JohnMc

It's worthy of discussion, that's what we're doing. My contention is there isn't a discipline problem, there was a management problem. The OP stated pretty clearly he felt there was a discipline problem at Rangers in his opening post and why weren't players being punished. No, being sent to train with the youths or on your own is a punishment. A player being dropped for form reasons is kept in the 1st team squad. An assistant manager or coach is tasked with building the player back up, either through tough love or encouragement or one on one training. That's how it works at almost every club. Look at what actually happened with Miller. After another poor performance against Celtic there were reports in the media that the club had held a meeting with all the players and apparently PC had criticised the UK ones and given Dorrans in particular a hard time for giving Miller the captain's armband when he came on. Is that the kind of thing that should make its way into the papers? No, it shouldn't. At the same time is it the kind of thing the manager should have said after the Celtic game? It struck me as totally missing the issues the team had. He then dropped Miller and sent him with the youths to London. The clear insinuation was he blamed Miller for the story. He might even have been correct, who knows. So all of a sudden the support are blaming Miller for undermining the manager, for disrupting the dressing room and for the dark nights. But there is still no evidence that a. the story was wrong or b. that Miller was the source of it. It was a further 3 weeks before before Miller's agent expressed his anger that his client was being blamed for something he said he didn't do and being punished by the club for it. Is that ill-discipline or frustration at bad management? Now if the incident with Miller was a one off it could be written off as a clash for which there can only be one winner; the manager. But it wasn't a one off, Pedro was falling out with players, the media and with opposition managers with incredible regularity. There's no actual evidence we've a discipline problem.

Okay, it's posted in Rangers Chat, apologies in advance for normal mistakes regarding who is available and the spelling of names. I'm running a little late having misjudged how much I had to do this week!

Another opportunity for me to display my ignorance publicly on player availability and tactics! Here's your Rangers v Thistle match preview. (and apologies if the title gives you a Limahl earworm!) The Never Ending Journey The Inuit people have a word for it; shaktolik. It describes the feeling of going towards somewhere for so long it seems you’ll never get there. It describes us perfectly as once again we find ourselves regrouping following another set-back on the long road back to the top. The departure of Pedro Caixinho last week wasn’t universally popular with every Rangers supporter but it had an air of inevitability about it by the time it happened. Our visitors on Saturday are part of the reason why. It’s only six weeks since we visited Firhill on a Friday evening and twice threw away the lead in infuriating fashion. At that time Thistle were bottom of the league, today they sit 10th, a point off 8th but only two from bottom. We find ourselves in fourth place, having been leapfrogged by Hibs in mid-week who have now played a game more than us. Neither the top two, Aberdeen and Celtic, are out of sight either, something that makes the two points we dropped against Thistle last time even more frustrating. I was speaking with Thistle supporters after the match, they were naturally ecstatic, but they underlined something that had already dawned on me; they were no longer scared of Rangers. Thistle will visit Ibrox filled with confidence on the back of two victories and a draw in their last three matches and believing they can get a result against us, remember they don’t fear us anymore. Thistle should start with in-form striker Miles Storey who summed up this current Rangers side in a recent interview “You don’t know what you will get from Rangers but I think we should have beaten them in one of the two games at home so we will go there confident after a good week”. “You don’t know what you’ll get from Rangers”. Well you should know, you should get the hardest match of your season. You should be fearful of coming to Ibrox, you should be in awe of our players, their stamina, team spirit and ability, that’s what the end of this journey looks like. As for Rangers, well, unfortunately, we also don’t know what we’ll get, even the composition of the side is hard to predict. The manner of last week’s victory over Hearts lifted our spirits, but then he who expects very little is seldom disappointed. Expectations are higher this weekend and every player who started could rightly expect to start against Thistle. But with Alves available after suspension and Dorrans fit both can expect to be in contention. The polarising Kenny Miller must surely start along with Morelos, who he seems to bring the best out of, and Jason Holt was man of the match for me last weekend. It’s at centre-half we might see changes, if Cardosa is fit both he and Alves might return, however that would be hard on Wilson and McRorie who both played well last week. I expect Windass will retain his place as will Candeias with Tav and John at full back. That’s a side capable of winning, drawing or losing to Partick Thistle as all of us know. Rangers have struggled against physical, determined sides who close us down quickly and deny us space. We need to win the physical battles before we can play football; we’ve better players than Thistle, but have we a better team? The other interesting factor is the man who’ll pick our side on Saturday; Graeme Murty. He’s in the almost unique position of having no pressure on him. As the very dark horse for the permanent manager’s job he gets to audition in real time whilst everyone else looks at Aberdeen or down south. Murty’s standing was boosted by the Hearts result and his pragmatic, creditable draw at Parkhead last season. Is he a serious candidate for the manager’s job? Well he’s certainly an outside bet, but he’s got the job just now and another performance like last week won’t do his reputation any harm. The Inuit’s have another lovely saying; “If you are going to walk on thin ice, you might as well dance”. Murty has nothing to lose, an aggressive, committed performance that displays some remnants of team spirit and togetherness will easily impress our support, arguably more than beating Hamilton away might. I’m looking forward to Saturday’s match, that’s not a feeling I’ve had before every game this season, or last. Yes, we’re starting again, but we’re starting from a different place. We’re further on even if it might not feel like it. I hope the player’s dance on Saturday, after all what have they got to lose.

None of it's true mate, you made it all up, that's the point.

Is it really a modern issue? I'm not convinced. Players have always fed titbits to favoured journalists, and ill-discipline is hardly a modern problem, imagine a current international got drunk, climbed into a boat and had to be rescued by the coastguard, bloody hell the internet would explode with indignation. Managers and clubs have less power today, that's a factor certainly. Transfer windows, Bosman and agents have certainly tilted the balance of power but good managers adapt to this. In the end we need a manager who can deal with modern problems, there's little to be gained to harking back to another era.

I'm not basking in any glory Rousseau and I'm not saying anything I've not been saying for months. My only criticism of Pedro is that results weren't good enough, had the side been winning every match he could have sent Kenny Miller to Timbuktu with the under 11s and no one would have complained. It's a results business, that's what he's judged on. In my opinion focussing on apparent discipline issues is to miss the point. Do we think there are no unhappy players at Celtic just now? Of course there are but because their side is winning regularly any complaints are ignored or better managed in-house. My point is some Rangers fans have already decided we do have a discipline problem despite there being no actual evidence of one. I assume it helps frame how Pedro was let down instead of simply grasping the nettle that Pedro was a poor manager of Rangers and should never have been appointed in the first place. Where is the evidence that any player thinks they bigger or more important than the manager, I hear this narrative but it's based on nothing but supposition. A player being dropped is "normal" but making an example of them by sending them away with the youths is not. No other manager, in nearly 20 years as professional, has ever accused Miller of being a disruptive influence, indeed quite the contrary. I repeat Pedro was a poor manager of Rangers, he struggled to manage his players and he didn't manage to get results or even performances required. There is no more criticism of him required, that's more than enough.

That's interesting, why?

Again with the comparing Sir Alex and Pedro, it's bizarre. For the record Ferguson took over Man Utd in 1986 but Whiteside didn't leave until 1989. He'd handed in a transfer request because he was unhappy with new contract talks stalling. Ferguson's issue with Whiteside was his appalling injury record, something born out by his eventual retiring from football at only 26. Whiteside also credits Ferguson with negotiating his contract with Everton, the best he'd ever had as a professional and he has never criticised Ferguson. Likewise Mcgrath left Man Utd in 1989, and again Ferguson's issues with McGrath were around injuries. McGrath was offered retirement and a testimonial by Ferguson but he felt he could play on and left for Aston Villa. McGrath did indeed play on but has serious mobility issues today. The fact McGrath was an alcoholic and Whiteside a big drinker is often used as the reason but it's not, Ferguson couldn't have cared if both were hammered when playing as long as they played and played well, but big salaried players sitting on the treatment table wasn't something Ferguson would tolerate. As for PC's successor, yes, if he doesn't deliver better results he'll be removed too. This is a results business, they know what they're getting into. I agree with AJ, the squad should be producing better results than it has, certainly better consistency.

Isn't Alex Neil the Preston manager just now and doing pretty well with them? I'd be amazed if he applied for the Rangers job, I might accept it if he was out of work but not whilst in a job and in a position to move up to the EPL next year. Moyes is interesting and McLaren terrifying. His Dutch title is a massive outlier in an otherwise under achieving CV.

Well let's agree on something at the beginning; Pedro is no Sir Alex so comparing them is futile. I don't know what you do for a living Rousseau so you might already have experience of this. If you manage a group of people at any one time some of them will be less happy than the rest. If those people are on performance bonuses that they're not achieving then they might be vocal about their unhappiness and if they believe that their ability to achieve their bonus is being held back by you, their manager, you can expect that disquiet to only grow. PC didn't have a discipline problem, he had a failure to win matches problem. Every manager faces discipline problems, but if your side is winning regularly those problems are easier to deal with because you're in a position of strength. Why do you think Graeme Murty brought on Hardie at the weekend, for all of 30 seconds? It wasn't tactical and we were already 3-1 up and Hearts had chucked it so the result wasn't in much danger. No, it was so he could get an appearance bonus and a win bonus. That's good management. Hardie won't have had many of them this season, and as a young striker not getting a game for a side that wasn't winning as often as it should he was almost certainly getting hacked off and questioning his future. In one go a player is appeased and given hope. How do you think Hardie will have been in training this week? O'Halleron isn't 'crap'. Whether he'll ever make it at Rangers is moot, but publicly criticising him was a bizarre thing to do. MO'H had made no comment by that point after all, and the fact he'd found some form at St Johnstone I'd have thought would have drawn praise from PC whether he meant it or not. No one likes to hear their friends slagged off in public, MO'H has friends in the Rangers squad. No one likes to see their friends embarrassed in public, Kenny Miller has friends in the Rangers squad. Any manager who feels he has to do that is either lacking self-confidence or hasn't figured out how to manage professional footballers. But as I said all of this wouldn't have mattered a jot if his side could have won the important matches. Had we beaten Progress and Motherwell and given Celtic more of a game than we did PC would still be manager. That was his problem.

For what it's worth I read your post and heard an echo of my own voice when PLG left. I so wanted him to succeed and was gutted when he left after his spat with Ferguson et al. I was even more depressed when Walter then returned. Yet, now, I can see it was the right decision. PLG had lost the dressing room, his side wasn't gelling, his signings weren't all we'd hoped they were and he was selling the best player in the country because he was struggling to manage him. The fact I wanted him to succeed and turn us into a continental, progressive side capable of competing on a bigger stage than Scotland didn't mean he was going to achieve it. Ironically Walter then did just that taking us to the Uefa Cup Final. I know you'd bought into Pedro and believed in the direction he was trying to take us in. I also know you know I didn't, and felt he was completely out of his depth at Rangers. We've spoken about it before publicly and privately. Whoever we bring in needs to be winning and quickly. No Rangers manager can survive on the results Pedro was getting. So pragmatism is needed at first. Once the side is winning, once the mentality is right then work can be done on finesse and elegance. We're football fans, we're never satisfied. Win a cup and we'll celebrate but soon demand the league. Win the league and we'll celebrate but soon demand progress in Europe. Deliver in Europe and we'll celebrate but soon demand free-flowing attacking football with homegrown starlets and international galacticos. For now a Rangers side with back-bone, fight and a winning mentality will do, if we can get that we can start to demand the next step. With respect though PC wasn't delivering that and no amount of time was going to change that. Lick your wounds and hang in there, it's amazing how a few victories can change the perspective.

Michael Grant is well connected at Aberdeen for what it's worth. The only reason McInnes would turn down the Rangers job is if he still fancies managing in England and is waiting for an opportunity to come up that's not a basket case club like Sunderland. Whilst St Johnstone manager he lived in Renfrewshire commuting to Perth and apparently it took a while before he finally moved to Aberdeen. His family is in the central belt, that'll be a lure. Managing Rangers would make him financially secure for the rest of his life, he'd have the opportunity to not only manage one of the great clubs and one he knows well but also a genuine chance to win things. He's not going to achieve much more at Aberdeen than he has already.

Well he wasn't tight-lipped about O'Halleron was he? Come on Darthter, you just made all that up! Here's the thing, a managers job is to manage his players. In around six months PC managed to fall out with around 9 first team players, that's a third of the squad and that's the ones we know about. You can peddle the theory that it's the fault of all the players, despite some of them being experienced internationals with no previous record or reputation for being difficult to manage. Or, we can look at the obvious reason; Pedro. I'm sorry but if you've got to manage 20 or so people and you manage to alienate that many of them in a short period of time perhaps the issue isn't them, it's you. It's what he did, not what he said. He sent him to play in London with the under 17s. That's very publicly making a point, a point that didn't go down very well with his players. By all means drop Miller, but if you're going to humiliate him then your side better be winning and backing you. They weren't, the rest is history. As for it happening again, we'll cross that bridge if we cross it.

Tell me, during the Russian revolution were you on the side of the Czar? What about when the Bastille fell, would you have grumbled about the lack of discipline among the peasants and how was Louis XVI expected to manage? Has no one on here had a bad manager in their working life? I certainly have, I've also been a bad manager, or at least one who made mistakes that with hindsight I'd do differently if given the choice again. The extrapolation that we've a problem with discipline because the manager dropped Kenny Miller is a puzzling one. Let's start with the manager. PC had some strengths, but he also had some weaknesses and one of those was an ability to alienate players. As well as Miller and latterly Kranjkar, Dorrans and Wallace he also had public spats with O'Halleron, Barrie McKay and Forrester, fell out with Andy Halliday and was unable to convince Clint Hill to extend his stay at the club. For me that points to there being a clear problem with the manager. Good managers are able to manage players, the clue is in the name. That means getting the best out of them, even if they might be players they don't fancy long term. The smart manager figures out very quickly who the influential players in the dressing room are. These are normally the experienced ones, the club captain and so on. Either get them on side or get them out, that's management day 1. The key issue is make sure if you're going to humiliate a popular and influential player, like Miller, make sure you're doing it from a position of strength. That largely involves winning your matches, do that and almost anything is forgiven. Miller doesn't have the reputation of being a trouble-maker. He's sat in many dressing rooms and seen good and bad sides, he might even have some insights into how a stuttering side might improve. We're confusing poor man-management with ill-discipline without realising the two might be connected.

Isn't it Scott Brown that decides who plays?

Are you going all Donald Trump on us now Gunslinger?

You're....

It was, you're right, scrub McIntyre from the short list.

I know what he didn't win; any matches against Celtic, a League Cup semi final against Motherwell, and a qualifying round 1 Europa League stage against Progres. You can start the 'bring back Pedro' campaign if you want mate.

Ah yes, indeed, the Mexican League Cup, I forgot about that. I'm not sure it trumps 2 Premier Leagues, 2 League Cups and an FA Cup Clarke won when assistant manager at Chelsea but it's academic in the end. Certainly up there with Tommy Wright and Derek McInnes mind. Indeed Jim McIntyre, with a Scottish Cup win for Ross County, is suddenly our new favourite, right?

In terms of Kilmarnock since the turn of the century they've appointed Bobby Williamson, Jim Jeffries, Jimmy Calderwood as a temporary appointment, Mixu Paatelinen, who'd managed Hibs badly and Cowdenbeath prior, Kenny Sheils who was a Tranmere youth coach, Allan Johnson from QOTS, Gary Locke, Lee Clark and Lee McCulloch. I mean compared to that lot Steve Clarke's CV reads like Alex Ferguson. I don't know who I want to manage Rangers. There's not an obvious person. I understand why McInnes name is mentioned a lot but I don't think his CV is much better than Tommy Wright's. In the end I want a pragmatist who can make a team greater than the sum of its parts. If we can do that we can challenge Celtic. They'll continue to have better individual players than us for a few more seasons, but they don't have to have a better team. I just don't know who that person is. I don't know enough about the Belgian people are speaking about. I do think a grasp of Scottish football, or at least British football and footballers is essential. This is where we play and these are the teams we play against, knowing how to beat them in the short term is what we need. Europe can take care of itself when that time comes again.

Why do you think PC has a better CV than Clarke? A couple of Portuguese minnows, a big-ish Mexican club and then obscurity in the middle east against a guy who has coached or managed some big, big clubs and some smaller provincial clubs in England. The bottom side in the SPFL being able to appoint a guy who has coached the first teams of Chelsea, West Ham, Newcastle and Liverpool is fairly impressive, on paper at least. Kilmarnock have been appointing people with significantly weaker CVs than Clarke over the last 20 years. I'm not sure how PC is too good for Kilmarnock myself, his CV is pretty ordinary by any standards. It's academic, neither should be in the frame for the Rangers job in my opinion.

He'd one good season as manager of West Brom and other than that very little of note as a manager. But as a number 2 and a coach he's highly regarded in football apparently, certainly the list of clubs he's coached at is pretty impressive. He must have learned something during his time as Mourinho's assistant. It's about expectation, I'd have been very disappointed if we'd appointed Stevie Clarke, but he's a decent appointment for a club like Kilmarnock. I'd say the same about PC, his CV would have made him an interesting appointment for Killie, doesn't make him Rangers material though.

Is their any evidence for anything you're claiming or is it just your take on recent events? I fear you'd so much invested in Pedro emotionally you're allowing his demise to cloud your view. First and foremost Pedro had to go. He wasn't progressive, he wasn't evolving us and he wasn't moving us forward. He was an expensive mistake, a gamble that didn't play out. He might have been multi-lingual and on-message when it comes to talking about transitions but he couldn't motivate or organise footballers and that's the job. He's gone and I'm delighted. He seemed to be a nice guy, a decent sort and I wish him well but he was never capable of managing a club like Rangers and that was clear very early on in his tenure. Whether you or I like it or not managing experienced, set in their ways old pros is part of the job. Getting them on your side, buying into your ideas and fighting for your team is the what management is all about. Footballers are often selfish, it's a short career, filled with risks, and they tend to look out for themselves first. For me Caixhina's biggest failing was his man-management. He fell out with half the squad, he'd players banished to the youths, sent out on loan and then slated in the media. That's terrible man-management. If nothing else those players are friends and team-mates with the rest of the squad. Treat them respectfully, treat them with dignity, by all means move them on but do it professionally, don't throw them under a bus in public. That goes with managing any group of people, not just footballers. I don't know if McInnes will be our next manager or not. Like most of us he's not exactly an exciting name and his record is pretty average. But he knows the club and the expectations of the support, he knows British footballers, how the think and react and how to motivate them, he knows the league and the different clubs, styles and weaknesses and he's been pretty good and improving players he's managed. He can't be stupid enough to think that finishing second is even a medium term strategy for Rangers, and what he says as Aberdeen manager is very different to what would accepted at Rangers. Maybe he doesn't, maybe he'll be another disaster. That doesn't mean removing PC was a mistake, it wasn't, it was essential.

I’ll write the next one if you want?