Gaffer

I agree about Barjonas. He's been a real revelation and well done PC for taking the risk in playing him. We may already have a player for next season.

Congrats to Rousseau and YB. Brilliant performance this season from both of you. My optimism keeps me enthusiastic for the next game, but it makes me terrible at predicting the scores. I'm going to take some of TB's pills and see if that dampens my spirits enough to be more accurate. Thanks Rousseau for all the effort in tracking and managing this competition. Great fun!

Wasn't it just a couple of weeks ago, UNDER PEDRO, that we beat them 3-0? I think you're massaging the truth there to support your ongoing dislike of Pedro.

Maybe the need for more, and better physios, is an indication of his intention to make the team work harder in training. I don't know anything about MacQueen, but welcome to the club, and good luck.

"Harking back" is not about being negative or positive - it's about being pragmatic and realistic in our expectations. Equally, my plea for some balance in our assessment is not an attempt to block others' opinions. It's merely an attempt to have a rationale and reasoned debate on here. There are many on the forum who can see the negative in everything, and the positive in very little. That's sad, depressing, and unreasonable. What some of our supporters fail to realise is that the younger generation of Rangers fans is being put off by the negativity around our club. They hear and see all of the negative stories and are being affected, resulting in apathy towards Rangers, and therefore Scottish football in general. These kids are looking to the EPL and other foreign teams instead. The press is to blame to some degree, but when you hear the way many of our own supporters talk about the club, I think they have to shoulder a lot of the blame too. Kids like something to look forward to. Can't we just give that to them? If we don't, they'll continue to lose interest, and then what? What I'm trying to do is give my kids, and others, some balanced enthusiasm for our team. Equally, I'm trying to manage expectations to ensure that we have something to look forward to. We have enough detractors without our own support jumping on the negativity bandwagon.

I appreciate that, but the only basis for your opinion was that his career is coming to an end (I'm assuming based purely on his age), and the fact that he only played one game in Euro 16. My point is that rather than you write something positive about us securing someone of this stature, your response is to write something negative. Why? Fans of any other club would be delighted about it, but not some of our support. Is it because you now expect bad things to keep happening to our club? Is it a way of you managing your own expectations? I actually look forward to our games, and I look forward to new signings and other improvements in our club. I relish the prospect of our club eventually making it back to the top of the game in this country and possibly further afield. It's not healthy to be so negative. Please try. It's been tough enough over the past few years, so let's just try to enjoy these small successes. He may not turn out to be the difference we all hope he is going to be, but let's enjoy the moment and worry about that if and when it happens.

And how many games did our other players have in Euro 16? How many games have most players had in Europe 16? You really couldn't make this stuff up. We must have the most negative support in the world. I despair sometimes. We get the chance of a really good centre half with tons of experience and a winner of many titles, and we write him off before he's even been confirmed. I come on to these forums because I enjoy the chat, but some of the negativity would drive anyone to alcohol or worse.

In which case, here's a balanced response to your points ... What's the sketchy cv you're referring to? How 'sketchy' is it to win the league in Mexico? It's a million miles better than most of the leagues in Europe. He's given young players a chance, mainly because there's not much you can do to change a player's mental strength. As far as I can see, he's made a few of our younger players better already and that's surely a good thing for the future. We are way behind Celtic and there wasn't much he could achieve in a week. He didn't sit back and go for the draw. He went for the win with a very attacking team. On the day however, Celtic played really well and deserved the victory. It was their best performance of the season. Having said that, if we had a striker who could score, we could have won the cup game. My only problem with some of the opinions on here is because they are void of any perspective of where we are as a club. And to give PC this amount of stick after such a short period in charge is just bizarre (and downright embarrassing to me anyway). We are supposed to be backing him, but we are possibly the world's best supporters when it comes to finding the negatives in everything, and abusing our own. The supporters are a big part of our overall problem. We need to change just as much as the playing side does.

We claim to be the best supporters in the world, but on what basis? We slaughter our own players, many of whom are only doing their best (although it's not up to the standard we'd want). We have slaughtered PC after only a few games in charge. We slaughter DK when he was the only one willing and able to put his money into the club, and thereby saving us from oblivion. We can't even get 7 supporters to work together in Club 1872. Maybe it's time we took a long hard look at ourselves. Maybe we need to change as a support, just as much as the playing side of the club needs to change. I won't hold my breath though. It's so much easier to sit at a game or behind a keyboard and slaughter everyone else. It certainly distracts everyone from some of our own issues. Maybe, just maybe, it's time for the support to have a reality check in terms of where we are in our rebuild plan. As a club we were dying, but thanks to a small number of persistent and dedicated supporters we have survived. We have climbed our way back up to the top table and have achieved a European place for next season. We are a million miles away from Celtic in terms of finances, and yet we've given them a few scares this season. Our board was under extreme pressure to respond to our management team walking out, and rather than taking the easy option, they appointed someone who is no doubt a risk, but an exciting one. Can't we now just do the one thing that we are required to do and that is get behind him/them?

Or just maybe he wants to add something to his current cv ..... 11 league titles 7 domestic cups 3 player of the year awards 1 European championship AND Won the 55th (a new world record) league title with the most successful team in the world.

That's given me an idea. Why don't we change the purpose of Club 1872 donations. We could just buy lottery tickets with the money. Ok, so it might not be as 'safe' as buying shares, but the excitement and upside if we actually hit the jackpot would be amazing. Who is with me?!?

That's fair. I think we are all frustrated and desperate at the same time for our club to return to the top. Apologies Pete. You're wrong, but I shouldn't have put it in those terms ;-)

That might be what you see clearly Pete. What I see clearly is a man who has the passion and desire that we've not had for some time. He hasn't proven anything yet, but deserves the time to do so. What he has done though is blooded some youngsters, and started the process of clearing out those that are not up to standard. What else can he do? I'm honestly embarrassed by our support sometimes. We've got so many "experts" in football opining on someone who has only been in charge a short time. I'd like to think we are better than that. With "supporters" like ours, the guy doesn't need enemies.

There's no way you can compare JB with Alves. JB was an average player who couldn't have dreamed of being an international regular. Alves is the real deal, albeit getting on a bit. He's done it at the very highest level and I can't imagine a single bear that won't be excited at the prospect of him joining. I just hope it's true.

You'd better head for cover BH. You've just poked the bear with that suggestion. I've often wondered what it would be like to sit next to TB at a game when Miller is playing. And does he cheer if Miller scores, or does he look to the linesman for an offside flag? Only kidding TB.

You guys are great at taking the wind out of the sails. I thought this was a fairly straight forward announcement that basically tells us that all the money will be invested into putting a decent team on the park, as opposed to paying off debts, etc. Can't we just accept it as that (albeit I can accept we need to scrutinise these announcements and hold them to account)? Now, if you don't mind, I'd like to get back to dreaming about the prospect of bringing in Alves (and others of a similar standard), before the reality kicks and I find out that we are actually signing Naismith again.

I really hope this is true. He's a great player. From what i can remember, he's also a free kick specialist too.

Rangers 5-0 FGS Barjonas

So, he's being criticised because he's not the miracle worker we'd like him to be? I too have doubts, as I would about any new manager. All I'm saying is that we should be fair and give him time. I think we've got too many supporters with unrealistic expectations and too little patience. It's going to be a long and difficult road for all of us, but it's going to be a whole lot worse for those that think we could be doing much better at the moment. There's a whole lot of disappointment for them on the horizon. There is one additional plus from this season however. We now know just how far behind Celtic we are. Many got carried away with the semi final win last year, but there's no question of the gap. That should focus the minds of everyone involved in the club, and perhaps help manage expectations of the support.

It wasn't a snide comment and I'll apologise if the tone suggested that. I believe in the objective of Club 1872 myself so I am seriously promoting it as a way of eventually giving the fans a greater say in the running of the club. Yes there are many material problems, but I'll retain my optimism that these will be sorted out. As for the current manager, I am not defending him, nor am I criticising him. The reason for that is because he has inherited a team which is just not good enough. I think he's done a reasonable job with the players he has, and the results since he took over reflect that. I'm also glad that he's promoting the youth players into the team. The last few games of the season have meant nothing and it makes sense for him to play these younger players in order to properly assess them. Obviously I'd rather we won against Aberdeen but longer term that game just didn't matter. What matters more is next season and being ready for it. I think we can all judge him better after he's had the chance to clear out those players with weak mentalities, and brought in his own players. That's why I suggested you were being unfair as I think that only then can he be properly judged. We disagree, but that's fine.

That's very interesting when you see it like that. I have to admit that I'm very surprised at Barjonas. He looks way more mature than an 18 year old and should be a very exciting prospect for us. I'm so pleased to see a manager at long last giving youth a chance.

I think that's very unfair but clearly that's your opinion. That aside, may I suggest a way you can achieve that? If you pay that extra money into Club 1872 along with the others that think they can do better than the current Rangers board, the members would have more say on such matters, via an increased shareholding. All you'd have to do then is get 50,000 bears to agree who the next alternative manager should be.

I wish I had read your post before writing mine TB. I just hadn't got to this page.

Just a thought .... there may be many more people who could commit some time to specific programmes on behalf of Club 1872, so perhaps we could consider how working groups (reporting into the board) could be used more often. This would allow people (perhaps even myself) to help with specific skills and expertise for limited periods of time, without having to commit to the increased demands of a role on the board. In which case, we could retain a limited number of people on the board and fully utilise the wealth of experience from the wider support. This is how a large commercial organisation's board would operate so we could adopt something similar. We could give the board members the authority to bring in the expertise as and when required.

We are one year nearer to the end of the SD retail contract!!!