RabiDuck

It's possible the main beneficiary of John Beaton's prejudiced refereeing may yet be Pedro Caixinha. Many a manager has built success on a platform of siege mentality. Anyway, I hope so.

Very good point. Look what MON managed with a similar mentality at times. It's an effective strategy when used right.

Sutton is a Grade A troll of all things Rangers, but m gut feeling says that we'll see that much criticism of him from the likes of Ally. There seems to be a quite different attitude between some of these ex-pros and pros than what you would expect, not least from people of the polar-opposites of the Old Firm divide. A hint of that shone through the Kenny Miller interview, when he was giving responses about the other Premiership teams and referred to TLB as "Lenny", who did a good job at Hibs.

So at times you wonder whether players and ex-players actually get down to the supporters' level of "valuating" their counterparts from other clubs. IMHO, and with no disrespect whatsoever, McCoist and Miller are not on a similar wavelength as e.g. Novo or Weiss.

DB, have to remember that Kenny played along side TLB during his ill advised stint at Celtic...

If Johnston actually said that - why put it in brackets?

 

Only a rhabid tim would come out with that keech, stand up the daily rebel!

 

Anyway, any club in the world would feel happy about snatching a draw from the jaws of defeat against their bitter rivals on their own patch no matter what. We had lost to them 3 times this season including shipping 5 the last time at their midden, everyone and their granny with a scum persuasion were confident pre-match of handing out another drubbing, why would we not be happy with a draw?

 

Also we ended their winning streak...I'm so happy!

Chances are, Johnston was asked what he thought about Rangers being happy with a draw, his answer was "It's a little bit sad", the brackets are added to add context to the answer without quoting the initial question.

Nottingham Forest hope to appoint Mark Warburton as their new manager over the next 24 hours.

The former Brentford and Rangers boss had been a summer target for the Reds – but Fawaz Al Hasawi is now working to bring the 54-year-old to the City Ground to take charge of the weekend visit of Derby County.

The Post understands that there remain one or two hurdles left to overcome before Warburton's appointment can be announced, following the Londoner's recent messy departure from Glasgow giants Rangers.

But Al Hasawi is keen for Warburton to start work as soon as possible, to help arrest the club's slide towards the wrong end of the Championship table. He is expected to sign a three-year contract.

 

Back-to-back defeats at the hands of Brentford and Burton have left Forest just two points clear of the bottom three, with just nine games left to play.

And, while Gary Brazil, Jack Lester and Rob Page remain popular figures within the dressing room, Al Hasawi is understood to be nervous about the prospect of slipping into the third-tier for the second time in the club's recent history.

Warburton has experience in the Championship, having engineered a play-off push for Brentford, after guiding them to promotion from League One.

Their challenge for the top-six was only derailed when the club, with bizarre timing, confirmed that he would be replaced as manager at the end of that 2014/15 season, in February 2015, with three months of the campaign still to be played.

Warburton was not out of work for long, joining Rangers in June 2015, leading them to promotion as Championship title winners as well as adding more silverware, in the form of the 2016 Scottish Cup.

Warburton, along with director of football FrankMcParland, left Rangers in February. But the duo are now very close to being reunited at the City Ground, with Warburton having been appointed director of football in the last few weeks.

The club hope that Warburton's appointment can be secured in time for him to prepare the team for the massive local derby clash with Derby County at the City Ground this weekend.

The Rams will themselves have a new facein the dugout, with Gary Rowett expected to be confirmed as the replacement for the sacked Steve McClaren in the very near future.

Forest are keen that both Brazil and Lester will return to their previous roles within the academy set up, as both men remain hugely respected figures at the club - with the duo integral to the number of young players who have come through the youth ranks in recent years.

 

Read more at http://www.nottinghampost.com/nottingham-forest-set-to-appoint-mark-warburton-to-lead-their-fight-for-championship-survival/story-30199507-detail/story.html?ddd#O1e0edY5ZXAD4Dg5.99

Did I miss something?

If we'd gone for a Dutch manager, could we have gone back to the days of the tangerine kits? <\sarcasm>

Interesting piece. "Operating losses have since been cut to £532,000 in the six months to December 31st 2015", I'm no finance expert, but is this simply saying that the club lost £532k in the 6 month period, or is "operating losses" something specific and there are further gains\losses elsewhere?

Assuming that we're talking bottom line loss of £532k, then given premiership prize\TV money this year, hopefully we'll be turning a profit meaning that future European monies (assuming a second place finish) are purely in the profit column, it's taken a long time, but we're there. Now we've got to focus on building and catching Celtic before they reach number 10!

Good to see him turning up in the appropriate attire! If it was a done deal to get rid, no so sure we'd see the old red white and blue tie in there

In all fairness, looking at the comments of the 'article' the video's been condemned by pretty much all the posters.

Not necessarily a bad thing. Let them trash Ibrox and then we highlight the damage caused in the same way that happened at Parkhead. Thereafter, C1872 can ask the Club to reach out to Celtic and ask for a blanket ban on away fans at both grounds. Means there will be no damage ay either stadium.

Except we'll not be able to highlight it as some idiot in the crowd will have said a naughty word and all the focus will be on that...

His suspension is up for the start of next week so he should be available for the ICT game.

 

However, it doesn't matter if he's kept up his fitness or not, I doubt the manager will consider him for at least another week and that's only if both parties consider the matter dealt with.

Thanks Frankie. Agreed I'd not expect him to be selected for his first game back. There's still work to be done behind the scenes and assessment of fitness etc, was more interested in timescales. I guess if MW want's to show that it's done as an issue he might get a place on the bench as a public statement, but I'd be surprised to see even that first game back.

I seem to have lost track of time this year, so much going on personally. When is his suspension up, when can he be considered again for selection?

Don't normally join forums but I'm so disgusted by this. I have forwarded images to Spanish half family and Ecuadorians. They are shocked. My Ecuadorian pal loves football and finds this beyond the pale. If you have friends abroad then I suggest you let them know what (some/many) Celtic fans really feel and the hatred they have and the depths they are prepared to go to in order t satisfy their bigotry. On the positive my pal in Ecuador wants a rangers jersey (don't know how to explain the ashley thing). But trust me you don't need to rely on MSM. Just send these images to your friends wherever they are. It will get round.

There's potentially some mileage in the ignoring the media strategy. Given the size of our support, it surely wouldn't be difficult to get some form of image of this to go viral on social media. Twitter, facebook, instagram... Get it out there and make it seen?

In the interest of balance, I suspect that the timing was planned and organised by hardcore elements in the crowd, but the majority will simply have got carried away with it. As mentioned previously, they were 3-1 up (albeit against a new team with no history, only just promoted to the premiership so nothing to get all that excited about surely?) and actually playing pretty well. Lots to celebrate and for the vast majority of Celtic fans, that will be all it was, a celebration. Yes it was most likely timed deliberately by some, but you can't tar all fans with the same brush.

If the OFBA is repealed wouldn't the law revert to the previous situation where Rangers Supporters could be prosecuted for using the F word, but Celtic supporters couldn't be prosecuted for singing about the IRA because that was political and not religious?

The easy solution is not to sing the F word. That way no persecution. As long as we persist with it, it's going to get more attention from media and authority figures than any other. We're really harming ourselves with the attitude of "what about them" when we need to get our own house in order. We can't start a debate on the subject at the moment without our own faults being brought up, if we've got no faults to bring up, we can push so much harder on things.

its not a get out of jail card in any way whatsoever

 

again equating the hanging of effigies execution style with smashed up toilets is a disgusting insulting of everyone's intelligence

 

the same shitty styled argument was trotted out trying to equate the assaults on our players with singing the billy boys

Agreed, they don't equate, but if we don't keep shooting ourselves int he foot with stupid acts such as these, we take away the opportunity for those in positions of power to make the claims and sweep things under the carpet. We need to get our own house in order because until we do, our misdemeanors will be used against us and will always get more attention than others.

Video of the damage being done now all over Internet. Amazingly we have fans taking pics & videos on the actual video doing the rounds. Absolute morons.

That's great though. Chance for our support to start weeding out this element. Get them identified and reported. It's far too easy for us to point at the events in the stadium, or the cup final. And yes they're worse, but that's not the point. We need to stop shooting ourselves int he foot and full co-operation from the club and the fans in getting this sorted will allow us a high ground when it comes to other matters. One doesn't preclude the other.

Not sure how fit Windass will be anyway, not had that many games recently.

Windass to start, MOH to come on later and use pace against tired legs?

Welcome to Scotland Joe!

Again, admirable but completely unrealistic.

Unfortunately so, which is the reason we'll never win this fight.

That's admirable enough but let's remember that in 2004, UEFA banned the Billy Boys and a few years later, the Scottish Government made it against the law to sing it.

 

Over the course of those 12 years the song largely disappears and it's only in recent times that we've heard it once or twice sung again en masse. What happened in the intervening years? Did bigotry suddenly disappear? What about songs that glorify terrorists? I assume anyone that refers to our fans and players as huns is also liable to be jailed?

 

Or perhaps nothing else happened other than excuses for 'political' songs and the defence of words like hun? Is it any wonder, rightly or wrongly, some of our fans now take liberties.

 

The problem with the whole issue is of fundamental dishonesty with regard to the debate. Our fans could be whiter than white and I guarantee you there would be no change when it comes to others. Tynecastle the other week is a prime example of this.

Frankie, I completely agree. The same rules for all should be adopted. But we all know that they're not, and if elements of our support do bring out the old song book, it will be picked up, reported and the club dragged through the mud and likely have the book thrown at us. It's very easy to say "turn the other cheek" and "hold ourselves to the highest standards", but that's what we have to do. Get rid of the big bad rangers argument and then we can start reporting other clubs as the Celtic fans appear to. If we don't sort our own house out first, we'll not get anywhere with that.

It would be some cynical banter and may have some people think again.

 

As for NCAA's rules and those of the SFA, I can't tell what each organisations' regulations allow for and would not be surprised if there is nothing specific about such events in the NCAA one. The SFA/SFL/SPL also has some paragraphs ready for interpretation - remember how they voted us out? But that all is not the point. For ... they and the mhedia is offended by various songs we sing, the word Fenian, BJK and whatnot. We have people arrested and at times jailed for somesuch. Yet, the happily call us Huns, zombies, and give a laldy to any IRAoke song you can think of without a whisper. So if not for a bit of naughty banter about Penn State (and I don't advocate large scale action here), how would you counter that from the stands? Not from the sandy beaches of Bermuda, but generally. I mean, you are essentially laughing at me when being annoyed by media people heinously calling us new club or liquidated club, instead of defending us. So how would be your approach?

The easy way to stop out fans being arrested and jailed for singing things that they shouldn't be (rightly or wrongly) is not to sing them. Simple. Once we've cleaned up our own house, we can worry about others but until we do we're going to get pelters for it. It's time the support got away from archaic history that has nothing to do with Rangers, focus on the club, our history and our future!

With regard to no keeper on bench it would be sods law as no doubt something would happen.I have always maintained that the position of goalkeeper should be able to be subbed at any time in the event of injury and this would be over and above subs allowed.

I seem to recall it used to be this way. 2 subs, then this got stretched to 2 subs plus a keeper. Eventually this got extended to 3 subs after teams started using the sub keeper in the last minutes to kill a bit of time. Might be wrong though...

Footballers in general don't have a great reputation for intellectualism and in broonaldo you have a Forrest Gump of footballers. He has already been wound up by Barton and if on the day in a more open game than he has had since he came to Scotland Joey can start giving him the run around while quietly winding him further well.

 

Stupid is as stupid does.

The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced we wont see 22 players finish this game!

If I had to put money on this one, I'd probably back them. We've not really hit form this season and I think we're a year or so off being strong contenders. However, if we find form on the day there's no reason we can't beat them, we've proved that last year!

It's going to be an interesting yard stick, their confidence may well come back to haunt them (again!) and certainly fuels our players. I'm expecting confrontation and frustration, especially if we start well. Chances of something between Broonie and Barton? Pretty high I think, certainly don't bet against a red card in this one (depending on the ref it could be either way, Barton's cleaned up his act the past couple of years, but this is Scotland and he's wearing the light blue, that's provocation enough for some) remember Brown's rather foolish booking for winding up Diouf after scoring? Expect more of the same idiocy from him. Overall, I think we'll probably lose it and I'm concerned that without strong officials we may pick up injuries, but I'm certainly hopeful of being wrong!

Needless to say, after recent events, it's now more important than ever that our fans behave themselves and don't give any reason to draw attention to themselves. Hopefully we can drop the sectarian crap and focus on the football. We've got a good side, playing attractive footie, we don't need to drag ourselves down with the other rubbish. Whether we agree with what's deemed offensive or not, and regardless of what other clubs fans may be doing, we have to hold ourselves to a higher standard, by virtue of being Rangers fans and as a result of the higher level of scrutiny. Let's finally prove ourslves!

You are totally correct Boabie but I think you are wrong not to accept that rules are slowly changing and that down the line the chance exists that it will be accepted. Don't forget that Celtic are the team who have been stating they want to go to an English league(Hypocritical for British haters. Money talks) and who is the biggest voice in the SFA. I personally think world football is changing and there will be different league set-ups in the future.

Pete, want to give me odds that in the event both Rangers and Celtic were invited by the EFA, the "SFA" would grant permission for them but not us?