Big Jaws

None of our directors hang out with 'Rangers people' in that sense. I'm assuming by that you mean ordinary working class Rangers supporters? Generally directors are successful business people who are mostly upper middle class and are unlikely to frequently be in the company of ordinary Rangers people unless its a function or event they are attending. Thats not a criticism of you or your perspective its just the way it is and has been for as long as I can remember.

You know what I find embarrassing? That so many bears think we're still living in the fucking stone age spouting the same, absentee MD, press bullshit back at us constantly. Before I go on I have to make it clear that as far as I'm concerned our board, in terms of their PR department and some decisions/appointments, have made mistakes they are not faultless. In saying that perhaps its because we live on a small island where you can drive from north to south in a single day I don't know? Our chairman is in SA which believe it or not is only +2 GMT. Its garbage, its always been garbage and it will continue to be garbage tomorrow. I don't know what size of business any of the folk who say this stuff work in but, its not the 60's, 70's or even the 80's its the 21st century, and in today's day and age even medium sized businesses don't communicate with their remote offices/bases via carrier pigeon or pony express. They use telecommunications and internet applications. When there is a need for a face to face, with the remote office, then they use video conference calling which you can do on a phone these days. I'm in constant communication with folk on the west coast of the US which is -8 hrs GMT and Australia +11 and the time difference is very rarely an issue in any real sense. The difference is that when in communication with Australia we're in their leisure time when I'm starting work and when its the US its my leisure time when they are starting work.These folk who go on about this need to stop repeating this press driven nonsense that the MD needs to be here and be dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century with the rest of us if need be.

Will the game against them at Ner'day be the 72nd game of their unbeaten run?

One might argue that the use of the word concomitant is in itself a concomitant confidence in ones use of language.

We could play all day here and not score.

Rangers isn't only a heritage for many its also a vocation!

I've had a day or two to think this through and I've come to the conclusion that there are a few issues here. One issue is that Aberdeen refused us the permission to speak to DM. I find that odd as they then had to have a meeting with DM. From that I deduce that a clause in his contract must have been triggered otherwise it would not have happened at all. Refusing the access in that case, to me, would have been a breach of contract. However DM made it clear after 24 hrs that he didn't actually want the job. Another issue is that Rangers put out a statement that should have simply said Aberdeen refused us permission to talk to DM therefore we move on. Instead of that the statement has Jim Traynors pettiness and arrogance stamped all over it which feels very embarrassing for most people connected with Rangers FC. One more issue for me is that the Rangers board has consistently spoken about lists of candidates and an application process. Working backwards from the last issue highlighted. We don't or rather shouldn't have an application process for the managers position. On this issue I just want to say that we decide who we want as a manager and then we go and get them. We're not appointing a clerk or a fitness coach or a tea lady here. We're appointing the manager of the worlds most successful football club... WE'RE RANGERS FFS! Traynor is an absolute car crash waiting to happen and should be no where near making statements on behalf of our club. His only quality is that he is antagonistic, if you can consider that a quality. A trait that I remember he very clearly attempted to use when I had a run in with him on the radio after McLeish's Rangers, by dropping De Boer into midfield despite his broken toe (credit where its due a master stroke I might add and precisely the point I was making during the call), side beat Celtic 3-2 in the 2002 Scottish cup final. Incidentally he cut me off when I responded to one of his barbs with... 'I'm not biting with you Traynor'. That is his style which is fine for shock jock material, courting controversy, but not as a representation of a club and institution with the stature of Rangers Football Club. Theres not really much anyone can do if DM has decided with Milne that he didn't want to come and manage at the most successful football club in the world. Where I do have an issue is that its taken the boardroom 6 weeks to make any move at all with what seems like no contingency plan. That for me is simply unacceptable.

It wouldnt surprise me if he had.

I don't see it that way Frankie. This isnt about the board or Dave King this is about Derek McInnes. If he doesn't want the job then he doesn't want it. As far as I'm concerned it shows exactly the the level of ambition that he has. You don't knock back Rangers or the mhanks if you're ambitious. Its as simple as that!

I thought you might have taken my post in the light hearted way it was intended sadly I was mistaken. FYI I prefer the peatier varieties of the Island malts Talisker being my favourite. If people are not feeding their kids in favour of getting drunk then there are far more issues at play than a couple of pence on a bottle of spirits.

So let me get this straight... We know that rather than take training of the squad today DM and his assistant have been in a meeting with Aberdeen director Milne. That suggests that a clause to commence negotiations has been met. However Aberdeen have made a public statement saying that they have refused any permission to talk to him?

I've heard this argument a few times in the last few days and as much as I understand why its being made I have one question to ask. How many times have we seen a players act of contrition lead to a more lenient judgement from referee's? I'm asking because I feel the the referee had already made up his mind.

Its an odd one Pete and since you're an ex-pat I'm assuming you'll not really know much about it other than a headline perhaps? I can understand why Gonzo is whining because it'll affect the price of alcopops and cheap drink like Thunderbird and his Mad dog 20/20 but wont affect the price of a bottle of single malt for me or in your case the price of your bottle of Bolly.

You can self identify as a tractor, a pony or even a rhombus for all I care. Equally the political make up of any given supporters bus is of little interest to me in as much as I'm not having conversations with those folk on those buses. When I did go on a supporters bus of course there would be discussions of all types in the bar's and cafe stops before and after the match travelling to and from the grounds. Some of those conversations were of a political nature as the people were mostly of a similar background. They lived in and around each other they were known to each other, its natural, so yes debates would ensue but even at that not all people I encountered were monarchists never mind unionist. I make reference to a majority of Rangers supporters having those political opinions above, and again I reiterate there is nothing wrong with having those opinions, but that is not, as far as I'm aware, a club policy. On a side note we fly 4 flags on match day the two important ones for this discussion are the Union flag and the Saltire both take pride of place above the main façade of Ibrox. It shows Rangers are a Scottish club playing in a Scottish league system in Scotland, Scotland is, by proxy of the UK state, part of Great Britain which is also represented in these two flags. What is interesting from my liberal perspective (to declare my perspective fully at times classical liberalism other times social liberalism) is that the discussion seems to revolve, improperly analogous, around the SNP which incidentally has deep links to Presbyterianism especially the Solemn League and Covenant and indeed through that also to Scottish conservatism. The argument seems to be centred around the pursuit of independence and the SNP's use of the symbol as a political weapon although the Scottish conservative party has used the symbol in a similar way, arguably for much longer, yet rarely seems to draw attention or be questioned. I do not wish to throw a spanner in the works here but at the time of the creation of the Union the Church in Scotland had the clause written into the document 'FOR ALL TIME' that its religious autonomy and practices would remain separate from that of the newly created state. So just to be clear we have a separate Presbyterian church and the sovereignty of this land is given via the grace of the people therein unlike our southern cousins who's church and head of state is a magisterial sovereign whom reigns supremely over vassals. Back to the OP's topic. Rangers asked an extremely pertinent question in their last public address on the subject of referee's.. Its pertinent in that it is an important tenet of society to have the opportunity/ability to face ones accuser and have the case tested. The question then becomes who made the referral and what was their motivation in doing so? Is it virtuous or politically motivated? We then have to look at the amount of time spent by various media sources on such referrals. We need to do this because these are popular sources of information and indeed they can also set agenda. Included in this examination there has to be an acknowledgement of political or religious bias or conditioning within such institutions. Take for example BBC Scotland which is supposed to be impartial. Its fairly clear to most observers that BBC Scotland is littered with labour party members, associates and place men. Again there is nothing particularly wrong with holding that political view point. You'll always have Richard Gordon, Stewart Cosgrove types who despise everything about our football club and to a certain extent they are outliers who have been allowed to rise to station above their intelligence by the cabal who runs that particular media hub in Glasgow purely because they meet the agenda they wish to set. Agend setting is where it becomes problematic for such an institution and the reason for it being a problem is that it is dominated by labour party supporters from the west coast and in particular Glasgow. Now a labour party meeting in Glasgow is made up very differently from one in Fife or indeed Ayrshire in terms of cross sections of those regionally internal societies. Dipping briefly back into the political and in particular BBC Scotlands relationship with the SNP. Its true that the SNP want to achieve political independence, we can debate such propositions in the Bluenose Lounge section of the forum but not here. However SNP ideas and policy with regards to the monarch and the church have not changed in the near 100 years of their existence nor did they need to either as they are entirely consistent with their original premise, Scottish Assembly, which incidentally, from above, already acknowledged that religious autonomy and acceptance of the premise in those clauses included and enshrined within the Union document which would not change in the event of a review of the political union. During the debate in 2014 the labour party through BBC Scotland and other MSM mouth pieces made much political capital out of that particular SNP position. They referred to it as 'picking and choosing'. In this case, its a blunt weapon, the SNP are a red herring or patsy, the church and monarch and indeed Scotlands institutions have nothing to do with the debate on whether Scotland is an independent state or not as they are already independent and have been since the creation of the union. Its actually an attack on Scottish religious autonomy and through it the sovereign and its institutions which the labour party has long held a preference to dismantle. We could argue whether it is or not the republican element of the labour party that has, since 97', held sway in the annals of BBC Scotland and also certain UK government departments and institutions that has lead to a dearth of impartiality or not? For me BBC Scotland is extremely important in this discussion because an endorsement from a source regarded as an authority lends credibility and also sets the agenda regardless if it was first to print or not. With credibility and agenda being set by certain journalist working within the state broadcaster it is not necessarily a leap of faith to suggest that there is a bias in the reporting of a particular party or at the very least a subjective magnifying glass that is not equally used to examine the other SPFL football clubs.

There are posters falling over themselves in this thread to demonstrate how staunch they are, how British they are and how loyal they are to the UK. Thats fine, there is nothing wrong with that, everyone is entitled to their opinion. However we've heard how Rangers are a loyalist pro unionist club, apropos of absolutely nothing, other than having many supporters who are loyalist and pro union. We've also been told that since the majority of our support are WASP that its more or less irrelevant that a section of our support are of varying ethnicities and creeds. I've been supporting Rangers for more than half a century, in actual fact its 54 years to be exact, and I've seen good and bad times with my club. I've stood, latterly sat, on the same terraces these posters have with many different types of people of varying ethnicity and creeds some of them were even women (shock shock horror!) The one thing that united us all was our love for the team in blue, we were ALL Rangers supporters. It never once crossed my mind if David, Margaret, Jamel, Sageer or ANY OTHER next to me were male, female, gay, straight, Jewish, Muslim, Presbyterian, Loyalist or Unionist. It was irrelevant to me because we were ALL Rangers supporters. Yet here we are in this thread relating to 'the nature of refereeing decisions' debating these political issues were some of the comments in this thread are more or less attempting to rob both me and future generations of Rangers supporters of the very same Rangers mission statement that I was brought up to believe in that as a club and a collective we were 'INCLUSIVE' open to ALL!

Dorrans, Pena, Kranjcar could all play at the head of the diamond Holt and Jack positions needs more industrious players so Dorrans, Barjonas, Thomson, could all play Jacks role and then add in Candieas and they could all play Holts role.

We want to play with two wingers but we don't have the personnel for it right now as Windass doesn't really fullfill that wide role particularly well. Playing in the diamond with McCrorie at its base and Pena at its tip allows two things because McGuillit floats in between the lines and pushes our forward line further forward while McCrorie plugs the ball over the top. It allows Jack and Holt to be interchangeable with any of the midfielders that we have on our bench increases their lateral possibilities and it also allows the two front players, at the moment, Windass and Miller to be more dynamic vertically. The trouble with that system is that its more complicated than 4-2-3-1 and takes players time to settle into it properly but from what I've been seeing since Wednesdays game is that it suits the personnel we have available at this moment and they seem fairly comfortable with it too. It seems more natural than what they were being asked to do previously.

I've said it from day one when he was first mentioned that I like Derek he's a good lad but I don't want him as Rangers manager and my opinion hasn't changed regardless of whether we beat the team he manages at the moment or not.

Oh aye it does especially up there in their midden. Most of the commentators I've heard speaking about it seem to have lost the plot. Jack is first to the ball plays through the ball and away with the instep, May steps into the path of it a yard late and takes a sore one. Nothing about it is out of control or overly aggressive attempting to injure the player its Mays own fault that he's been caught he's no chance of winning the ball there at all.

Yasssssss! That was a hard fought out win. Jack sent off again... whats he supposed to do pull out of the challenge and let May win the ball when May is late to the tackle... shocking referring again from these clowns.... GIRFU!

I'm for my bed lads night.

Murty was quite astute tonight mate he picked a team he liked the look of executing his plan. Fortunately! It worked. EDIT: Fortunately! And by that I mean Aberdeen expected us to go with a 2 man sitting mid and we didnt. We should never be doing that at home anyway. But hey... there you have it.

Pena in the first 10 minutes took some tackles from behind and reacted really well to them. Eddie on the other hand seems to think he's somewhere on a Copacabana beach or something. Hey Eddie yer playing at Ibrox, its the 29th of Nov the air inside the ball is cold and heavy and you canny do what you're used to doing with it in these conditions... Wise up mate.

Behave yersel you! He canny play anywhere but he's a great RH in the making.

Fck them Craig. I could not care less who, what or where they are. When we dominate teams, Aberdeen are a team I love Rangers beating, like we did tonight it makes me smile.