JohnMc

People who claim to know about these things say Celtic are very keen to sign him. They see him as a potential future club captain and someone they could get 5 good years out of and still then sell for a huge profit as he's reaching his peak. No problems with settling in or adjusting to the league. The feeling being that he'd flourish in a team that dominates possession. I see talk of £10 million which is a lot for us to spend on one player. But he fits the model everyone is saying we should follow.

I agree with your first sentence. Sometimes random mercenaries go onto become club legends. I doubt Peter Lovenkrands and Neil McCann grew up dreaming of a last minute cup final winner for Rangers, a goal that made me as happy as almost any goal ever scored has. With very rare exceptions every professional player is a mercenary, it's a job with a short window to earn money and they all realise that very quickly. Even the ones raised as west of Scotland bluenoses will sign for sworn enemies or leave us for for better wages without much concern. It's only us that form the attachments, these are not reciprocal relationships, I know that. In Justin Halpern's 'Shit My Dad Says' he's got a story of his Dad ranting about the LA Rams and how is son is an idiot for forming any kind of emotional relationship with them. It's both funny and perceptive. I guess that's where football in this country is going too if we're not careful.

Surely getting emotionally attached to players is half of what football is all about? I accept it's illogical and childish but if you remove emotion from football what are you left with? I'm not disputing the validity of the business model, but it's ok not to want your best players sold, even if it's inevitable.

Underrated post! Bravo.

I'm curious what people think the captaincy entails. Do people think he should be changing formations on the pitch during games? Over-ruling the management team on tactics and selections perhaps? Maybe telling the board to sell certain players and who to buy? The expectation some seem to have regarding what the captain does is very strange. The captain is the bridge between the dressing room and the manager, he's who helps new players settle into the squad, who lets's the manager know if someone has an issue, perhaps unconnected to football, who makes sure the various media duties the squad need to do are covered. He's the guy who swaps pennants and calls the coin toss, he'll give an encouraging word or a harsh one to a teammate when appropriate. This suggestion that he's responsible for our ills is ludicrous. At the age of 30 Wes Morgan captained Leicester City to the league title, it was the first honour he'd won in football. Some captains never win anything in their entire career, that doesn't make them bad captains. It's a team game, teams win and lose, not individuals.

I know there are more important topics for discussion on this thread but a point of order. It's actually a corruption of the Gaelic for jumper or sweater which is geansaidh and pronounced 'genzy'.

I mean desperate and sad I can take, but vegan is a slur too far young man!

I can't decide if you're being serious or if you're being even more sarcastic than I was. Well played either way. For the record I was attempting some levity, I should know better. Desperate and sad is a fair description though, I'm regularly at least one of those things, often both.

Much more importantly every picture of Martin I see he seems to be sporting a black jumper or even a gilet (or body warmer as they were called when I was a youth). This is fine if you're manager of some mid table jobbers in the Bundesliga or an architect in Zurich, but in Govan that's really only acceptable on retired trawler men. Can we expect the shirt and club tie look or at least official training gear to be a thing of the past. I realise I'm sounding more and more like my Dad with every passing day. It's a worry.

Every Rangers manager this century has played a possession based game domestically because it's only occasionally Rangers don't have the bulk of the possession during a match. Walter Smith became a master at a rope-a-dope style against Celtic where we'd often concede possession then hit them on the break but against everyone else we dominated. Smith relied on moments of skill from very good players, we were also much more dangerous from set-pieces then too. Gerrard didn't favour a counter-attacking style, he wanted his sides to dominate everyone. It took a while for this to be effective against Celtic and it worked in Europe until we played a side better than us. Whereas Gio and Clement were more flexible, particularly in Europe, and were happy to play effectively on the counter-attack. Martin has a clear preference for passing the opposition to death. So did Gio. Clement had that at first too, but as it struggled to breakdown the opposition he tried more direct football, with limited success. Our players simply weren't equipped for that style. For me Martin, or whoever it is, will need to play possession football because we'll have possession in most matches. What they'll need is better players than we've had recently. Without better players Martin won't succeed, but then I doubt Klopp would succeed if the players aren't of the required standard. It might be unpopular but had both Gio or Clement been given better players both were able enough managers to have won us the league.

SACK THE BOARD!!

No, I didn't appoint him, I'm one of disloyal fans who has been sceptical of the new owners since they were first mooted. I'm just surprised that some of those who've been guzzling the Cool Aid for the 49ers seem to be cracking up at their first important appointment. As for Martin he's certainly better qualified than Ancelotti, not as well qualified as Gerrard. It's not an appointment that excites me, but it's not a mental appointment either. He's experienced, he knows the club, he's coaching players of our level and he's got something to prove after a poor end at Southampton. Walter Smith was an uninspiring appojntment after Souness, McLeish was an uninspiring appointment after Advocaat, indeed Jock Wallace was too following on from a legend like Waddell. They did ok in the end.

Of course, I'm just finding some of the opinions contradictory. I'm also not sure coaching Real Madrid players is the best preparation for setting out a team to play Livi away in November. I've no clue if Martin will be a success or not, I'm just surprised at how much negativity it's generated.

The reaction to his (apparent) appointment is bizarre. What happened to all that 'trust the process', 'long term plans' and 'proper sports businessmen in charge' stuff everyone's spouting on the ownership thread? Martin is a former player, a former internationalist who has managed 250 or so matches at different clubs, importantly these clubs operate at a similar level to ourselves in terms of the players they can attract and wages they'll pay. I mean you'd think we'd appointed Peter Grant with Iona Fyfe as his assistant the way some of you are reacting.

John Grieg captained Rangers when Celtic won the European Cup, reached a further final and two further semi finals and won 9 in a row. He then won two trebles as captain. There's a reason why every manager that's come to Rangers has either made Tav captain or kept him as captain, and it's not because they're sentimental. I'd really like to see Tav get a run in a Rangers side with much better players in it, he's still the best full back in the league.