stewarty

The BBC getting something wrong about Rangers? Nope, don't believe you 😁

Happy with that. Though my worry is mainly up front and whether Colak starts the season well, given we won't have Alfredo or likely Roofe available, and Sakala has had niggles too.

Yeah mate, we've all read your posts! 😁 Just kidding... though football fans and forums are notoriously fickle playgrounds and the internet is not reality. We just need to wait and see how players perform. Many signings have been received to much expectation, excitement and acclaim, but not even been close to working out. Filip Sebo anyone?

Given the state that Derby are in, and in league 1, I suspect we will still be covering the lion share of his wage. Seems an odd one at this stage. I’d rather we sold and recovered some of the fee paid.

Interesting. Coaches like Gio though, flex their tactics depending on the opposition, so I'm not sure its so much that there are rigid playing styles throughout the club, more about the core elements of the club's philosophy being applied and adapted within different game situations.

That was my reading of it, or at least my reading of at least one aspect of his role. Teaching the coaches how to be better coaches, as well as ensuring they have a consistent outlook in terms of the football philosophy of the club.

Obviously never heard of the guy and I can imagine the subject matter being quite dry... but to me the idea of having a clear footballing strategy and ensuring all of our coaching staff are being developed as much as we develop our players, is core to the sustainability of the club.

Welcome young Rabbi.

Agreed. As said, there's no easy ties. In Gio we must trust.

Anyone but Monaco for me. Though they'll all be tricky ties.

Add in unknowns in terms of the sports direct settlement and no doubt increased edmiston house building costs.

Would have been helpful if the club did a half year statement but I don’t think we’ve done so for a couple of years.

I’m guessing that some of the instalments may be based on appearances and perhaps some other performance measures like cup wins, European qualification or appearances… but overall that’s roughly what my take has been based the various reports around.

For sure, I just dont recall that detail and it doesn't seem to be common knowledge as these things tend to be mentioned.

Where did you get this information? Haven't seen it discussed.

I think your whinge is fair, but it should be seen in context of the overall squad composition at the end of the window. We need to blend the young guns with experienced pros in their prime, with the older heads who lead the dressing room and set the standards.

I think we also need to bear in mind when looking at the overall summer spend that the likes of Lawrence will no doubt have negotiated a sign-on fee and/or higher wages since he's a free agent.

Welcome to Ibrox! A good attacking midfield goal threat it seems.

I noticed that a few of the U18s we have released have joined Hearts... maybe thats their level? Time will tell.

We should always be aiming to hoover up the best young talent we can. The recent flurry is both encouraging in that we are able to sell the benefits of coming to us to develop their career (and for the club, hopefully profiting from their ability/sale down the line), but also a concern that the Auchenhowie conveyor belt seems to have missed a few straps in that we have big gaps to in our U16-18 ages that have needed to be filled. Guys like @elfideldo are much better placed to comment though.

Slopey shoulders Maxwell. You can see why he was appointed.

I think thats a little premature. Whilst I don't think we will be spending the sums that many have guesstimated based on last season's transfer and prize income, but I do think we will be net spenders this window. Its still early in the window given all of the post season internationals... I'd like one or two in for the start of pre-season though.

This on top of the SporteMongo thing... crypto/ NFTs not having a good time at all with their attempt to gain credibility. I do hope we negotiated up front fees!

The tentacles of SD are everywhere in the sportswear market - he even has/had shares in JD Sports. I was looking earlier to try and refresh my memory on the myriad of bullshit legal actions waged by Ashley but gave up because google is just returning dozens of articles about today’s news. However I do recall something about Elite being involved with JD Sports, which is why we distributed with them, to the chagrin of Ashley. In fact, one of the cases I think he brought was to force Elite to supply wholesale into SD - and that’s where we started to see SD popping up with shirt sales and slightly discounted pricing over various different merchandise. It would not surprise me one iota if SD wanted to undercut us all, but failed mostly because of the depth of feeling towards his brand, and so reported us all to CMA over the pricing tactics referred to by CMA (which, I would not be at all surprised if SD employ themselves by the way) Back to your question though, it doesn’t look like Ashley owns Elite per companies house information. Elite were fighting with us against SD initially when Ashley brought the action over us allegedly not offering SD the right to match the Elite deal. However, I do think that like us, Elite have backed down and reached some sort of settlement to make Ashley go away and stop interfering with their business - hence why they then started to wholesale stock to SD, etc. Whether that actually worked or not, I dont know, because the monies we were due from Elite then got caught up in SD court cases. Apologies, I’m working form memory - its very complex so i may have got various parts wrong.

Happy to be proved wrong but I think the dark arts of Ashley are all over this. I think the reason this has come to light, and why the CMA are alerted to the issue, is that it was part of the myriad of court cases involving us and Ashley/ Sports Direct and his annoyance at our deal with Elite which squeezed out SD.