Gingerger

Where on earth did that come from? I've not expressed any opinion whatever on anybody's politics being extreme. I suggested that Salmond has all the looks of a potential dictator but I'm not the first to have said something like that. Why does politics come into the debate? well as was once said, everythings political. How does this help Rangers? Not a lot really but the question was and is purely hypothetical and was only raised for discussion. My current feeling is that if we are forced to start at the bottom by people who hate us then why should we continue to play their game? I'd rather go somewhere we'd perhaps be appreciated. Maybe it's a non-starter but at the very least it's worth thinking about as an option.

Why is it silly? The obvious retort is that Welsh teams play in England so why not us? As for the English not wanting us, well many of them seem to do because the question of us playing down there has come up many times over the years, not always being driven from our end. Also, the Scotland you feel part of may be coming to an end, it is currently under serious threat. Do you want to stay in Salmond's dictatorship? As for them hating us less, I guess it would probably make them hate us more, however, we could quite happily ignore them at that point and let them get on with their silly wee political games.

Interesting to see that just about everybody agrees with me in principle. Liquidation is still a long way off but many people actively want it to happen and HMRC don't appear to me to be interested in 'doing a deal' (I've no basis for that btw, just a gut feel). The bitter Tims are driving the mhedia into a frenzy and if liquidation happens they will attempt to make sure any newco Rangers are not a threat for many years. I fully realise that climbing from the bottom of the English pyramid would be much much harder than doing the equivalent up here however the prise is much greater at the end of the day. Another thought, again thinking well ahead, if Salmond gets his way and we end up with an independent Scotland then all we can expect is that the bitterness and abuse currently coming our way will multiply considerably. As one of the last few public examples of 'Scottish Britishness' then we would become even more of a political target than we are just now. In those circumstances I would be very glad to have taken the opportunity to get the hell out of here. I'm not giving up on liquidation or for that matter the union but we need to keep our options open and attempt to make well thought out choices about our future.

I'll come straight out and say that I don't want Ally as manager of our club after all the financial stuff is sorted out. Watching that team today I could see no sign whatever of any team plan or organisation. That unfortunately has been the case for just about every home game this season and several of the away games too although the opposition coming onto us does seems to help a bit away from home. Bottom line is that Ally seems to have no plan whatsoever to deal with organised defences. We have much bigger problems facing us but once they are sorted out the problem with the manager will also need to be addressed.

and Rangers go into liquidation and have to start from scratch the likelyhood is that certain parties will attempt to insist we start at the bottom of the football tree and work our way back up. In the event of that happening what do we reckon to the proposal that we apply to join the English leagues instead of the Scottish ones? Given the level of outright hatred expressed against our club over the last few weeks I for one would be very glad to simply get the f*ck out of here and play in an environment where we might not be subject to the mhedia driven bile and bigotry we've seen over the last few days. That option might not be open to us but I'd be for asking to see if it could be.

Leggo really lets himself down with this one. As others say above he merely used the budget given to him, sometimes poorly but also sometimes well. What Leggo also fails to mention though is the monumental injury crisis the club faced during the middle of O'Neil's first season at the stydome. At one point Rangers had twenty first team players missing and had to take a loan player from down south to field a full eleven at a game away to Motherwell. That injury crisis massively helped Celtic towards their title that year, everybody knew it including them, hence the "no excuses" t-shirts I'm sure we all remember. The problems from that season actually carried forward to the next year culminating in Advocatt standing down under pressure. The following season all the big players were fit again and Alex McCleish profited from that big style as he romped to a treble with Advocatt's team. Unfortunately the season after that commenced the financial downturn which we've been suffering ever since.

I can't really understand why Johnstone and his fellow Murray acolytes think they have enough credibility to stand up in front of an audience and denounce the current regime. Here's the thing. Even if Whyte turns out to be the worst possible owner for Rangers and leads us straight into oblivion, IT'S STILL THE OLD FECKING REGIMES FAULT! They were the ones who led us to the financial position where the bank basically dictated that the club be sold to anybody willing to give them their money. Never, ever forget this. It's all Murray's fault and any member of the old regime who isn't prepared to acknowlege that can take a flying whatever to himself as far as I'm concerned. I wouldn't trust a single word emerging from their mouths.

The crucial change for me is that Edu is now playing to his strengths. He is a big athletic boy who covers a lot of ground and can run the legs off most players playing directly against him. The big plus for me is that he's recently added a wee nasty side to his game. The number of bookings he's had in the last few games reflects that. Like it or not in British football you need a bit of badness in the middle of the park. Win the physical battle then win the game, that tends to be the way it goes. One other thing about Edu, I've noticed that his best runs of form tend to come immediately after old firm games. He's struggled in the old firm games over the piece , especially at their midden, and it seems to me he's got it into his head that he can't play well there. Once those games are out of the way for a while his confidence seems to rise.

can somebody explain to me what is wrong with expoiting St Andrew's day for commercial gain? Not getting where C*ltic are coming from here, a pathetic attempt at point scoring is the only angle I see.

Apologies if this has been covered elsewhere but i've not been around much for a wee while. I think most folk, including (deliberately?) nearly all the press are missing the main point here. Aluko has been out of football for six months while Aberdeen held his registration waiting for him to pick up another club. The fee Aberdeen are "due" is as much to do with him cutting ties with a club he doesn't want to play for any more as they to do with a new club wanting to "buy" him. He left Aberdeen mostly under a cloud having taken a fair bit of cash from them with variable reward back to his employers, he went missing for a month if I remember correctly for example. If this was a Rangers player we were talking about we'd all be saying it was quite correct for him to pay back some of his wages to seal his move away. Considering he left Aberdeen by mutual consent and has been out of the game since then any financial agreements to release him from his previous contract obligations should, by right, be between him and his ex employer. It would be a different thing if he'd showed up at Ibrox five minutes after his Aberdeen contract ended but that isn't what has happened. The transfer rules are a farce but in this case that isn't really any concern of Rangers. Incidentally, I reckon this issue has really only come up cause it's Aberdeen & Rangers involved. If he'd looked to sign for anybody else Aberdeen would probably accepted a nominal or even no fee. Cause it's Rangers they feel they need to be seen to not being "ripped off".

Ah well, McCoist himself stated that we started playing that way against Killie but changed it in the second half. Never mind, clearly you are correct and he was telling porkies eh? On the other hand, you could of course be talking crap.

What a pathetically facetious misreading of what is being said here. Nobody is suggesting Rangers deliberately pass to the opposition or want to give them chances. The ploy is to let them come upfield and only press for possession when they enter our half. That way we get to attack four or five defenders instead of ten. If you don't realise we have been consistently doing that against the lower rated SPL teams for most of the last two to three years then I suggest you start watching the pitch during games. It might help with your interpretation of the play. Hey look, I can do it too!

We've actually been doing the 'surrender territory/possession' thing for a few years now. I'm actually surprised that so few people seem to have picked up or commented on this. Walter started it early into his second spell. My theory about the birth of this tactic is that Walter realised he didn't have the same quality of offensive player he had in his first term so realised we had to be cleverer than we were in the days when we'd simply batter teams and eventually wear them down. Remember all those games we won 1:0 with late goals after dominating for the whole game against packed defenses? Well this team isn't (or hasn't been over the last couple of years) talented/creative enough to do that so we need to find another way. As a side-note, it drives me daft sitting beside numpties getting all steamed up about Killie/Motherwell/Dunfermline/St Mirren etc. having significant possession of the ball at Ibrox knowing that the team are actually trying to suck them forward to break in behind them.

If a referee with an equivalent recent history with regards to decisions against Celtic had been appointed to this game then there would be headlines screaming about the controversy of it on the back pages of all the tabloids. Craig Thomson's blatent attempt to hand Celtic the league in the last old firm game of last year appears to have been airbrushed from history.

Fair doo's moving this to the Footie Chat forum btw. Should have put it there in the first place.

Watching both the STV and BBC news tonight discussing the Lennon court case result the main thing that struck me was that both channels actually went out their way to NOT discuss the main issues involved. Both channels went for the sensationalist angle trotting out the usual suspects to express their confusion and anger that a decision that didn't suit them had been reached. Basically they both danced around the issue without even attempting to analyse why and how the jury reached it's not proven verdit. Despite having access to two supposed top QCs (one of whom is hopelessly compromised by his own prejudice but let's leave that for later) neither channel chose to question and explore the legal framework involved let alone asking what for me is surely the critical question, i.e. "how were the jury directed by the judge before retiring to consider their verdict?" More specifically the question should be "why did the jury delete the sectarian aspect from the BOTP charge but not the assault charge?" Were they instructed that they couldn't do it for the assault charge but could for the BOTP charge and if so why? Good investigative journalists would be seeking the answers to those questions but those types seem thin on the ground at the BBC and STV. Or are they? does the absence of proper investigative reporting of this case suggest another agenda? That perhaps they know the answers and that they know that if those answers were made public they would kill the sensational story stone dead? Sectarianism real or perceived sells papers and gets people tuning into TV channels. Accurate reporting of legal niceties is boring and a turn off, especially if such reporting kills a story they can run for months.

Liewell lacks any remote vestige of class. A stereotypical Celtic man.

No I'm not, ok I've not been on here for long but I can assure you I've consistently defended the guy for most of the last three years during which he's made a significant contribution to each of the titles won in that time, not just the last day goals either incidentally. I reckon he's already "made it", he's now our first choice centre forward along with Jelavic and at times towards the end of last year it was Jelavic supporting Lafferty rather than the other way round. I actually think he's suffered from Ardvelaze syndrome, i.e. cause he's a decent football player and we've desperately needed somebody to play wide left he's been stuck out there to do his best. Because he's struggled there his confidence has suffered leading to the fans getting on his back. When he got his rare chances up front he's been so eager to please he's been trying too hard with the result that nothing would come off for him. All he needed was a run up front and a few goals to go in. Hopefully he'll kick on from here and go from strength to strength.

With regard to the "dross" comment, I think the standard of the teams outwith the old firm in Scotland is now at an all time low. Both Rangers and Celtic have been worse than they are now in their own turns but there has always been one or two teams outside the old firm who could do a turn. Now? well look at the Euro results of the non old firm teams against, well anybody really. That's the real barometer for me. Whenever any of these teams comes up against any team from anywhere in Europe they lose, sometimes badly. "Dross" is an accurate description in my opinion. Saying the same thing as above again, there are precious few SPL games where Rangers need one defensive midfield player. There are occassions but they're damned few. We NEVER, EVER, need to play two. I can't see how anybody could disagree with that.

Interesting comment about him not "making it at Ibrox". I reckon three league winners medals in three years scoring the winning championship goal each time counts as "making it". No?

Maybes Aye Smug ;-)

My old man is one, he just can't see any good in the guy and refuses to acknowledge anything positive about him. Of course his gas was at a peep towards the end of last season as the big man ended the season with hat tricks and glory goals. Well, when this season started big stuff was getting it again. His crime this time? being injured when we needed him! As a general point though, do we think big Laff is now well on his way to winning over the boo boys? I've got to say I've been a fan for most of his time at Rangers and have taken pelters for consistently saying I think he'll be playing centre forward for Rangers for years to come so I'm getting a certain satisfaction from his goals and form. He still has a way to go of course, he needs to keep his form going over a season and he needs to stay fit but I reckon were now seeing why we spent the big bucks on him.

This is a really, really difficult one to handle. It'll be the same for them thinking about us too of course. It goes totally against the grain to want them to do anything at all at any level. However, we've now reached the point where the implications of both our teams failing are staggeringly serious. We could be looking at a generation of fans being deprived of watching our team compete against the European elite. That's where we are guys. I despise Celtic with the very fabric of my soul and body (hark at me!) but we need them to win on Thursday, along with us. Other considerations can wait for other times I'm afraid.

That's a slighly less sarcastic version of what I tried to say in another thread. The McCulloch Edu combo midfield must never be repeated in any game in my opinion. Only one of them should ever play for Rangers at any time. Ortiz must play on the right or not at all. Davis should always, always be in the middle because he's clearly our best player. How all that pans out with the two midfield new boys thrown into the equation remains to be seen of course.

I remember going to a game last year, I think it was an early league cup tie, when Rangers were down to the bare bones in midfield and Naismith was fielded as a supposedly emergency cover central midfield player. He was the surprising MOTM on the night and everybody was remarking how well he'd done considering he'd never played there. Spin the clock on a year and he's had a few more chances to play there and has impressed each and every time. I don't see him as an out an out striker, he's definitely better playing off the front, but neither is he really a winger as he doesn't really like to be pinned down out wide and always drifts infield. If he has a long term position in the team it either needs to be 'in the hole' as they say or as an out and out central midfielder. The evidence of the games he's played there suggests to me he could develop into an excellent player there. Anybody agree?