller who couldn't find the front line with a map and compass. If you are playing long ball you don't need Ferguson as you are not playing it on the deck in wide areas. And playing Jig means you are not getting a clean sheet and also getting terrible accuracy with the long ball. If I could have brought myself to do so, I would have placed a very large wager on a Motherwell win today after reading that line up. I said to my mate if you were asking The Motherwell manager to pick the team and tactics you want Rangers to play against you to suit the Motherwell side, that is exactly what you would have picked. Another embarrassment under McCalls watch, thankfully it will be the last and a truly fitting way to end our most horrible of football seasons.

Of course they will want a fee, especially if we were showing any interest in them. If they mutually agree to cancel the players contracts that would be different, and only for Vuckic.

Don't know who Robinson is but agree that Warburton is a complete unknown given he has only had one season, was in a great position to go up but failed in the big pressure games at the end of the season, something not tolerated at our club.

I don't like the talk coming out of McCall in this thread. Talk of playing Jig, even up front where there is a reduced chance of him costing us goals, and of launching balls into the box is most definitely not the way to win this tie. McManus is a big cart horse but launching balls into the box plays to his only strength, and I would back him to outplay Jig every time, even if the contest would be akin to two old ladies with zimmers running for a bus! The way to win is simple. Fast paced passing with good movement and width, getting into one on one situations and even two on one situations with pace and subtlety, and keeping the tempo high. It has always been the case when we play well and win well. Admittedly I haven't seen too much evidence that this squad and manager has this most basic of ability and nous between them, but I can hope they find it from somewhere. I am firmly in the Big Marv camp as I saw enough on Thursday to see that an early goal for us will have Motherwell bricking it, and I will be taking a bit of the 6/1 on offer for us to go through today. It is too big a price to miss out on.

7 wins, 6 draws, and 3 defeats, including 2 in the play offs which are all must wins. Most bears would forgive McCall the two draws in the first few days of his tenure when he didnt really have any time to get his focus onto the players, but there have been too many disappointing performances like QotS (0-3), Falkirk at ibrox, QotS (2nd leg), Hibs (2nd Leg), Motherwell, and even some of the games we won under McCall have been poor performances. There have been some really good performances as well like the league victories over Hearts & Hibs, and the play off wins against QotS & Hibs, so we can see it can be done, but he clearly cannot get any consistency out of this lot. His substitutions have been borderline criminal (never more outrageous than when letting Hearts back into the game at Tynecastle), and his continual playing of Jig (even if he has dropped him a couple of times) shows he cannot make the big tough calls when he had to. Jig should have been dropped on day 1, and if he didn't see that then his red card at Ibrox v Hearts should have been his last action in a Rangers shirt. That McCall played him at all since then is enough to show me he is not good enough. His recall of Foster into the side, and playing Stevie Smith in midfield are all really strange decisions that I dont believe a good manager would make. He had the guts to bring in Hardie, who had two good games before being dropped for no reason to bring the wage thief Miller back into the team to run about like a headless chicken and giving the ball away with almost every touch. It seems that for every good decision McCall has made (revitalised Shiels, played Murdoch instead of Black, introduced Walsh & Hardie, Crawford at full back), there has been two bad decisions. it is that inconsistency of selection and tactical awareness that has ultimately cost us. Talk of 5 games in 15 days could have been avoided by winning our last 3 league games and clinching a valuable week off but we couldn't even do that, despite being in a winning position each time before our poor subs cost us momentum and points.

Dean Shiels and Nicky Law were both short-listed for top tier POTY before coming to us. POTY (especially second tier) isn't exactly a ringing endorsement of a players ability, or suitability to move to a big club.

I have not been impressed with Allan. I was told he was great in the first couple of Rangers Hibs games this season without me actually noticing him, so I took closer watch in recent games against them and the game passes him by a lot without him looking to be an influence. We have had enough players that go hiding when the going gets tough (Law, Black to name but 2) and we dont need any more thank you. There may be some raw talent there (well hidden in last few games v us) and if he is a Bear and free then fair enough, give the lad a chance, but he isnt one I will be rushing to pre-season to get a look at.

What like Scott Brown!!

I would have had Jig at number 1 on my list too. 8 years of abject torture with a handful of good games amongst his 200+ poor ones. The only one of your list I would take issue with is Edu who I thought was a good player, and anyone who scores an OF winner in injury time cannot be on the wage thief list by definition!

We have to have balance and fairness in the fixtures, something which the current split does not do. It is manipulated every season to suit certain agendas, and often causes an truly unfair balance for some sides as they try to win titles, euro spots, or avoid relegation. The fact some sides have had an extra or lost a home game is outrageous. That a side will have to travel 3 times to the Champions while their rival for a Euro spot has an extra home game against the bottom seeded team is totally unfair. I would have more sympathy for the current split if they announced the fixtures at the start of the season. The team in first place plays the team in 6th place in week 1 etc, then the home and away permutations are worked out when the teams are known depending on how the balance of their relevant fixtures that season have gone. That it always has favoured celtic in the run-in with favorable fixtures in favorable order is something we should be wanting to avoid going forward. I have said about a more even split similar to Smith's idea on several occasions before. I like his idea. My version was a top 14 that play each other home and away once giving 26 games. The league then splits in two and the top 6 go forward to play another round of home and away for the title and euro spots. The bottom 8 play each other home and away giving them all an extra couple of home games and a trophy for the "champions" of this league, while the two automatic relegation spots and a third in the play offs mean just about every game in that section will be worth something. The bottom clubs get a 40 game season and the top six get a 36 game season. The extra gate receipts help to offset against not getting the glamour games against the OF. There are probably dozens of potential reconstruction ideas out there, and there is even not a lot wrong with the current set up apart from the manipulation of the final fixtures, which could be easily resolved. The argument that the Police will not allow a potential title winning OF match is pathetic just because the tims couldn't behave in 1999 (or at any game really!). That is for the Police to do their vastly overpaid job. The amount they charge football clubs for policing and then they want to dictate who plays when is just not on. Get them telt!

Exactly right GS. If 'Well can sell the remaining tickets for this match for the South Stand to their own fans then I dont have a problem with it. With their dreadful attendances this season, if they can encourage more of their fanbase to turn up for the glory game, and then perhaps to come back next season to support them in the second tier, then they should be applauded for this move. However, if it turns out that their fans have really deserted them and they dont sell out the South Stand and are just being childish with a tit-for-tat allocation reduction, then they deserve all they get, which is less money from the glamour game, and relegation! I know which way I think this will go, and it wont result in a full house at Fir park, but I hope to be proven wrong by the Motherwell fans on this occasion. Perhaps the first leg result will determine the outcome, but in reality their fans should have already bought these tickets for such a big game, just like our fans have for Ibrox.