Norris Cole

That's pretty much the sum of it, though anti-Rangers sentiment often takes the form of wanting Celtic to win. Rangers ruined Booth's career in the 90s and I suspect he's still bitter.

Mendes just ahead of Miller (who I can't see in the choices:confused:)

What's that noise?

...and steadfastly stand by it for 10 years even though everybody hates it.

What took you across the North Sea mate?

As I've said in another thread, there is much truth in both sides of the Boyd debate. His all round game isn't anywhere near the likes of Hateley or McCoist (who incidentally never got enough credit for it). To Boyd's credit though he appears to have improved markedly this season, though there are still games when you wonder if he can be arsed. I agree that his attitude is at times questionable. Much as I like Boyd, if Le Guen was any sort of manager he'd have put him on the transfer list along with Ferguson after his pathetic '6' gesture during that fateful afternoon at Fir Park. My problem at Parkhead last week wasn't Boyd being left out, it was playing one up against an absolutely honking Celtic outfit who were there for the taking from Hibs or Dundee Utd let alone Rangers. It shouldn't be a case of choosing between Miller's work rate and Boyd's goals. Ask any other manager in the SPL how they would set out if they had Miller and Boyd in their squad and I'd be amazed if they didn't all say they'd play them both up front together in a 4-4-2 / 3-5-2. I think part of the reason we're still having this debate on Boyd is Smith's inability to utilise his strike force to its maximum effect. Would McLeish have won the league in 04/05 by chopping and changing Prso and Novo up front? Doubt it. One thing that annoys me about the anti-Boyd argument is this apparent notion that goals against the bottom 6 don't count. FFS, where was Boyd when we got beat by St Mirren? That's right, on the bench. The fact is we need them both to win the league. If Smith had played them both in a 4-4-2 since the start of the season we'd be sitting well clear by now IMO. I reckon we'd be 5 points better off from Aberdeen and Celtic away anyway.

Once a manager has managed in the Premiership, they expect Premiership wages wherever they go. For that reason I can't see Bruce at Ibrox. It will, almost certainly IMO, be someone from a) within the club, b) out of work, c) the SPL, or d) the Championship.

I would suggest that one is very, very high on the list of timothy wind-ups.

I've never been a season ticket holder, but I'd agree that SPL games are a complete waste of money to see dross like Inverness and Hamilton, our own negative approach under Smith, and absolutely pisspoor officiating. If I wanted to go to Ibrox today it would have set me back - I think - �£24. Sod that for a game of soldiers.

I'm far from a financial expert, but one more season of Celtic in the CL and us missing out will surely see us entering dangerous territory. Not so much in terms of the club's survival but the long-term gulf between us and them.

Beside the point. The question is whether Walter Smith is the man to take Rangers forward after this season. There is nothing on this thread to indicate he is.

Was there a chance Ogilvie wasn't a Murray yes man?

Interesting how ''Helicopter Sunday'' isn't mentioned once in the 2004/05 review eh? Also interesting that the 04/05 review is half the length of the 07/08 one. Rangers hating bastards. I'll be thinking of every last one of them when we win the title that's rightfully ours this season.

It's not like Celtic to copy others is it? Does anyone honestly think they'd have put a star on their shirt if we hadn't put our fives stars on first? As for the SPL, can't say I'm in the slightest surprised. Anyone who still thinks they are an impartial organisation should take their head out of the ground fast before the real world leaves them behind. Be under no illusion, the SPL holds Rangers Football Club in utter contempt.

See what you're saying but Walter didn't have to go with McCulloch, Dailly and Adam in midfield in Kaunas. (*winces*) The thing is, your points in defence of Smith's past do not give us any indication that we are going to move forward with him at the helm. And that's the most important thing. Walter Smith is a great manager for bringing stability to a shambles situation (Everton, Scotland, Rangers). Beyond that he is out of his depth.

Being old-fashoned way beyond my years, I've always been a staunch supporter of black-socks-red-tops or nothing. However, I have to say the red socks at Parkhead looked really good. It was the all white nonsense under Advocaat I hated.

You know Cammy, I've always thought we should have won the UEFA Cup in 2001/02. Very unlucky to go out against Feyenoord and as I remember there were some ropey teams in the quarters - some Slovakian mob, an Israeli outfit and two Italian giants that played their third teams. That 3-2 defeat in Rotterdam is my second most painful European defeat after Zenit. At lest against Zenit we were beaten fair and square by a better team though. That 01/02 team would have pissed last year's tournament IMHO. And yeah, give McLeish his due we were bloody close to the last 8 of a strong Champions League.

Calscot I agree with much of what you say. Couple of points though - Zhizkov and Kaunas were two completely different scenarios. Zhizkov was in the UEFA Cup with little money at stake, a tie lost after a freak away loss where we missed a penalty and a number of chances, and a return home leg where we absolutely battered them off the park but lost out to an extra-time away goal with their only break of the game after going 3-0 up with some scintillating football. Kaunas saw Rangers, the UEFA Cup Finalists just three months previously play for a draw in the 2nd leg against no more than a pub team after a dreadful stalemate at Ibrox. We shipped two goals and lost out on Ã?£10m. What's more, Walter comes out in the media afterwards and says he could "see it coming". Position untenable after that I'm afraid. Alex McLeish's team of 2002/03 were the last Rangers side to play brilliant attacking football, scoring over 100 goals in the league alone. The comeback I suppose is "Aye, but it was Advocaat's team". That being the case, why did Advocaat do so miserably with it then? Even during the 2004/05 title-winning season McLeish was up against a far superior Celtic outfit to the shell we see today, and was given a hell of a lot less money than Smith was given to buy players he won't play. During the period McLeish was manager at Rangers and Martin O'Neill at Celtic, McLeish won 7 trophies to O'Neill's 3 (four if you include the 01/02 title which was already in the bag when McLeish arrived). So that kind've puts a dampner on the mhedia's favourite line that the Blessed Martin "dominated Scottish football". As for the team of the 1920s/30s, this wee write-up gives you an idea of just how good they were: Rangers Probably The Best Team In The World In the 1930’s Struth’s Rangers were the supreme team of Scotland, Chapman’s Arsenal of England. Yet both managers had entirely different approaches to management and had taken very different paths. Given their personalities, I’m somehow convinced that each man must have been fascinated by the other. Fans and not just of both clubs wanted to know who really was the best club in Britain and as Mr Carlsberg might deduce, “probably the best team in the world!”. Surely that also went for both men and their players. The easiest thing would have been to observe. Yet both gentlemen were sportsmen and though it is unclear who threw down the gauntlet, it was gladly taken up. In September 1933 an unofficial British Championship was organised between the pair. Ibrox, 20th September 1933, Rangers 2 Arsenal 0 (att. 37,000) Highbury 27th September 1933, Arsenal 1 Rangers 3 (att. 46,000) Rangers played very well in the first leg but their performance ‘away’ was simply breathtaking. Dr Jimmy Marshall (later to join Arsenal) smashed a thunderous opening goal. Jimmy Fleming flicked home the second. Jimmy Smith hobbling on the wing with a broken toe, supplied Jimmy Fleming to score his second goal of the night. Afterwards, a magnanimous Arsenal Director commented “Rangers were good enough to beat England. I have seen nothing better.”

So, Rangers v Hamilton Academical Dunfermline Athletic v Aberdeen Motherwell or St Mirren v Celtic Inverness CT v Falkirk I'm going for semi-finalists of... Rangers Sheep Filth Inverness ...which probably means another OF Final, though I'd love to get them in the semis. Council Telly Loyal

Why oh why can't the SPL just see sense and get the 16-team top division on the go? Oh that's right, because they're the SPL.

If I had to choose the top three Rangers sides of all time, the team of the 1920s and 30s would be in it. Easily.

A resounding no. Kaunas must forever go alongside 9IAR in Walter Smith's epitaph. But leaving aside the fact he should have got the bullet after that debacle, the future under Smith doesn't bear thinking about - limping along from one month to the next, lily-livered lack of ambition on the field, constantly playing players out of position, 'Walter's boys' clique of off-form players, financially disastrous signings, contemptuous statements about fans in the media, and so on and so forth... Calscot, you are right when you say we played some great stuff under Smith during his first spell. However that was 10-15 years ago now, and while he had a different class of player at his disposal then, surely no-one can honestly think our current squad is so weak we have to play one up front and pack the midfield against non-OF SPL opposition. Christ, even in the early-mid Eighties when we really were pish there was none of this 'playing for the draw' mentality. As for Advocaat, I liked the guy and I liked his mentality. He just bottled it against O'Neill for me, but that �£70m wasn't his money - our custodian got us into that particular hole, totally reckless chairmanship throwing �£12m at a bad start to the season. Alexscott - Davie Moyes and Kenny Miller are two completely different kettles of fish IMO. One thumped the badge of satan after scoring against us at Parkhead, the other carries himself with a bit of class, and is actually good at what he does. Would absolutely love Moyes at Ibrox but sad to say I think it's unrealistic, besides Murray doesn't have the ambition any more to even attempt to get someone like Moyes. Martinez? A gamble but probably one worth taking. Wouldn't come with the crazy expectations Le Guen was lumbered with, and has the experience and knowledge of the Scottish and British game Le Guen didn't. Billy Davies? Pretty uninspiring from a personal point of view, but a man with a record hard to argue with. Bags of experience and a Rangers man to boot. I'd regard Davies as a safe bet, and expect he would jump at the chance to become Number Thirteen. Ronald de Boer (Frank?) - there's a left field name to provoke debate if nothing else. Ultimately the appointment of manager lies with the chairman, and the fire went out in Murray after the Le Guen disaster. He may well look to someone like Davies but the post-Le Guen Berlin Bunker Murray tends to work only with people he knows. That would mean, in all probability, Advocaat - though even he is out of our league now I fear and would only take the job on as a favour to a mate, like Abramovich-Hiddink. Souness? Smacks of Newcastle and Keegan to me. All of the above may be hypothetical anyway, if Murray is dead set on giving McCoist the job. But we are patently not moving forward under Smith.

How funny was it when Lovenkrands indulged in the most pathetic play-acting in the history of the Old Firm and got Thompson sent off? Feckin 11 on a scale of 1 to 10, that's how funny:thup:

Miller might have bagged a brace but he was pisspoor tonight. His overhead kick deserved a goal, but some of his misses were simply dreadful.

Great guy, but completely unproven at managerial level (as was Smith but he was given an awful lot of money and inherited some genuine class players from Souness). He did win the Scottish Cup last season, but it took two replays - one after drawing against lower division opposition at home - and an almighty struggle against Queen of the South in the final. I also wouldn't like him to get the job because I'd be petrified of such a legend of the club going down in the estimation of myself and so many supporters, which is what would happen if he went a couple of years without winning the league. When I was growing up McCoist walked on water.