JohnMc

Who else could he play? Roofe probably isn't fit enough to start, everyone else is injured. Cifuentes has been poor recently, Jack must be injured again, then we're into untried boys.

Muscat's time in Belgium was undoubtedly a failure by any measurement. The only mitigation you can make is Sint Truiden are a funny club. At one time a feeder for Charlton Athletic they're now the play thing of a Japanese entertainment company who have installed Japanese corporate management and signed a plethora of Japanese players. While most Belgians speak good English I doubt Muscat speaks much French or Flemish or went in with much knowledge of the Belgian second tier. It strikes me he got the job because of his exposure in Asia while managing in Oz. Interestingly despite this blip he left Belgium for a pretty impressive spell in Japan. 

In truth I don't know who I want, but I know who I don't want. Some of the names on that list would drive me to watching Junior football of a weekend.

18 minutes ago, CammyF said:

Motherwell 1st league away defeat in a year apparently?

Nah, we beat them 3-0 at Ibrox last season. Surely someone else has beaten Motherwell at home since then.

I was at that Osasuna match. It rained so hard that night the Clyde Tunnel was closed due to flooding. Funny the things you remember. 

It feels great to have won, and on balance I think we deserved it. We were disjointed and struggling to find any rhythm in the first 30 minutes or so but from around then onwards we were the better side, I thought. I think we're all agreed that Butland had a very good match, arguably our man of the match. I thought our defence played well, Goldson was immaculate and the other 3 stuck to their task and came out on top more often than not. Still not convinced we're good enough mid to front, yet. Perhaps it'll gel and come good. there were patches of decent football last night, but we still give up possession too easily. Lawrence going off is a blow, hopefully it's nothing serious. 

1 hour ago, Sutton_blows_goats said:

I don't think they care about Europe and instead only focus on domestic success.

This. They know how important qualifying is, other than that I don't think they care much. It's an organisation focused on making money, and they're good at that to be fair. 

I'm old enough to remember when everyone thought Peter Ridsdale was a genius for how he was running Leeds Utd. I mean David Murray was a visionary at one time!

Brighton are this season's darlings, it was Leicester City a few seasons ago, it'll be someone else in a few more. There is clearly something in the whole Moneyball, data led, analytical insights driven club structure. Much easier to impose it on a club where there are no expectations than it is on a club where not winning the league is viewed as failure. I'd be surprised if there's a professional club at the top level that's not using data on players, I suppose it's how that data is understood that's the clever bit. I quite enjoy watching a smaller club stick one on the English mega clubs, but this is the guy who bought Union Saint Gilliose in Belgium too. He's not some benevolent owner, he's making money and he'll use any club to do it. I hate the concept of feeder clubs and multi-club ownership, it's as bad as that Super League nonsense he says he's so against. 

Thanks. Agree about Cantwell and Lawrence, even Wright to an extent. 

Rice and Devine as well as King and possibly Cole McKinnon will probably come in too then. 

Is Dowell a long term injury? Only 4 midfielders catches the eye. Can we add young players to this, I seem to remember that was allowed although I might have made that up. 

1 hour ago, Sutton_blows_goats said:

Has he? Our board in hiding again. No one will to stick up for the manager or set expectations. leaking a puff piece to Chris Jack to try and undermine him? It looks like that certainly if its not the case.

 

It seems Park, Robertson and Wilson are gone but the lack of leadership or accountability around the club are still the same with Bennet and Bisgrove are in charge.

 

If the board want to stick by Beale then they should publicly stick by him, I'm not saying we need a statement on the club website or a youtube video - but they can speak OTR to fan media, Chris Jack, Andy Devlin eg and set narrative.

The second a director goes on the record either backing or criticising Beale the story will magnify enormously. Currently there is no story, it's largely discontented fans on forums or social media sounding off. Every PR person worth anything will advise the directors to say nothing, whatever their thoughts are. With no game this weekend there are no press conferences scheduled anyway, so any kind of statement, on or off the record, will simply give oxygen to something that will probably fizzle out naturally in the coming days. 

Whatever failings our directors might have, they surely understand that. I'd say the lack of comment or briefing suggests they don't want to publicly back Beale, which suggests they're not happy with our start either and know that unless there's a big improvement in the coming games there is only one way this ends. Clearly they've decided to give  Beale more time, results will decide how long that is.

Personally I'd make the hard decision now, (or 5 days ago) but I can see why they've decided to wait a bit longer. That might yet prove to be the correct decision, we'll see. 

While the board have the benefit of seeing what's going on behind the scenes and speaking with the management team and players and so seeing a fuller picture than we do, they're also well aware of supporter sentiment plus are watching the same performances we are. I've no inside information but I'd be astonished if directors haven't discussed it, even informally. They know Beale is under pressure, Beale knows he's under pressure. I doubt anything will happen in the coming days, but I do think he's only a couple more poor performances away from the board deciding this can't go on. Beale doesn't have credit in the bank, it would be hard for any board to simply ignore supporter sentiment for an extended period.

If Rangers can somehow find form and start winning with some style then Beale will be fine, the challenge the board have is whether they think that scenario is likely. 

The Kevin Muscat link is interesting. 

I've heard and read quite a few dismiss him fairly quickly. One criticism seems to be that 'we'd be copying them'. If it works, who cares? That aside there is some truth in that he's an Australian who has managed in Melbourne and is now managing Yokohama in Japan, very similar to the current manager of Spurs. He won the league with Melbourne and has now won it in Japan. Muscat has also been an assistant coach for the Australian national side, under the management of the current Spurs coach. So there are clearly parallels. 

Muscat also had an unsuccessful spell managing in Belgium for a side I'd never heard of. 

It seems clear that the standard of Japanese domestic football is higher than in Scotland. When you add in the huge cultural differences he must be experiencing then I think it's fair to praise what Muscat has achieved there. He's not some rookie, he's managed 3 club sides, winning the league with 2 of them. 

Another thing is Yokohama are part owned by the City Group, who own a plethora of clubs around the world, most famously Man City. I personally hate what they're doing to football, I'd outlaw multi club ownership and sports washing, but I'm not in charge so it is what it is. My personal animosity apart, City do seem to know what they're doing. Having billions at your disposable certainly helps you build a good infrastructure, and it seems they not only look for players, but also coaches too. Either way they seem to rate Muscat. 

His time at Rangers didn't ingratiate him to most of our support. He was a limited player at best, with a reputation for thuggery, he passed through fairly quickly without making much of an impression on me. Being a limited player has no bearing on whether you might be a good coach of course. So in his credit column he does have some experience of the club and the league. 

I've no clue if the link with Muscat is real or not, but it's not a ridiculous link. I suspect he's within our budget, as an Australian he'd have little trouble settling here, he knows the club and what's expected and he might view us as a good next step in his career. 

1 hour ago, Sutton_blows_goats said:

It leaves us where it always leaves us, beat the other mob and everything will turn out delightfully well. 

 

I'm totally ambivalent about Europe this year, last nights score line hurts more than the result. We all know what our number 1 priority is this season and its not champions league.

 

I've been very critical of the manager and have serious doubts about his capability, but if we win the league no one will care about this result. Over to you Michael.

I agree to an extent. It's certainly not the first time I've watched us be humbled in Europe and I doubt it'll be the last. It was our European performances that kept criticism of Gerrard at bay as he tried to figure out how to overhaul Celtic. We could see what he was trying to do. Then, when Celtic changed manager we were ready to take advantage. 

I've no clue what we were trying to do last night. Other than release Matondo and use his pace on the left wing, something we failed to do with any consistency, I don't know what our game plan was. Our fullbacks were once again forced to defend deep, like they were in the first leg, somehow we failed to anticipate this. Their wide men had the freedom of the park. 

So when I say I don't know where this leaves us I mean in terms of a playing style and obvious tactics. Yip, if we get a result on Sunday most will forget this match quickly, and I agree the league is this season's priority. But to do both of those we need to play so much better than we did last night. That's my concern. 

2 hours ago, der Berliner said:

Not on Amazon Prime tonight, would have surprised me, TBH.

 

It is going to be a tough watch tonight, as they will pound us all game. You wonder whether we will put a three-man defence in front of Butland, plus Borna and Tav. Alas, I think we have better striking options than last season, who are all rather quick and willing to shoot. Their defence doesn't look too clever, so we might get something on the break.

 

Still, it remains a win-win situation, as IMHO we are better suited to the EL than the CL still, no-one wants to see a repeat of last season, even if we would get lucky with the draw and grab the odd point or win.

That's an interesting observation. I've been surprised at how slow Dessers and Danilo look, Lammers is tall but doesn't look quick either. Sima looks fast, I'll give you that one. Perhaps as they get fitter they'll be quick over the first few yards. 

I take it there's no problem with us actually getting to Holland, with this flight disruption?

55 minutes ago, weebluedevil said:

Good luck to Leon. I don't think a loan move has ever worked out for any of our young lads (McGregor may be the only success story in the last 20 years) it's just a slow process of them leaving Rangers. 

It can work in terms of increasing his value. If he can play a successful season in English League 1 for example that makes him more sellable for the club, particularly if the feeling is he's not going to make our first team. The same applies with Lowry. If he has a decent season with Hearts, we might still decide to sell him next summer, but he's got more value to us with 30 odd SPFL first team games under his belt. I think we also have a duty of care with young players. It's a short career, if they're not good enough for our first team then this at least allows them to begin building a career elsewhere. 

Lewis Mayo is a recent example. His loan spells allowed him to gain experience and he's now a regular with Killie. That's a decent standard for a player of his age, if he can keep progressing then a move to a bigger SPFL club or even an English Championship club is a possibility, I'd hope we have a sell-on percentage or similar in place with Kilmarnock. 

1 hour ago, Tannochsidebear said:

No its about building a sellable brand to a worldwide market. We moan about the tv deals we get in this country, but then are doing everything we can to diminish the one sellable fixture to a worldwide market that we have to promote. I hated them being there, especially when we didnt win, but I can understand that is what makes the game so attractive to an otherwise passive audience. Would it be worth this sacrifice to gain a much bigger tv contract that in turn allows us to be stronger? Maybe so, maybe not, thats why it is a debating forum. Come Sunday I will be much happier for that two hours not having to see and hear the scum at the other end of the stadium, and if we give them a tanking then even better. But without that poisonous atmosphere then it is just another game between two pretty poor football teams for worldwide neutrals.

I'm not sure it makes much difference to TV contracts. I take your point about atmosphere but the TV companies care about viewers, so in some ways no away fans probably suits them. The simple truth is every Rangers/Celtic match is on TV now, so supporters can see it. It's not like my formative days when if you wanted to watch it you had to attend. I feel sorry for the completist Rangers supporter who attends every match, but I can't see any argument for allowing Celtic support the entire Broomloan these days. If they have genuine safety concerns, and I'm not sure they do, then it's police Scotland they want to speak with. 

2 hours ago, Sutton_blows_goats said:

Of a fictional character. People are looking far too deep into it. It was a made up person in a film. 

 

The seethe over this is yet again OTT.

He wasn't a fictional character, William 'Bill The Butcher' Poole was an actual person and a New York gang leader. It was Daniel Day Lewis's image they used from the Scorcese film, but to be fair they'd be hard pushed to find a photo of the real guy, and if they had we'd have spent 5 pages of this thread wondering who the hell was the guy on the UB banner.