Tannochsidebear

yes no no no a million times f*'n NO no no no no no no no Are we just trying to ensure we have no players when the African CoN comes around?? Obviously the papers are "filling" and making it up as they go along during the close season, but some of them are laughable. I would only take Hutton back on his previous terms, as he has clearly went backwards (partly due to injury to be fair) since joining Spurs. We dont need a right back, but we do badly need players for other positions so I would probably say no to bringing him back. It very rarely works second time around for any player. �£1.5M for a Doncaster player? �£4.5M will not be spent on any player this summer by us. Marlon Harewood?, get a grip ffs.

It is true, I got an official text from Rangers text service at 1130 this morning. It is also now on the official site, link below. http://www.rangers.premiumtv.co.uk/page/News/NewsDetail/0,,5~1711279,00.html

In almost every SPL game we come up against a well-organised defensive unit with 2 narrow banks of 4. Our struggles to break these sides down came from an inability to get in behind these defences due mainly to a lack of genuine width. Davis and whoever was playing wide left failed to take on and beat the full back and instead sent the ball back inside and we tried again. A 4-3-3 with only the full backs giving us width would be a disaster in the SPL IMO, especially with Edu and Thomson both holding. 1 holding player is sometimes 1 too many in the SPL, especially at home and I believe we have to choose between Edu and Thomson for a central midfield role next season. The amount of games we will have with CL action, coupled with injuries and suspensions, means I think both players will have a lot of games to play. We need width, have done since Walter came back, and no amount of messing about with the formations can change that. 4-4-2 is the success story to be crowned champions, that is our bread and butter, and we have to avoid the errors of last pre-season, and bring in the right players to allow us to play, or we have to accept another season of square pegs in round holes due to the finances if we cannot get rid of enough deadwood.

Mouth-watering? Man City? I think not. Another easy to avoid friendly, saving some cash for the real stuff with 3 CL away games to pay for, never mind the 3 game package for the home games, plus the usual overpriced domestic stuff, a home friendly against a mediocre mid-table EPL side is not making my mouth water at all. Will watch the CL qualifiers instead, and hopefully see a future opponent in action.

Spot on SA. It is of course accurate to suggest that the STS document would be of much greater use to a forward-thinking , progressive, new board, than the uninterested current chairman. However, we as fans are unable to make that change happen without uit having a major impact on the team, so we have to deal with the current chairman, and that is what the STS idea is all about. If all these summer stories of takeovers turn out to be more accurate than anyone is giving credit for, then we have surely hit the jackpot, and the STS could be taken a lot further than I think it will. TBH if even one of the suggestions included in the 50 page report is taken on by the club and implemented, it will have been a success. Like others, I am waiting on the organisations who are supposed to be looking after our interests, coming up with something better. The RST did produce a 14 point plan which was full of good ideas and presented it to the club a couple fo years ago, then sat back and didn't push it forward. STS can learn from those mistakes and ensure that either this project is supported, or the powers that be come up with something better. Either way, it is the club that surely wins and progresses as a result, and that at the end of the day is all we as fans want. I am proud of my small part in the STS document, but if Rangers said no to the document in it's entirity but came up with something better themselves and took it through to it's conclusion that was a betterment for fans and the club, I would be delighted to have been involved in something that at least opened up the debate. I say to those that criticise it exactly what the club said to them. Criticism is easy, solutions are harder. If you are going to criticise that is your right as a supporter, but it is better for all concerned if you have a solution to the problem you are complaining about. And dont forget that STS was compiled by a handful of oridinary bears who wrote on subjects they felt passionate about. No funding from the club, no fancy fundraising dinners, no annual memberships.

Congrats to the team. Another fine ambassadorial outing for the Rangers, great positive PR, and I am sure will get very little or no mention in our papers today.

It always seems our incompetant CEO is the easiest to barter with in the enitre footballing world. The length of messed up deals is staggering. Sad to say I would have expected the scum to have sold Adam from a similar position for at least �£2M plus add ons.

I agree 100% with you on the integrity of the office bearers. I know someone who knows what goes on at the Assembly and the one great thing they have going for them is that they all have their heart in the right place, have put themselves forward to try to make a difference, and are certainly trying to look after the fans interests. Unfortunately the politics and history of the Assembly render it virtually powerless in its current form, and I dont see turkeys voting for Christmas, hence my concerns about their attitude to STS. Time will tell. As you say, this is the hand dealt, and in keeping with the entire project, I know you will take it forward with positivity and confidence.

Dont get me wrong, I didn't expect Bain to say "thats great, we are going to implement it all before the start of next season" and a timetable from the Assembly and club for future meetings with agendas etc already drawn up. I suppose I am a little concerned, given Bain's track record, that passing the document to the Assembly to debate without his own attendance just looks like a fudge. A bit like a parliamentary proposal on the back of public feeling about an issue, it goes to a committee, then a white paper, then more debate, amendments, through the Commons and Lords, more amendments, and comes out the other side with all the good points taken away and replaced by inadequate unworkable soundbites. The politicians can point to it and say they got something done, nothing really changes, and the debate moves onto the next topic. Only when the next disaster comes along does it get looked at again, and the whole process starts again. I suppose it also comes down to the fact I have little faith in the Assembly as a workable going concern. I am on record as saying I would dispand it, so the fact they are being asked to look at STS on behalf of the club is concerning.

I suppose it is difficult to get considered responses when these organisation will not have any meetings planned during the close season. Any responses would have been personal rather than on behalf of their organisations. I must try to be more patient!!

Thanks for the update. I am glad the club will attend the meeting of the Assembly. I hope it is Bain who attends along with Jim Hannah, who I am sure will be there anyway, or at least another board member. If nobody from the board turns up, it will look like they are merely paying lip-service and I would expect it to be quietly pushed aside amongst many thanks and "we will look into taking things further" statements. If someone at board level attends it would go a long way to show the club are serious about taking positive steps to bring the fans onside, as well as a pro-active outlook to making things better at the club, and admitting they might not have all the answers and are happy to listen to any positive ideas for the progression of the club. I may be jumping the gun a little, and it may be that the club want to go gently gently with this, or politically give the Assembly their place, but the passing off of the report to the Assembly, while better than a "thanks, go away now" does tend to look like the start of a filing away under "pesky nuicances that know nothing" I suppose there is no other way to go with it at this stage, and good luck with the Assembly meeting. I cant imagine you would not be allowed to attend, and look forward to any more updates as and when appropriate. Did you get any response from the Association or the Assembly when you sent it to them?

I also welcome the statement from Martin Bain to at elast recognise that the club are happy to take it forward. I now have a few questions regarding what happens next. Will the committee/board of the Assembly be meeting STS reps in advance of the planned discussions at their next meeting? Will the meeting be open to STS reps to attend, to answer any questions about the report, and to push the case for moving the project forward? Did Bain specifically mention any topics within STS that he himself would now look into, or is he passing it all off onto the Assembly as a job lot for further discussions? Will the role of the Assembly in this be to discuss STS and go back to the club and say we want A,B & C from the report to be taken further, and would there be any guarantees from the club that this would happen if it receives such a proposal from the Assembly?

Ssshhh BD, that doesn't fit with my anti-Setanta rants. :box:

Looks like Scumtanta have siphoned off the British side of their business as a seperate entity, as their operations elsewhere are unaffected. Typical ****** scum, try to milk the British for every penny, and leave us unpaid when things to tits up. Feel really sorry for Companies like that linked earlier in this thread, as well as for some of the smaller clubs who may now be in trouble after budgeting for the Scumtanta money that wasn't paid, and goes to prove that unproven timmy scum like that should never have been allowed such large contracts until they had proven themselves. Who the f*ck did the due diligence before awarding Scumtanta the next deal, that was due to start in 2010. They were clearly in big big trouble at that point? Someone at the SPL needs to come out and answer this.

I appreciate that you cannot publish a report of this nature immediately after the season, but most SPL clubs have published their results by early Autumn, certainly the big 2 have. If the earliest you can do an annual report is over a year from the end of the reporting period, it is quite clearly not worth doing at all. I wonder who commissioned it? Have the SPL not get anything else they could spend their money on, like doing due diligence on bankrupt Irish broadcasters with a certain-to-fail business model.

You know of course that whoever takes over from the discredited and incompetant Irish broadcaster will be on the lookout for Scottish presenters, and just like when Crocker jumped from Sky to Scumtanta, and Delac*nt jumped from STV , we can probably expect the old bhoys network to be in full flow and some familiar faces to appear to bore those of us unlucky enough to have to depend on the live tv action to follow our club, to some of the same old same old. Hopefully, wether it be Sky or ESPN, a new approach is taken with some new talent. I like Jim White of course, but hopefully with new commentators, pundits and reporters. ESPN might be a decent shout, they definately will want to be seen as different from Scumtanta, and should go into it with a neutral perspective. It will probably depend on who they hire to oversee the SPL stuff should they buy it.

I hope not, the more money the scum waster, sorry spend, on wages to the likes of Hartley, Robson, Flood, Donati etc etc the less they have to spend on players who would challenge us.

I know the summer months are slow for football news, but ffs, these figures are a year old. What next, Rangers become first club to win 50 titles?

I would hope the 6pm Sunday ko are dead and buried. Since losing the SPL contract, Sky have not shown any UK football at that time. There are enough slots between Sat 1230, Sat 1730, Sun 1230, Sun 1400, Sun 1600, Mon 2000 for Sky to fit in SPL football. They could screen our games when ESPN are showing their EPL 4th and 5th choice games, and would not be too much of an inconvenience to supporters that go to the games. Of course if it goes to ESPN, as is rumoured by some, we can go straight in on Sunday afternoons against SKY's EPL coverage and retain the 1400 Sunday KO.

Good news indeed. I am convinced the story on the Rangers website that alleged Edu and KT would both be missing for the start of the new season was written by either Barry Ferguson himself or a very close friend of his in an attempt to get Walter to allow him to stay!!

While it looks almost certain that the Pork Pie (melton Mowbry, geddit!!) will take over at the piggery (pork pies, pigs, surely it is fated) wouldn't it be funny that after taking a week to agree to a non-negotiable release clause with WBA, that Mowbry asks for too much money to improve the side and the talks break down, leaving the scum to go for their 5th choice manager, and still have the balls to tell everyone they got their preferred choice.

"We're not supposed to keep scores, but we know we have only lost twice in 3 years."

That might be true Frankie, but we dont really give anybody a free role. Nobody gets away with not doing a specific role, both offensively and defensively, hence the reason behind so many Boyd debates, so we are certainly not going to give a free role to Naismith. Makes you wonder why we bought him though, doesn;t it? It was hardly small change.

Thats a shame, it would be funny seeing him struggling with the rest of his team in the CL qualifiers.

All the players, the manager, and no doubt Murray and Bain, will be off on their holidays just now, and this will be mirrored at most clubs throughout Europe. Real Madrid have just had an election so they are getting busy right away but most other clubs will wait until pre-season before any deals are done. Most of the SPL are still trying to get a manager first!!