Germinal

Ryan Fraser would fit that bill, Scottish AM available now on a Bosman or for a lower than usual fee.

Not sure who I'd drop in the first XI to play him, though.

Utterly bizarre and more than a bit depressing. What's the point of all this?

Faced with a behemoth league next door (Liverpool have just posted profits of £125m, and that's for a year in which they spent £66m on their keeper, Alisson), Scotland's football brains don't try to develop innovative features which might allow it a little bit more of the pie - such as the not exactly revolutionary concept of seizing on big tickets for all they're worth -  it goes for the business model which is presently seeing newspapers dying and the High St fighting for survival: stick to what worked years ago and hope the modern world goes away. Brexit on a football pitch.

Well, online shopping isn't going away, and digital media isn't going away, and the EPL isn't going away. A tired old methodology of negatively focusing on the Old Firm, and only one half of even that, is likely to be as successful as someone setting up a pigeon post to compete with email.

How many players have we seen down south who have been touted well above their actual abilities? Hunners. Gascoigne. Rooney. Robinho. Elano. Veron. Shevchenko. That lad at Man U with the Serbian name and played for Belgium. Does it matter that they turned out to be pretty good but not all that? No, because it was all about the sell in the first place. The only sell we do is self harm.

This lack of foresight, of ambition, of progressive thinking, is nothing new, and it's no more feeble and pathetic than it's ever been, But to see it happen yet again, when Gerrard - an undreamed of feast for the surely starving world of Scottish football - is around the place, boy it gets you down. He doesn't get a free pass anymore than anyone else does, and nor do his players, but to see so many intent on not just killing the golden goose but burning down the entire farm while they're at it is grim.

I wonder how many people under 30 are even interested in Scottish football anymore. Why would they be?

Correct decision, the attempt to divert attention onto this and away from the actual performances on the pitch on the day was pretty unsubtle, to say the least.

More widely, the game here does need to get away from the more physical side (not that I don't enjoy it, especially in an OF game) if it is ever to progress. But it can't do that if the focus is only on one team, and usually on one player at that.

A free weekend, some rugby, an OF game, and a superb match preview.

Brilliant.

13 hours ago, the gunslinger said:

18 hours ago, Germinal said:

but...
 
if anyone has a ticket for Sunday and can't go, and (even more unlikely) doesn't know anyone who can use their ticket, there's a lass from Moscow in town just now (a pal) who would love to go.
 
I said I'd ask.

In Ayrshire. Should be tickets to be had locally.

Took me a while, but wahay! I get it now.

Well, that went well.

19 hours ago, RANGERRAB said:

HMRC's role throughout has to be questioned. No doubt about that & whether there was a rogue anti-Rangers element at work within HMRC. And I genuinely believe that their 'victory' at the SC has presented them with a major problem now they will have to pursue all other EBT's. Do they have the resources to do this ? Perhaps it would have better suited HMRC to lose at the SC.

 

But don't forget about LBG. Rangers bank debt was just 3 p.c of the MIH debt butt LBG pressurised SDM to sell Rangers. You have to question their motives behind this. And maybe who was behind this & I don't believe it was the lackey Shanks at Whyte's trial.

 

 

 

 

It would be comforting to ascribe their behaviour to 'rogue anti-Rangers elements' within HMRC. But it wasn't, it was just plain old HMRC., unless we are to believe the revenue is completely out of control and unaware of a campaign run by the EK1 CSC.

I certainly won't forget about LBG, Murray or the rest of them. I keep coming back, though, to the common denominator, the demands from HMRC. Without them, if there had been some kind of arrangement, everything else would (I think, anyway) have been manageable. Murray could have held off for a non-rocket buyer, Duff & Phelps wouldn't have been near us, admin could have been avoided, to say nothing of what came after...no, whatever groups of RTC/Pacific Quay moon howlers were out there (and by heck, they were out there!) everything depended on HMRC offering no comfort.

Gits!

but...

if anyone has a ticket for Sunday and can't go, and (even more unlikely) doesn't know anyone who can use their ticket, there's a lass from Moscow in town just now (a pal) who would love to go.

I said I'd ask.

9 minutes ago, buster. said:

Can't agree with that.

 

Sir David of Duped was IMO THE main catalyst.

 

The over-riding HMRC agenda was concerned with a macro-view, way beyond Rangers.

Some individuals within or close to it, were opportunituic and looked to maximise damage on the club.

I don't disagree that Murray led us entirely to the eventual outcome. But I can't work out why coffee companies or mobile phone companies can settle their bills but Rangers had to be driven to the wall.

While others more than played their part, it was HMRC which devastated our club.

Good luck getting information out of that body.

Was delighted to see Cummings do so well on Sunday. 2nd & 3rd goals especially, he's unlikely to get another goal where he has 6 (six) touches inside the penalty box before shooting as he did for his first. Great finish, though. But just about the worst defending I've seen for a long time & Ithat's from someone who watched Ross Perry when we were in Div3.

Even so, if it's one up front then Morelos for me.

On 2/8/2018 at 20:48, 26th of foot said:

Latest RAJAR figures popped into my in-box this afternoon.

 

BBC Radio Scotland's latest figures are 100,000 down from last year's. Pacific Quay will ignore such a calamitous loss of listeners in a calendar year. They are correct and we are wrong.

 

It's like the Herald. In the year 2000, after a dozen years of Harry Reid's Editorship, the blatt's daily circulation was just over 115,000. Then, we had five years of Mark Douglas Home as Editor, and two Deputy Editors, Joan McAlpine(now a SNP MSP) and former Sellik View Editor, Kevin Mckenna. That particular triumvirate took just five years to reduce daily circulation to under 45,000. 

 

 

 

 

 

Your argument is slightly challenge by the fact that Magnus Gardham, politcal editor of The Herald, left that job in (I think) 2015 to become communications director for David Mundell - it was clearly more than a cabal of Republican Nats which laid the Herald low. The reason The Herald's figures started falling c.2000 was due to the rise of the internet, and the reason it has remained low is due to its desperate gambit of publishing any old shite in hopes of getting clicks.

I like the fact that Ayr have a free scoring front duo, it feels like years since there were lower league strikers to ponder. Going way back I dimly remember Keith Wright at Raith (I think), Darren Jackson at Meadowbank, even further back Rowan Alexander used to bang 'em in for Morton and I dimly recall Andy Willock being a favourite at Clyde. I'll be interested to see what like Shankland and Moore are. I suppose the growth in interest in players from overseas closed off the route from lower leagues to big leagues for a good wee while...the way things are going, that route will be opening again, mind you. Even more reason to cast an eye over Shankland and Moore.

That image behind the team list is horrific. Stone me.

Really good read. But what do the pictures refer to? Without a caption I'm afraid I don't understand the point most of them are (presumably) meant to illustrate.

I'm still not sure I'm buying this.

President Xi sees football as a way to push China on as a global player but in nationalist terms, that is he wants them to be dominating Asian football and competing much better at World Cups, and to that end China imposed a 100% tax on transfer fees of foreigners, to encourage investment in Chinese players instead.

£6m for Morelos = £12m in reality and while I like him that does seem rather a lot.

Maybe it's the papers bumming up our player for once.

It's beyond ironic that the defining word of this season looks like being 'progress'.

On 1/18/2018 at 15:57, craig said:

Anything I have seen about McBurnie has been positive.... worth a punt in the same way someone like Dodoo was ?  And even more so given he is a bluenose ?  Seems to be the signing policy thus far of Murty & Allen is to bring in guys who have a desire to be a Ranger.

Only seen McBurnie via a few sub appearances on MoTD. Visually a combo of Steve Archibald and Mo Johnston, his movement off the ball is outstanding and his ability to hold up looks pretty good too. Only thing not on show so far is scoring, but from what little he's shown this year he's likely to go higher than our league. Hope I'm wrong.

On 1/18/2018 at 22:16, BEARGER said:

You talking about Lindsay Hamilton?

Yeah, thought he signed from Hamilton but it was Stenhousmuir. Plainly got confused by his surname, I guess.

Hamilton's was a tale of woe and no mistake.

Bought by Souness as development keeper behind Woods and, I would imagine, Nicky Walker (he could have left by then - always thought he was quite decent in a poor team), Hamilton probably didn't expect to get much first team action and so it proved, until what I dimly recall as a dark winter's evening when for some reason he was the only goalie available as we lined up to play someone, possibly in the League Cup, at Ibrox.

Between me setting off for the ground and me getting there we went out and signed Bonni Ginzburg, and it was the Israeli who indeed ran out to play that very nacht. Hamiton was understandably devastated and, apart from giving my shockingly politically incorrect friend Jim a chance to sing 'Bonni, oh Bonni Bonni, oh Bonni Bonni Ginzberg' to the tune of Hava Nagila for 90 minutes (the novelty wore off quite quickly), the whole move achieved nothing as Ginzburg, who wasn't awful, never really did much for us either.

Bad show, Souey. Man management was really not his forte.

Oops.

The last time I saw O'Halloran (and this was obviously some time ago) he spent the whole time before being hooked either standing wide on the wing, waiting for the ball to attack his full back, or deeper, marked tightly by his full back, waiting for the ball to be played into space behind and to use his pace to get there first. On every occasion I can remember Tav would look up, see him, and pass inside.

Whether that says the players have no confidence in O'Halloran or Tav was just having a stinker I don't know. I thought it showed that he wasn't suited to Warburton's game plan and so I couldn't work out why he'd bought him.

1 hour ago, Gonzo79 said:

Some of the songs and flags sung and flown at every Rangers match suggest there are many who feel otherwise.  Your 'bear' comment is a bit odd - why the inverted commas?  

 

I have no problem with wearing green, eating green vegetables, watching Father Ted or listening to Rory Gallagher, for the record.  

Grammatically speaking, JohnMc is quite right - he's not an actual bear, he's a frustrated allotment gardener who spends his spare time bellowing 'grow, you bastards!' at tomatoes, potatoes etc. Hence the inverted commas.

Anyway, you are quite right - the matchday experience not only suggests but proves that many Bears feel otherwise. The only thing I get mildly annoyed at is when their opinion is ascribed en masse to all of us.

Jesus, 'rhetards', 'mongos'?

I suppose that makes us look wonderful in comparison.

Excellent attitude.