Tannochsidebear

Gutless spineless clueless. Players openly berating the youth coach. All is not well in our camp. Hard to see us winning any of our remaining matches with the current setup. The interim manager, the glorified youth coach, has to be relieved of his duties or we end up 4th in our 2 team league. Celtic didn't actually create a single good chance today that wasn't the direct result of our poor play. A red card and 2 pens is a dream game for Bobby madden, and we again allowed brown to leave the field of play with both jaw and legs intact. Hard to think of how today could possibly have gone any worse.

What a great thread this is. It is these types of threads that got me hooked on fans forums in the early days of FF and are always a great read. I have been thinking I was getting a right old git recently with some other life events going on around me, but these stories make me realise I am nowhere near as auld as some of my fellow Gersnetters!!! My attending Rangers matches doesnt start till the same season as Souness arrived as that was when I took on another paper round (the Sports Times final pink on a Saturday night) to earn enough money to go to the games. My stories therefore are not as distant as some of the ones retold in this thread so far, but I have plenty of fairly interesting tales to tell, so I will get thinking about that and post something perhaps over the weekend. Keep them coming bears, this is a classic Gersnet thread in the making!

Interesting thread this with lots of different formations and players being used. While it is a very difficult thing given the players injured (Bates, Wallace) and players that dont suit our preferred system (Cummings), I find it hard to argue with the OP on this (apart from the keeper who I expect will be Alnwick). Goss was anonymous in the last OF game as many of us feared he would be when the quality of opposition and speed of the game increased, his contribution suffered, so that rules him out for me. Players like Halliday, Miller, Windass have shown again and again that they are not at the required level for such a match, so I wouldnt risk any of them. Ideally I would like McCrorie in both defence (instead of Martin) and holding midfielder, but we have to pick where he is going to be more needed and that is probably in his holding MF role. I would love to see Murphy in the number 10 role as I think his lack of a left foot hampers him on the left flank as too often opponents double up on him and force him on his left where he is not as effective. When he picks the ball up on the inside he is a far greater threat running at defenders and looking for those slide passes to put others in on goal. However I think we will play two holding midfielders which means we wont really be able to afford to do this as we have nobody else to help John at LB when we are not in possession, so he probably stays on the left flank. Hopefully all Morelos's misses in the last couple of OF games means he is going to be on fire on Sunday, and if he takes his chances we can cause an almighty upset. This is the last meaningful game of the season in my eyes. Yes, we must try to finish second and win our remaining league games, especially if timmy cheats and allows hibs to prevent them from securing the title to try to give Brendan his ego-trip, and the deluded scum their day of getting it right up us to win the title in an OF game, but nobody has ever won back to back trebles in our country (still having Ally Maxwell & Dave McPherson nightmares from '94) and we have another chance to prevent this from happening, which we must put everything into to try to achieve. Win the Scottish Cup and get an extra week off in pre-season as well (if Euro fixtures/coefficients are the same as last year).

You start to wonder why the fixtures are taking soooo long to come out. I recall being at Ayr races one Saturday afternoon on matchday 33 (we were playing the Sunday and didnt affect the top/bottom 6) and the fixtures had come out before the racing had even finished for the day. May have been 2010 or 2011? We have known the final make up of the top/bottom for over a week now so this should have been in the same position as before that the fixtures can be announced straight away. Clubs have to arrange staff/security/tickets etc and fans have to arrange days off/transport/tickets etc so clubs should be getting as much notice as possible. The only reason that makes any sense to me for the delay is the pressure coming from the bheasts to give them Rangers at home to clinch the title, and the police digging their heels in and saying no......so far. No doubt MSP's will be getting the Lawwell phone calss to put pressure on the Police to assure them that the timmy shame game was nearly 20 years ago and everything has moved on, when the police rightly know that while the tims were (and remain) the very worst of losers, they are also the very worst kind of winners, and under no circumstances will they behave responsibly in a title winning game against us no matter if they beat us or we spoil the party.

I concur with my fellow bears congrats towards C1872 in this instance for taking this up on behalf of the support and the toothless PR department at the club. Like others have mentioned, this cannot be a one-off shot across the bow (perhaps cynically in the middle of fund-raising for the upcoming share issue), but must be followed up if/when no meaningful response is received from all parties, including our own club. Unfortunately to do this properly C1872 will need to have a team of full time employees scouring print and social media day and night, which is obviously not its remit, so the club, and the fans in general, need to be more co-ordinated and organised to cover, record, report and get retractions/apologies/sackings where offenders have crossed the line. Dont know who takes the lead and how, but it has been long overdue. If C1872 are leading the way on this, they become so much more attractive to potentially investing bears.

19 home games so around £24.50 I think. Still cheaper than quite a few of the away grounds we visit during the year, £28 for Motherwell for example at our last away game. Mine in Copland Rear is £467. looking back to last year I paid £450 (not sure if c/c charge applied last year or not) so a very modest increase either way.

RBR is spot on and I would add a point 3, sticking with the youth coach when they got rid of Pedro instead of getting a proper manager in. I cannot praise the board enough for getting us away from those awful deals and the clutches of people with their own interests not aligned with the club's best interests, and also I believe the money they have invested in the squad window by window has been a really positive step forward for us. However we will not win the domestic title without the right man in charge, and that above all else is what should be all-consuming for our DoF and the football board. Under no circumstances (even winning the next 7 games) should we be considering Murty to be our new permanent manager to take us into the Euro qualifiers in the middle of the World Cup and into next season. The evidence of this being far too big, too soon for him is overwhelming and must already be decided by those involved that a change is a must. That's the easiest decision they have to make over the next month. The hardest decision, ie who to bring in, is the one they really must get right. Good luck to them as I dont fancy having the decision to make myself!

I'm glad he is admitting to himself that he is not of the quality to play for us, and will have to move on to continue his playing career. I wish him well and hope he finds another club that works for him. My problem this season (and last for that matter) is that with Miller in the first team squad there has been no place for Ryan Hardie, who has been farmed out on loan to Livvy and helped them go from mid-table to second place, and I wish we could have given him the game time that Miller received this season and we may just have seen better results in the first half of the season. Miller should have had 5 on Saturday, and, typically, scored with the hardest chance of the 5 while missing easier chances to put the game to bed earlier than we eventually did. His third spell at the club has, IMO, been an unmitigated disaster but thankfully this now appears to be coming to an end. Have him on the bench on Sunday, but by no means can he be a starter or we are giving a man advantage to an already better team than us.

It's just to feed the enormous ego that is Rodgers. He wants to go down as the guy who was in charge when they won the title against us at their own midden. Purely for selfish egotistical reasons, he couldnt give a jot about his rabid fans or anything else.

I agree with the guys who said we were garbage for 60 mins, thats the way I saw it too. Dundee were well on top until, IMO, they got too ambitious, pushed too many men forward and left themselves open to our counter attack. If they had kept their shape I couldnt see us breaking them down at all. Another stonewall penalty denied by a tim with a whistle and nothing said about it by anyone at our club. Disgusting. Murty's brand of football is torture to watch and the only good thing I can cling on to is that we only have 5 league games left plus one cup-tie (probably, but we can dream!) before we get rid of him. His team selection with Miller in the creative number 10 role, Dorrans as a holding midfielder (that cant be his best position surely?), and just a same again lads formation and expecting a different result was sheer insanity or incompetence. I just hope that by Murty doing us a favour and trying to hold things together until the end of the season, that this hasnt ruined his chances of getting a manager's job elsewhere in future. He seems a nice guy with some good ideas and I wish him well wherever he goes.Getting promoted too soon or into a job unsuitable to your talents can kill a promising career before it has begun in any industry. The football management industry seems to be far more ruthless than most as well.

I think it's safe to assume we will have an away fixture on opening weekend. Whether it is Fri night, Saturday lunchtime, Sat teatime, Sun lunchtime or Sunday mid-afternoon is anybody's guess!

I don't do podcasts but I made an exception to listen to this. Well done guys, some good points made and interesting subjects covered. I felt it was far too long at just over an hour but maybe that is normal for this type of thing? Didn't see the point of the long intro music like a tv show, but with no "credits" to show which is the reason for it on tv it was just a waste of time and I wanted to skip to the chat after a second or two. It just sounded like some mates talking Rangers on the supporters bus or in the pub, and not all with the same viewpoints which made for interesting debate, some I agreed with and some I didn't, just like on my bus, so that was really good to listen to. Well done to all involved and I look forward to the next one.

Likewise I expect a rise of up to 10% max given how we must continue to invest in the squad and we must expect to stump up if we want improvement in our playing squad. However, the ridiculously early release of the renewals while we stumble and struggle along with a cheap youth coach in charge is another slap in the face to the support who have amazingly sold out just about every game this season despite the boards acceptance last October that the season was done when giving Murty the gig till May. Announce the appointment of an appropriately qualified and suitable manager and watch the fans renew in droves, but please don't take us for granted like Murray always used to do and just assume the mugs will blindly pay up again and again and just accept any old tosh thrown our way. PS I will of course renew anyway, so all I can really do is wait until the last day before doing so. So count me in with the mugs.

While our team is pretty average (trying to be polite here!) and we are selling out every single home match, the question needs to be raised as to what the board are doing regarding an increase in capacity to accommodate all these other bears that want to come but cant. Imagine how many more occasional bears would be wanting to come if we had a decent team playing decent football and challenging for the title? I suppose this follows on from the safe standing question, in that why are we considering this when we should be looking at stadium redevelopment to increase capacity. I know the costs for this will be massive, but I am quite sure if the board came out with bonds or a different type of share issue just to cover the cost of an increase in capacity I am sure it would be well supported by bears who would love to invest in getting our capacity to over 60,000 and be the biggest stadium in Glasgow as well as already being the best.

I am not against safe standing in principal, but I see it as so far down our list of priorities that it shouldnt even be getting discussed for at least another decade. The "consultation" C1872 say they have had 2300 names of interest for was completely one-sided and offered no chance to oppose it. Can we say then that over 40,000 ST holders are against this if only 2300 people signed up for a note of interest? Lets face it, safe standing doesnt generate an atmosphere, the combination of the opponent, flow of the game, weather conditions etc determine the atmosphere. Always has done, always will do. I stood safely about 3 rows from the back at Fir Park on Saturday and it didnt do one little thing to increase the atmosphere at the ground. Lets get disabled facilities, a capacity increase, stadium infrastructure, the team on the park, a proper manager FFS, all sorted out as well as about 20 other things before we even look at this.

Agreed, if it was McLean or the blatent cheat i'd be really worried, or Thompson, or Clancy, or Collum, or come to think about it, just about anyone!

I understand your point regarding the title race, but I think you are being overly simplistic. The evidence based on our results pre-shutdown was that inconsistency is our hallmark and that another run of dropped points was coming at some point. Would an OF win have given us the necessary confidence to continue a winning run? Who knows but I didnt believe so. I made the point on here that I only wanted the 3 points against the scum to take our lead over Dolly to 8 as that was our only realistic goal for the league. Instead we now find ourselves 3 behind with only 6 games left. I reckon you are probably right in thinking the board tried to get someone in, but the fact they failed and then chucked it and gave it to the one person completely unsuitable to do it is a deriliction of duty in my book and I fiond them guilty as hell for where we find ourselves, only 1 point ahead of 4th with 6 games to go. If we cant match celtic because of the gulf in budget, then why are we sandwiched in between Dolly & hibs with 6 games to go when our budget is more than both of theirs put together?

Some were indeed praising Murty during our good run in Feb, some of us preferred to give the credit to the new players and assistant that were brought in during the window, as the poor managerial tactics were still in full evidence even though we were winning. Rodgers made a good sub when he had other options. It really pains me to say that as I dont think Rodgers is anywhere near as good as he himself thinks he is. The quality of player helps but it is the change in formation and positioning of certain players that created the opportunity for them to win the game even with 10 men. Basic football management. Murty was rightly heavily criticised for not making the right subs at the right time, and this was not a one-off as Murty's use of subs is really poor. Ask around at the games amongst your fellow bears (given your location I accept you wont make it to many games live) and almost to a man everyone says his use of subs are hopeless. If you seriously believe we were title contenders if we beat the scum at Ibrox then you are living in cuckoo-land. With Murty at the helm another run of 3 games without a win was always just around the corner. His only consistency is his inconsistency. 9 games out of 22 in this rubbish league he hasnt managed to win and we now face a struggle to be second and could easily finish fourth. 5 home defeats in half a season. Come on DB, the evidence is overwhelming! Nobody takes any joy in highlighting that Murty is rubbish, he was never going to say no to the chance to cut his teeth here, even in an interim capacity, but the job is far too big for this stage in his career, and Rangers should never be used as a schooling playground for any manager. I dont blame Murty for not being what we needed when we finally (4 months too late) got rid of Pedro, and given that fiasco it is only fair the board are judged to have failed us on this, despite doing great work in other areas.

Work commitments and a crappy Ipad at home have restricted my comments on Gersnet recently, but another abject performance on Saturday has me rather fed up with our club's direction. I dont blame Murty who is doing the best he can given his complete lack of experience and tactical knowledge, but we simply have to be doing something NOW to prepare for next season. We had good players come in during the January window and we got a wee bounce from that during a successful February, but our lack of any consistency has come back to bite us with 1 point out of 9, now needing to beat Dolly at Pittodrie AGAIN to have any chance of second place. Managerial inexperience has cost us big time in these last few games, as Murty had no clue how to use the man advantage against the tims, and doesnt give enough thought to his bench and changes which are a hugely important part of the game these days. More experienced managers like Rodgers and Clarke took full advantage of these tactical opportunities and both left with full points instead of what could and should have been 2 wins for us. With 7 defeats and 2 draws in 22 league games, Murty cannot possibly be considered for the permanent position, I think at last everyone is in agreement with that, although no doubt if we somehow manage to beat the bheasts in the SF that will be enough for some to clamour for him to be given the job. Being Rangers manager is all about consistency, and failing to beat Dundee, St Johnstone, Motherwell, Kilmarnock, Hibs, Hamilton, 5 home losses, would be enough for us to be howling for a sacking if he was a permanent manager. Instead our rage should be against the men who have allowed this to happen on their watch - the board. After the fiasco of the handling of the "resignation" of Warburton, the shambles of appointing a mate of a mate in Pedro instead of doing a proper diligent appointment search, the board should have acted quickly and decisively to appoint a proper football manager to ensure we didnt lose any more ground on a clearly "there for the taking" bheast side, and instead this sticking plaster over a gaping wound has allowed us to be watching how small the gap is between us and FOURTH place in this 2 team league. For that the board are undeniably guilty and the goodwill from freeing us from our previous custodians is slipping at an alarming rate and they simply have to get this appointment right this time with no more excuses. It has to be a decent name in the game who the fans will get behind with confidence. If it doesnt work out then fair enough, but it can be no more gambles like a Pedro or Murty. The playing squad has been improving with each window since our return to the top flight and this is encouraging, but it will count for nothing if the right man to pull everything together is not found. As for who that is, debate and counter debate continues apace. I would do (again) what I would have done the last twice, ask for applications and go through them properly. Ask our DoF for advice, thats what he is there for. Under no circumstances allow cronyism to creep in. I know Steve Clarke favours the hoops, but he is a professional manager who may never get the chance to manage a club of our size, has done a remarkable job with a side who were relegation certainties in our league before he arrived, and has the right coaching credentials having been number two at two of the biggest clubs in England, a decent stint at WBA, and will have good contacts throughout football. If not him, then certainly nobody with less credentials than him.

Murty's FIFTH home league defeat in just 11 games proves he is tactically inept, cannot change games, cannot find a formation to break down defensive formations, and dont get any bear started on his subs! Most bears I was talking to this week were worried about this game as it is exactly the type of game we seem to lose almost every time. After feeling sorry for ourselves for blowing a great opportunity to beat our rivals, myself among many others were worried that Jimmy Nicholl and the youth coach would struggle to get these guys up for it as they seem a very mentally fragile bunch. We now fall to just 2 points ahead of Dolly who have a game in hand, so effectively third place again. At least it gives the board no excuse to promote a youth coach to manager just to save a few bucks. If Murty beats the scum in the SF 5-0, then beats Dolly 5-0 in the final, it changes nothing. We have to bring in a proper manager who can achieve consistency, has tactical awareness and a variety of tactics and formations he can utilise, knows how to change games and use subs. If you want to know what that looks like, he was sitting in the away dugout with his feet up and a big cigar watching his bargain basement side achieve an easy win at Ibrox yesterday.

Spot on, he was by far the best player on the pitch, as indeed he was when they also done us easily at Rugby Park earlier in the season.

Nervously looking forward to this. As always it will come to who wants it more, who takes their chances, and what influence the referee decides to exert on the game. I will be reasonably content as long as we win the first of those, the other two are to an extent out of our hands. I have no realistic ambition for the title, that died when Pedro wasn't sacked on the plane home from Lux, so a victory will only be good to extend our lead over dolly to 8 points with 8 games left, and should ensure we finish within 10 of the bheasts. The bookies agree, Celtic are 1/200 to win the title while we are 25/1, that of course will change if we can get a victory tomorrow. I must admit that 14/5 at home in an OF game is a huge price that I can't turn down so I have stuck a few quid on us, however there is a large amount of tims I know that have lumped on at even money. If Murphy & John are fit and both start I will be much more confident than if we start with Halliday & Miller (eeekkkk!!!) Cmon Rangers, give it everything and at the very least let them know we are getting our act together and put a marker down for the SF which to me is far more important than the 3 points.

Yes, the 2 rounds of the cup is the only time they have started together. I am asking why this is? Giving opponents (even poorer ones like Ayr & Falkirk) two troublesome busy strikers to worry about creates more opportunities for us to score. It also gives more than one target for the midfielders to link up with. This was the question I posed when we were linked with Cummings as I didnt see Murty playing them together very often as he likes one up top which doesnt suit Cummings at all. It's a difficult one to get the balance right. Windass's home form isnt just poorer, its rank rotten in comparison to the away form. I dont see that opponents are setting up vastly different at their own grounds than at Ibrox, so I dont think it is that. Is he a big-game player? Can he play well at Ibrox in front of the big crowd and added pressure? To date you would have to say no, but lets hope on Sunday he shows he can do it. I'm glad you're not too worried about Halliday, i'm feckin terrified!!

Spot on BD, those 4 points are right on the money. Of those, I would put your point 3 as the least important but the other 3 are very vaild and what I hear coming back all the time when discussing this. Even in the spivvy days, apathy was everywhere. The "I am only interested in going to see the Rangers" band is a large band. They dont care who owns us, runs us, finances us, as long as they can renew their ST and go to Ibrox and watch us play. The lack of trust in C1872 is a huge point also. Many see C1872 as being the club's baby to get rid of RF & RST. This was tried unsuccessfully before with the Assembly but this time it is working better because of the RF share purchase model. The fact the Rangers Secretary is an influential Director is a major hurdle. Also, C1872 does not ever criticise the club, or get involved enough in backing the fans, or taking to task our enemies. That is what the majority of fans want from a supporters body, and why RST was initially very successful. The share purchase model is of course also a very important one. For those fans who want to say they own a wee part of the club, C1872 is not the option for them, as you rightly point out you have no claim to anything back from the money a member puts in. It is not too difficult to see why this is not such an attractive proposition for those who are considering it.

Morelos starts without a doubt, the big question for Murty is who does he play with him? By my reckoning Morelos & Cummings have only started 2 games together and we have scored 10 goals in those 2 games, which is impressive at any level. If we take as a given that we will play a back 4 with Goss & Docherty sitting in central midfield mostly a bit deeper, it leaves 4 attacking spots in the team between Morelos, Cummings, Candieas, Murphy, Windass. Every one of them will rightfully be upset if not selected. My preference for leaving out would be Windass. His home form is truly awful (only 2 goals all season and numerous stinkers) and he has often went missing in tough games. If we were playing away I would play him as his goals tally in away games is excellent. Horses for courses and all that. Of course there is not a hope in hell Murty is not going to start Windass, as he seems to be his absolute favourite, so we'll say he is due a good home performance in a big game and hopefully that will be Sunday. I think Murty will play Candieas and Murphy wide with Windass supporting Morelos, and Cummings, despite the hattrick, on the bench. Very harsh on Cummings but thats the way I see Murty going. If Murphy is not fit to play, perhaps we will see the same formation (with a couple of changes at the back) as yesterday which mostly looked like a 4-2-3-1. The other option is we flood the midfield by playing Holt alongside Goss and Docherty, and Candieas and Windass supporting Morelos in a 4-3-2-1. This is more negative on paper to try to ensure we dont get hammered and to try to ensure we can double up on their wide danger players which we done to very good effect in December. It could come done to one or two chances each and see if we can take one this time. We absolutely positively cannot play Halliday at left back if we want to have any chance of keeping a clean sheet. He is not a full back in any shape or form and definitely will get singled out and attacked and this will be our weak flank for certain. If John is not fit, Wallace has to be thrown in. It has been a long time out but he doesnt need to be bursting up and down like he used to, he can concentrate on defending the left flank and will be a much better option, if a bit of a gamble, than playing AH. It does make you wonder why we didnt just release Hodson in January if he isnt considered better than Halliday as a left back? At centre back it has to be Alves & Martin for me. Big Bates has been ok but is prone to silly mistakes and losing goals, another one yesterday to add to Tuesday. I think perhaps he needs rested as his form is nowhere near as solid as it was around the last OF game. Experience will matter. I think Murty will play Martin & Bates however as that seems to be his preference. I have absolutely no expectation of pegging them back in the league so a victory is not as important to me as it will be in the cup SF, but I think we are all expecting a much better effort than we have managed against them since our demotion (SF win aside). Yes, we played better at the dump in December and while we could have sneaked it, we could also have lost it by 2 or 3 in the first half alone which some seem to have forgotten. The one thing I will say is that, unlike under Pedro, I am no longer going to turn up and expect to be humped. So there is improvement right there!