JohnMc

It's difficult to judge today's performance. Motherwell had a load of new players, it'll be weeks before we can see if they're a top six side or relegation fodder. I thought we started well and for the first 20 minutes or so looked pretty decent, attacking at pace and closing down Motherwell. From then on the game was more even and Moult should have equalised, it was an open goal albeit coming at pace and an awkward height. We're weak on the flanks and Motherwell figured that out eventually and started to exploit it. Candeias and Windass need to work harder defensively for me, their five in midfield started to overrun our four. Cardosa made a very good tackle towards the end when Motherwell broke with men over. Their attacker got a bit of stick for it but I thought Cardosa held him up before sticking a leg in and knocking it out. Windass had a good first half but might as well have stayed inside at half time. I actually quite liked Herrera on today's showing. He works really hard and had decent movement, we need someone to play alongside him though, Miller hasn't got a full season starting every match in him I don't think. Whereas I thought Morelos looked like he'd won a competition and the prize was to get a game when he came on. He was only on for ten minutes so I'll reserve judgement, but I watched the ball run past him at one point and wondered just what Ryan Hardie has to do to get into the match day squad. Dorrans and Wallace played well, the defence will need a few more games together before any judgement. I was puzzled by the substitutions, Wilson for Miller at 2-1 was taking a bit of a chance for me and inviting pressure. I'd have stuck on Holt for Miller, it was in midfield we were struggling. Despite all that we won, away, and on balance we were the better side. I think last season we'd have dropped at least two points in that match. I think Hibs will be a harder test for us, looking forward to it all the same.

Edinburgh will be nice when it's finished... Glasgow and Edinburgh are two very different cities and it's difficult to make a comparison other than through personal preference. As a born and bred Glaswegian I have to disagree with the assertion that Glasgow has more cultural and musical events than any city outside London. Although I did think that myself once. All of the main provincial UK cities have fairly vibrant cultural scenes, Manchester, Liverpool, Sheffield and Liverpool are very well served by the arts and music and university towns like Oxford, Cambridge and Durham can compete with most places in the world culturally despite their size. You need to be blind not to see how incredible the Edinburgh new town is, the Princes Street Gardens are not only an amazing monument to the foresight and genius of the city planners of the day but even now make the centre of Edinburgh unique. The castle dominating the skyline and the constantly evolving lanes, closes and streets of the old town make a visit to Edinburgh a constantly surprising experience. During the festival there are few cities in the world can compete with Edinburgh for atmosphere and choice of things to do. That said I've never found Edinburgh to be a friendly place. It's a cliche but no less true for that. It's not a working class city and so while it looks nice and pretty it lacks warmth and heart. Glasgow has many, many faults, but it's a friendly town to strangers and visitors. By and large Glaswegians are more open and welcoming, people will simply start a conversation with you in a shop or a cafe and that doesn't happen in lots of other places. I've only really experienced that level of friendliness in Liverpool and Belfast, both cities with similar industrial backgrounds to Glasgow. Glasgow also benefits from its position, a half hour drive to Loch Lomond or train journey, an hour to Inverary, slightly more to Glen Coe. The West Highlands are among the most beautiful places on earth and Glasgow is their city too. Glaswegians are proud of Glasgow in a way that's entirely unwarranted. We don't like people putting the city down despite the very many social and cultural problems we have. Parts of the east end have the male life expectancy of a third world country and anyone who has had to visit the Royal's casualty department at midnight any day of the week will see first hand the very worst of the city. We have some horrendous architectural eye-sores and many of the new buildings in the city centre won't last 30 years before being pulled down and replaced by some other utilitarian cheapest possible solution. That being said I've chosen to live here and raise my family here. I've an extended family around me, the city does have many positive things in its favour if you are raising a family. It has some good schools, many brilliant parks, cinemas, sports clubs and facilities, hospitals, libraries, theatres and easy access to some wonderful places. Also, according to my wife, it has brilliant shopping, not something I'd put in the credit column myself but each to their own. Lastly, and most importantly, it has Rangers, so, you know, the argument kinda ends here.

Here's a surprisingly good account of the match from the Herald - http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/14094342.Ibrox_1945__When_Rangers_tackled_the_might_of_Moscow_Dynamo/ The Russians hadn't quite figured out substitutions yet... I get excited just reading about that match. It must have an incredible atmosphere.

Great picture. Soviet clubs play a prominent part in our history. It's hard to comprehend how important their tour of the UK was greeted at the end of WW2. Our result, against 12 men, showed how powerful we were at the time. Obviously they were our opposition in Barcelona decades later when we won the Cup Winners Cup. I used to work with a guy who spoke about going to Glasgow Airport to welcome Rangers back from a tour of the Soviet Union in the early sixties. Apparently the support invaded the runway to welcome the side and then blocked the Paisley Road back into Glasgow.

Great preview, well done.

So what's Jon Daly's job at Hearts? I didn't know he was there.

Spanish is a bit different though. It's not like German or Italian where few other countries outside of its main country speak it. Even in Spain English isn't widely understood. Spanish is spoken widely across the world so they don't rely on English language 'culture' in the same way. Most Spanish speaking people can't understand or speak English beyond a handful of words. Although its proximity to the US might lead you to think English would be widely spoken and understood in Mexico that isn't the case. Most Mexicans don't speak English, only around 15% of Mexicans can speak and understand English. They are usually either highly educated elites or live in towns on the American border. Mexican education actually focussed on teaching its people to learn Spanish as for many it wasn't their first language. Indigenous languages were widely spoken, and immigrant 'Spanish' often came from Catalonia, Galicia or the Basque country and didn't speak Castilian Spanish either. It's unlikely Carlos Pena, who doesn't come from a border town, even understood much English before arriving. The language is one thing but the culture is entirely another. If only one of our summer signings struggles to settle and adapt I'll be pleasantly surprised. It's still early for Pena, with a bit of support form the club, which I'm sure they're giving him, and the right attitude from him he could still become an important player for us.

It wasn't that long ago there was a clamour from some for Cathro to be appointed as Rangers manager. It must really hurt some people to know that Kris Boyd really does understand football better than them. I now a few who are really struggling to come to terms with that. For what it's worth Cathro, and I assume his successor, didn't decide who the club signs or sells, Levein does. I'm sure they are consulted but it's Levein's decision. Hearts will almost certainly sit on Walker until they are made an offer they can't refuse or the transfer window is about to shut.

I'm not sure who 'GS' is but I'm going to assume you're paying me a compliment, you know, in the spirit of glasses being half full and all that.

I don't think I posted on the St Johnstone bounce game thread either, although I might be wrong. I didn't attend or see any of the matches unlike those against Progres, Celtic, Aberdeen... I think I did post on the Watford thread before the match along the lines of 'bounce game results don't matter' and I do think that. No one wants to get turned over but I think players are holding something back in these matches, using them to get fit, try something new, that type of thing so results need to be seen in context. For what it's worth the draw with Marseille and the win at Sheffield are pleasing results and reading the comments of those who did see both matches suggest we looked greatly improved. I'm delighted by that. I don't particularly enjoy being the forum curmudgeon and I take no pleasure in questioning the ability of our manager. Let's see what the next couple of weekends bring, but I repeat no one will be happier than me to eat humble pie where our manager is concerned. I still have my doubts but everyone suggested he needed time to get his players together, I'm doing just that. Thanks for your concern though...

Surely the same thing can be achieved by putting the players out on loan in the second tier? There's a lot of opposition to 'reserve' sides in the lower leagues and I can sympathise with it. In end it can't just be about playing regular football, there must be more to it than that. Ryan Hardie has played 50 senior first team games and scored 18 goals, a decent return by any measurement, yet looks further from our first team than ever now. A 20 year old, six foot 2 inch 'natural' goal scorer who has been in our system for years should be getting the side built around him, yet would any of us be surprised if he was released in the next 12 months? It's really frustrating, what are we doing wrong? McKay was going the same way until Warburton arrived, is it all down to belief and being given a chance? Surely not.

Poor finishing from both sides on display, should have finished 7-3. Here's the thing for us to figure out, if those two teams met five years ago at under 15 level the teams would have been much closer, indeed the Rangers side might well have been better. What happens to our players between the ages of 15 to 19 that doesn't happen to the Dutch (or the Italians, the Germans, the French, the Croatians....)? They've got just as many 'cultural distractions' in Holland as Scotland.

The Tom English/Jolyon Maugham exchange was actually very funny. The later follow up by the previously sainted Rangers Tax Case and their public insistence that they knew more about it than a QC specialising in tax law was the icing on the cake. It simply further underlined how hugely out of their depth most sports journalists have been on EBTs. No wonder, it's a highly specialist field, it took the Supreme Court to decide their status, this is points of law way, way above the heads of the vast majority of us. Tom English can probably explain to you how the British Lions tactics were wrong in the 1st test against New Zealand and he's probably got a good insight into how Glasgow Warriors will fare under their new coach. He might even have opinions worth listening to regarding how the football in Scotland might go this season. But he knows no more about tax law than anyone else who has had to fill out a self assessment form. I wonder if, say a high profile player picks up an injury, English will tell the doctor his diagnosis of the player is wrong? Will he look over the medical records and suggest a different type of surgery perhaps, maybe changes in rehab and physio work? It's the arrogance of them, instead if admitting they really don't understand 99% of what has happened they pretend they do and get shown up for it publicly. He defended his position later too, it's laughable. Edit - Maugham published this earlier for the hard of thinking. Brilliant - https://waitingfortax.com/2017/07/27/a-short-note-on-tax-law-for-rangers-and-celtic-fans/

If he worked at the Record it shouldn't be hard to discover if it's true. I agree entirely that the club should be looking into this, but I'd do it publicly so he and they know we're watching.

I don't think we can read much into bounce matches and this is pretty good opposition albeit a little earlier in their pre-season. Is it fair to assume that's our first choice starting 11 with Fod for Alnwick?

I've been thinking about this for a while and finally scratched the itch. Feel free to add it to the main website, keep it here or ignore it altogether, it was cathartic for me. The cries of outrage that have greeted the SPFL announcement regarding legal powers over historical EBTs can’t have come as a surprise to anyone who has had even a passing interest in Scottish football in recent times. Even a cursory reading of the document suggests the SPFL really did try to find any avenue open, whether through a desire to actually further penalise Rangers or simply to placate the more vocal elements of other club’s support we’ll probably never know. While some supporters clearly have a desire to keep this as a live issue recent comments from directors of other SPFL clubs suggest there is little enthusiasm to pursue this any further. We might, finally, be reaching the end of this whole sorry saga. As a Rangers fan, despite what some of the more hysterical elements of social media might claim, no one has been more affected by the EBT saga than my fellow supporters and me. Whatever enjoyment, or indeed ‘benefit’, the use of EBTs might or might not have assisted with has been more than balanced out by the utter turmoil their use created. I don’t know any Rangers fan who doesn’t wish they’d never heard of EBTs and that they’d never been used by anyone associated with our club. History is important in Scottish football, looking back is a national past-time and we’re all guilty of it to a greater or lesser extent. So much of the narrative around Rangers and EBTs has been about explaining their use or demanding retrospective punishment for them. Yet in amongst this hurricane of challenge and counter challenge, allegation and rebuttal I’ve listened for the voice saying ‘how do we stop this happening again in the future’? So I was interested in the second heading on the SPFL document “SPFL Supports Calls For Independent Review Into Scottish Football’s Actions And Processes”. I’m not naïve, I assume again this is largely about placating sub-sections of supporters, and possibly some club directors, who are angry Rangers can’t be punished again. What I’m hoping is that someone, somewhere, might also look at putting in some measures so that this can’t ever happen to another football club in Scotland. The clamour to ‘punish’ someone who gets into financial difficulties can, to an extent, be understood. While football clubs are run as businesses they do operate in a different sphere than most ‘normal’ businesses. I don’t need to explain how supporters aren’t ‘customers’, if you’re reading this you almost certainly already understand that. Had Rangers closed for good back then I wouldn’t have suddenly become a Partick Thistle fan and neither would my sons. I’d have been lost to Scottish football, and I dare say the vast majority of Rangers supporters would have been too. That’s not in anyone’s interests. So whilst I understand the logic to apply punishments as an incentive for clubs to avoid financial mismanagement I’m of the opinion that very few club directors are thinking along those lines when mismanagement is taking place. My experience is it’s either deliberate for some other nefarious reason, reckless when the perpetrator gambles and backs themselves to win, but then doesn’t, or it’s accidental and caused by unseen and unexpected events or simple mismanagement by people perhaps not qualified to hold the positions they do. So when Hearts and Dunfermline and Livingston and of course Rangers were deducted points this was really about appeasing the other clubs in the league, and I can understand the basic logic in that. However, when are we going to start talking about how we prevent clubs getting into financial difficulties in the first place? When are fans going to start demanding that of the sport’s administrators? Why are there not demands for a salary cap in Scottish football? Where are the calls for a correlation between squad costs and turnover? Where are the calls for complete transparency over club debt? How much debt should any club be allowed to carry at any one time? Why is no one demanding club directors pay bonds to the governing body to ensure all HMRC and other debtors are paid? Where are the demands that clubs must break even every year? I’m not demanding the introduction of communism into Scottish football but if we’re agreed that in many ways normal business rules don’t apply to our support of our football clubs then we can demand that normal business rules don’t apply to how it is run. Salary caps work in that last bastion of Marist thought, the NFL, after all. Maybe salary caps or director bonds or full transparency wouldn’t have made any difference to what happened to Rangers. But anything that tempers recklessness must surely be considered. People did speak out about how Rangers were being run in the final years of David Murray’s reign, but they were in the minority and indeed largely derided as ingrates. In the end I don’t really expect anyone to take any notice of this, I’m just a supporter after all, one small voice, powerless and impotent in the grand scheme of things. I doubt the current owners of Scottish football clubs will be very enthusiastic about bonds or salary caps and it’s unlikely to fill an evening’s phone-in so I’m not expecting a clamour from the media either. Let me say this though, if it can happen to Rangers it can happen to your club. You might have a great board of directors just now, honest, prudent, well connected and with the club at their heart. But directors change, boards change and people change but your love for your club won’t. Despite the clamour you can’t change the past. What’s done is done, no amount of reviews or retrospective punishment can change what’s already happened. It’s a waste of energy and time. If just some of that time and energy was directed into ensuring all clubs are properly managed and financially sound none of us might ever have to go through this again. That might not be the worst epitaph this sorry affair could have.

I know someone close to his agent and he seemed in no doubt that Naismith's preference is a return to Scotland. This is apparently for family reasons to do with children's schooling and access to grandparents. How likely Norwich are to agree to this I'm not sure, but they clearly do want to change their squad and free up wages so perhaps Naismith will be released for considerably less than Norwich paid for him. I imagine a move might also be in his agent's interests too...

You might be right, but I've a feeling when the league starts and there is actually football to speak about again this will slip down the agenda. Milne is clearly in the know and a fairly influential voice around the Scottish football table and for him to publicly state "we cannot spend another five years looking back and trying to redo what has taken place" suggests, very strongly, there's no appetite for it. In the meantime airtime needs filled and column inches written, there are few signings to get excited about and no real matches for a couple more weeks so I expect lots more talk and 'analysis' but no action. But I could be wrong.

She's well known by everyone in broadcasting in Scotland mate, and, for what it's worth, she's very highly thought-off. If the proposed changes to Radio Scotland are implemented then all music shows will leave to create a new DAB station leaving Radio Scotland as we know it to focus entirely on news, current affairs and sport. Sport will have more airtime and more prominence on the station. Whether it will get anymore resources is still unknown. It's in both Rangers and the BBC's interests to fix this. I'm not sure whether there's a will on either part to do this though.

I haven't noticed them reported on here but the comments from Stewart Milne of Aberdeen over the weekend were very informative. To paraphrase he said 'enough is enough, time to move one' and if the the owner of Aberdeen, Celtic's pet since our demotion, is saying that publicly knowing it'll anger a section of his own support, then I think that's a fairly good indicator of the mood in the boardrooms of Scottish football clubs. With Dundee Utd on their knees and out of the top league and Hearts being run by someone fairly sensible now I'm not sure Celtic have many allies left in the self-harm club. indeed I'm not convinced their's much appetite to go through this all again in the Celtic boardroom, they need to be seen by their own support to be making noises but I can't see them doing much else. Hopefully, within a few months, everyone will be talking about something else.

Hah, yeah the 'Le Guen years' caught my eye too. I don't know if the guy is for real or not, but I think he is a Rangers fan for what it's worth. In the end if that's how he feels that's how he feels, as someone up thread said he'd be better off writing about his concerns on here and discussing it with fellow bears first though. As a support we're broader and deeper than we're ever given credit for and he's hardly alone in being embarrassed when people associate Rangers with Orange walks and the 'long to reign over us' banner, whilst clearly a wind-up, did make me cringe too. I'm uncomfortable with any Rangers supporter telling another Rangers supporter they should stop supporting the club because of their politics though.

Well, as of this morning Luxembourg are ranked 48th out of 55 and Scotland are ranked 26th. Progres are way below SPFL standard, they're part-time for a start and you have to go to the third tier of Scottish football to find part-time clubs. They also play in front of crowds you could literally count during the match, indeed you could introduce yourself personally to everyone else present at half-time. In terms of size and resource Progres are about the equivalent of Alloa or Stenhousemuir. And, much as it pains me to point out, Scottish clubs beat clubs from Bosnia (ranked 39th) and Northern Ireland (ranked 49th) pretty recently. As an aside Cyprus are ranked 21st in Europe, they've been improving for a couple of decades or so.

Okay, I'll bite. Where are you rating Luxembourg football currently then dB? What are the 'facts' those of us writing them off don't have?

That Rangers Report thing is great fun but if anything proves the term lies, damned lies and statistics it's that. I look forward to the campaign to install Lennon as our next manager.

Whilst none of us know how he was treated he's used a stupid phrase there and underlined the lack of perspective so many footballers seem to demonstrate. I imagine all of the players knew the directors and Warburton were not getting on long before February. It's not hard to understand why any player would want to wait and see what was going to happen with the manager before signing a new contract. Where does this idea of McKay being lazy come from? I can accept someone thinking his crossing wasn't good or him not taking chances but calling him lazy baffles me. No player in our side covered more ground than McKay and Holt in the last two seasons. Lazy? Anyway, he's gone and that's that, I think it was a big mistake by the club and another reason to question PC, that's a different thread. Good luck Barrie in Sherwood Forest.