Norris Cole

Mcgregor was good with penalties

McGregor had the potential to be better than Goram.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=335lUV9WGgI

One of the most shocking interviews in Scottish football. He should have been up in court on the Monday morning. Instead he was feted among fans of other clubs as "brave". Still, it's nice to know Rangers repeatedly gave him the most miserable moments of his managerial career.

4:10 for the moment the arse fell out of Dundee United FC

Macleod was a player. Was a bad move for both parties when he left, he's hardly played for Brentford and is further away from a Scotland cap than when he was with us.

Yeh that 4-6-0 was the height of dismal management.

Ah Prague. When he announced his team and formation two days before the game. Moron.

I personally think if Hearts had kept Neilson, they would be in a similar position to Aberdeen. Without exactly being spectacular, he was doing a pretty competent job for Hearts. I think they will suffer with the new transition.

That's perhaps a fair point. I was up in Aberdeen over Christmas and was talking to an Aberdeen fan, he said McInnes has taken them as far as they can go and that he'll probably look to leave soon. Laughably, the Aberdeen fans are starting to grumble over their most successful manager since Sir Alex.

I think in the cold light of day, to see off Hearts and Aberdeen in our first season back in the top flight would represent real progress. Next season has to be about getting close to Celtic.

The biggest problem with only an excuse to me, is it's lack of actual funny sketches. Or maybe I just have a different sense of humour to the writers.

 

As for the interviews, the problem with MW's "professionalism" in this regard, is that they are dull, dull, dull, and empty of much value. The players say nothing interesting at all these days, and the manager seems more concerned with fending off the reporters, at the expense of communicating with the fans.

 

The worst was under Le Guen, whom I was initially highly enthused to hear his words of wisdom and hung on every word, until I realised he was saying absolutely nothing of interest whatsoever, and worse didn't seem to have a handle on the situation.

 

His pronunciation of "Raungers" was really grating too. The first thing any intelligent person should do when appointed manager of a foreign club is to learn the local pronunciation of name of the team - including the stress of the syllables - such as NewCAStle. I know some weren't bothered about, but to me it's one of those indicators where you think, "If he hasn't even researched that basic thing, what HAS he researched?" I think we can see the answer was that he spent this valuable preparation time researching the Marathon Des Sables instead. There's an old, to the point saying: "Just get it right".

I haven't seen or heard anyone else comment on this, so it could just be me, but I have to say the half-time 'Rangers Mind' on Rangers TV where they quiz players/management Mastermind-style makes for alarming viewing. Again, maybe it's just me but before any project at work I research the shit out of it first. Warburton didn't know what town Ross County play in (despite having been there with Rangers recently), and none of the players have any idea of or interest in the club's history, the latest was Clint Hill who had no idea what either of the stands behind the goals are called. Only Davie Weir came away with any credit.

Shouldn't the presence and backing of Craig Levein as DoF offset that somewhat?

 

He does seem to have had a terrible start - which is good for us. Although it could make our current gap with them a bit of a false one if he is able to bring it together, meaning they might be harder to pull away from next season.

Levein has surprised me somewhat, post-retirement. My memory of him as a player was of a top class defender, captain of club and country, an intelligent guy, a thinker of the game. In management, I simply don't rate the guy whatsoever. It was criminal that he was handed charge of the national team, a decision which the SFA suits should have fallen on their swords for. On a personal level, he's been dead to me since his hissy fit and sinister comments after we beat his Utd side at Ibrox. You wonder if he will ever recover from Mark Kerr's backpass. I find him a rather unimpressive human being actually.

Re. this season, I have to say I rate Aberdeen higher than Hearts. Only Aberdeen can stop us getting second. If the Hearts board are serious about giving Cathro a chance, they need to give him about three years.

Saturday 7th January 2017

 

Real Madrid v Granada - La Liga - 12:00 - Sky Sports 2*/*Sky Sports 2 HD

 

Well at least we can view him tomorrow, if he plays!

We're Rangers. He'll do his cruciate.

There are parallels between the new Hearts boss and PLG. Not so much in record, PLG's record was much better, but in terms of the media reaction and expectation compared to that of professional players. PLG was going to 'revolutionise' Scottish football, new diets, new training and new ideas. I read similar things about Cathro. The problem PLG faced and Cathro will face is the actual man-management side of it. To introduce anything new you need to be able to communicate and win the trust of professional players, a generally cynical, hard-bitten and conservative group.

 

Interestingly the only truly revolutionary moment on sport in recent years was the Moneyball episode in major league baseball. But the architect of Moneyball thinking, Paul Depodesta, was unable to implement his thinking, he'd never played the sport and was viewed with suspicion by players and managers. It needed Billy Beane, a highly regarded coach and former professional player, to introduce Depodesta's ideas.

 

When Southampton appointed Sir Clive Woodward as Sporting Director it should have heralded the beginning of a golden period for the club. Woodward is/was a progressive thinker, a hugely successful coach in rugby union he was tasked with modernising the sport's science and culture at the club. Instead he clashed with the existing coaches almost from day one. The head coach, Harry Redknapp, left before the year was out, Woodward's appointed Head of Sport's Science lasted two months and eventually Woodward himself realised he was unable to communicate and manage footballers successfully.

 

As a footnote Woodward was later appointed the head of coaching for the British Olympic team and oversaw the most successful period in British Olympic history.

I get the impression Cathro is up against a wee bit of ageism. Which I can sort of understand, even if ability should be the primary consideration. There are guys in that dressing room that are older than him, I just wonder how they're reacting to a manager not only younger than them, but with no experience as a footballer. Every boss I've had has been through the same work I do, so I don't have a problem taking their advice or criticism. Cathro on the other hand better do great things at Hearts or, rightly or wrongly, he'll get pilloried. I personally hope it works out for him, he could be a breath of fresh air. Time will tell.

It also baffles me somewhat that Hungary went from world-class to third-rate. What was that all about?

I'd argue but for his issues mid career Caniggia would be remembered much more fondly. But you could apply that to so many players so I totally get where you're coming from.

 

Hagi and Prosinecki were both untouchable if they could be arsed.

 

Dragan Stojkovic always blew me away what a player. The issues in Yugoslavia ruined it for him though.

That old Yugoslavia team were incredible - must have been something in the water then. I think we all loved Prosinecki for the chain-smoking, beer-drinking badass he was. And what a player. He was a real antidote to sanitised, modern football.

Here's an essay question for a B.A. in Football Studies:- A war-free Yugoslavia would have won the World Cup. Discuss.

From my time from watching football TV Id go with this....I need to have a think about players I have actually seen.

 

Buffon

 

Cafu Desailly Cannavaro Maldini

 

Messi Maradona Zidane Ronaldo

 

Henry Baggio

No way was Steve Fulton that good.

Vuckic, the sole bright spot in a dark, dark season. I'd take him back, I can't see him making a career for himself at Newcastle.

what an awful reel of highlights! Makes him look shite!

Not just me then

More than a whiff of the Spanish Sebo from that reel.

The only place you can find serious journalism published without fear or favour appears to be Private Eye if that goes then there's nowhere else to turn.

The Spectator

We also understand £20m is way under the club's valuation of the striker.

What a retarded, deluded club. That's actually laughable.

The Daily Record has become an absolute parody of itself, they simply make stuff up and have it printed. There is not a cat's chance in hell West Ham have bid 20m.

Celtic can wallow in delusions of grandeur as much as they want, they are a middling club in a shitkicker league. They will bite their hand off for half that.

I didn't enjoy The Ref's piece on VB about Scotland's Mainstream Media. This is because his main observation is that Scotland's mainstream media has long forgotten how to at least make a pretence at impartiality.

It may manifest itself in different ways, but the end result of consciously negative or inaccurate reporting about Rangers and Rangers supporters is the same.

I'm well aware that in this supposed post-truth environment of the SNP, Trump and Brexit era, it is easy for the unhinged online obsessives to manufacture grievances and fake 'news', without facing the consequences of their actions.

There's a real trend in both the Celtic blogging community and the Nationalist blogging community for emerging bloggers to appear credible and relatively sensible to the unaware, before their scribblings represent something akin to a complete meltdown. Strangely, a good number of their flocks would appear to get dragged down with their leaders, which is the opposite of what should be happening.

So, they remain, to pollute our world with lies & conspiracies which get proven wrong again and again, and oddly, it doesn't seem to matter.

Common to both the Nationalist community, and the Celtic supporting community are the aggressive shut down mobs who try to bully anyone online who makes even a subtle suggestion that their crazy pied pipers are wrong.

The volume of times I have seen vile abusive nationalist tweets, only to observe said nationalist gushing about the club across the city is ridiculous. It is no coincidence.

I'm not normally an STV reader, but the piece written by Lucy Blackburn this morning about fake news, and the efforts that should be undertaken to prevent this, is a must read, and journalists and commentators in both the print and broadcast media would do well to study it in detail before they write or say anything more.

While the Ref's piece was pointed more at bias than fake news, it also points to a mainstream media in crisis in Scotland.

While many journalists and commentators in employment of the MSM see themselves as protectors of integrity in the industry, and the last true source of accurate information for the public, any remaining journalists who do things by the book, are being stabbed in the back as their colleagues damage their integrity with every misleading or inaccurate headline or article.

All it takes at any media outlet, is for one sub editor, one journalist, or one commentator to forego accuracy in favour of furthering an agenda, and their employer suffers, as prospective readers, subscribers or viewers walk away in disgust.

We have a situation in Scotland where it's not just journalists who are ignoring impartiality in favour of agendas, but Editors too.

In recent years, the toothless IPCC have upheld complaints of inaccuracy with regards to reports concerning Rangers from BBC Scotland and the Daily Record with both outlets apologising, before becoming repeat offenders.

Without a strong objective body to ensure accuracy, the public have other tools at their disposal, consisting of active protest and challenge, or the less active choice to simply walk away.

It's clear that the media is failing to understand its place in the brave new world, and that decreasing audiences are impacting their judgement.

So, many are crossing that murky border between credible reportage and clickbait, in order to try and maintain decreasing ad revenue.

Sometimes it's the headline that is the issue when it doesn't reflect the story, sometimes the social media clickbait headline (which doesn't match the actual headline) is the issue, and in some cases it's the article itself, with inaccuracies or misquotes throughout.

If you follow most of the Scottish Media outlets I would wager that you will have encountered at least one of the above yesterday, today, and most probably tomorrow.

If the mainstream media is to survive at all, the first priority above all else has to be accuracy, and gaining trust of readers, listeners and viewers.

Contrary to common perception, I believe (enough) people will fork out for content that is value for money to sustain providers. In media, that means verifiable accuracy. It has to be the top priority for any media outlet, or they become no better than a million and one websites that desperately seek clicks for pennies, for substandard fare written by glorified bloggers?

Should it be acceptable for a once great media institution such as the Daily Record to end up no better than utter tosh like HITC or footballinsider?

I'm sure there are decent journos at the Record that are horrified by such a comparison, and so they should be. It's down to them to prevent the decline from accelerating any faster.

Take this morning's Record, spinning a story claiming Celtic have turned £10M in to £50M with a buy cheap sell big policy. The piece goes on to detail the signings that have contributed to this 'profit', and it becomes apparent that even allowing for them using inflated sales figures, and ignoring a number of costly signings that have been sold at great loss, the total is still £40M, some £10M less than claimed.

This is from the paper that once claimed Craig Whyte was a Billionaire. It's embarrassing.

While many write off newspapers as finished, my view, albeit a minority one, is that they are at a decision crossroads, and while other commercial decisions will need to be made, the decision to pursue truth, impartiality and integrity will define whether the industry will recover or die.

My view is that people pay for decent product, which is why Vinyl is in the midst of a recovery, and why physical books have recovered to such an extent that e-books are on their arse.

I also believe that the vast majority of people, even those that get looked down upon by the liberal elites, simply want a source of truth they can trust, and they are not getting it, whether it be from silly nationalist comics like the Sunday Herald or National, right wing propaganda sheets like the Express, hypocrisy in spades from the trust fund run Guardian, or dodgy populism from the Record.

All of them, and more, are on thin ice, and it's their decision to make.

Do they have the balls for it?

If they don't I would suggest it won't only be fake news that will be an issue, but fake everything, as revisionism will also change history.

If that is allowed to happen, what integrity is left for anything?

http://www.vanguardbears.co.uk/article.php?i=140&a=scotland%27s-media---decision-time

Always a lottery with loan signings. Still, welcome to the world's greatest club Mr Toral.

What do you think if Celtic released him. Would Warburton be interested in picking him up for nothing?

Would the Rangers support accept him after all we accepted Miller after his daunt to the darkside.

A year ago, absolutely.

Now? I wouldn't go near him personally. What a dreadful career decision going to Celtic was.

As stewarty aludes to, I think he's f*cked his career. He could have been a star, instead he'll see his time out with the likes of Motherwell and Kilmarnock.

This will be a marmite thread

I don't see why. They have been our two best players this season.

You can put me down for St Johnstone.

Good on him, but he's not saying anything we don't already know.

Chelsea have earned the tight to the occasional defeat, it looks like they're still the team to beat. I'd say Liverpool look most likely. Man Utd seem to have bedded in for the first time since Fergie left, I can see them being right up there next season.

Was Richard Gough a world class defender? At his peak he has to be close.

Don't know about that, though there were times when he could have strolled into any back line in Europe.