Uilleam

We're fucked, then.

Will there be a new 'Head of Elite Academy Development'? I wonder.

He really couldn't be anything else, could he?

I think he might need a Work Permit. The Grand Lodge of Scotland will surely crowbar this through in short order.

LET'S GIO!!

It may sound wild, Mr Gerrard, but yes, when you depart, the magic of the Manager's Portrait leaves with you

He will need to Gio them up.

Well, well, a Rangers' Manager who speaks like Steve McLaren, and is named after 23 popes. Whodda thunk it?

Ah! Rasellik Annual 'Gers Meeting!! To be fair, a Show Like No Other. Imagine a Marx Bros comedy scripted by Wild Man Fischer, and adapted for the stage by Peter Weiss.

Well, that will make a change from Stinking Bishop.

BEATRIX POTTER: STAUNCH (Who knew?)

I don't call him a snake or a rat. His motives are irrelevant. All that is relevant is the impact of his actions on the Club.

Gerrard has left us sneakily, and in the shit, and for that he deserves as much opprobrium as we can throw at him. Whatever happens, if there is a benefit, it will be nothing to do with Gerrard; it would be Old Dame Fortune playing us right, as much as anything else. If people, later in the hypothetical season would call for his dismissal, then the Club would have to make a decision, in its own interests, and would be able to control, substantially, any process of removal and replacement. That is not the case when, as now, the manager and all his staff up sticks and move, rather suddenly. Note too, that the urgency required, given that there is no one left to run the team, puts the Club in a rather weak negotiating position. It's at least arguable that it is not able to control the process as it would wish. It has nothing to do with 'loyalty', and I don't care about Gerrard's reasons, it is about the potential impact the sudden departures will have on the squad, and on the rest of this rather important season. I see no reason to wish him well, rather the opposite.

In that, or similar, instance, the Club would be in control of the situation, and, one would like to think, making decisions in the best interests of the Club; that is a very different scenario from that of Mr Gerrard sneakily and surreptitiously engineering a departure for him and all his staff, leaving the Club in a hole, the depth of which has yet to be established. It has little to do, ultimately, with 'loyalty', but very much to do with the impact on the Club of the manager's underhand machinations. He buggered off, sharpish, very sharpish, indeed, and left the Club with a series of problems; but, och, these things happen, he is a great guy, he delivered 55, and we should be forever grateful to him. Not for me; and remember, before we get all misty eyed, he was paid to deliver the League Title: it was his job.

I thought that he was short and thick.....

People miss the point: It is not what he did (although snidely organising a mass departure behind everybody else's back is pretty, well, reprehensible), but what he leaves behind ( no coaching or ancillary staff -none- for a significantly disaffected first XI), and the impact of that on the Club that is important. He did what he was paid to do, and then took a runout powder when it suited him, leaving the Club in a worse state than China.

Don't be so wet. He has just ripped the piss out of the Club in organising his move, he has left it in a very deep hole with a stuttering and confused group of players, with no one -at all- to take charge, with very important games on the horizon. Thus we now have a Board having to replace an entire coaching team, in very short order, and with those replacements having to hit the ground running, and running hard. I don't care about his reasons. I care only about the impact of his decisions on the Club, and I fear that he may have fucked it royally, at least as far as this critical season is concerned. Forgive me if I don't wish him God speed and good luck.

I don't think that you have acted in this manner. I could suggest who has done so, but I think you know.

That's a bold prediction, Gs.

Now the dust, generated by the heels of the management and coaching staff, has settled, at least partially - enough to see the shape of things: The 'deal' seems to have been completed very swiftly, so quickly, indeed, that one might assume that more than the bones of an agreement was in place before even a rumour surfaced; the agreement with AV was not rushed; this was no caprice; Purslow and Gerrard knew. The manager, the assistant, and the entire coaching/fitness staff have gone, too, leaving the cupboard stripped bare; the support staff must have known, also. The performances and the results this season have been poor; players, some of them, at least, have been going through the motions; there have been the odd peaks, but very many more troughs. We might call this a malaise, which has infected the playing staff, but this malady has been passed on, it seems, at least partly, from the manager and coaches. Admittedly, some players may not have obtained their 'dream move' last summer, but one wonders if the manager persuaded, coaxed, cajoled, or, somehow, forced, them to stay, and if so, what impact any of these methods have had, beyond finance. Clearly, whatever remedies, if any, the manager put in place have been less than wholly efficacious, and a number of performances have indicated disenchantment, at best, and complete lack of committment, at worst. The next few games, post-break, are, of course, Really Quite Important, including a semi final and a Euro tie. We are, now, battered with bullshit, bollox, and bin juice about the the abandonment of the Club....ambition, challenge, bigger budgets, size of AVFC, did well for Rangers, restored prestige, etc. etc. blah, blah, blah...... And, he stopped 10-in-a-row, something which seems of infinitely more importance to the mhanky mhob than to us: I don't regard 8 and a gimme as a 9, and I don't think effective walkovers against, what in betting parlance, we would call also rans, there to make up the numbers, represent an epoch-making achievement. Winning the title is what he and his staff were paid to do. However, and in whatever way we call it, if not blindingly obvious, it does seem pretty much apparent that the team is underperforming, that it has shown little to persuade us that it will somehow 'click' consistently, (it is difficult to see it approaching last season's standard, which would have eg seen off Malmo, i m h o), that the manager seems bereft of a way to recover form, performances, and results, and that £5million per annum makes a very convincing, and unarguable, soft landing. So, Mr Gerrard, and his whole entourage, have left the Club in the lurch, in what appears a somewhat underhand manner, in great, unseemly, haste, and with a team off the boil. This leaves the Club seeking an entire backroom staff, quickly, as there is really no-one left to take the reins, save, perhaps a couple of senior players. Most pertinent, perhaps, is that the Board now has to engage in a personnel search and negotiate terms, etc, from a position of weakness, if not of total desperation, and that is not a Good Thing. Whoever comes in, with staff, may see it as a free hit of a season. That does not fill me with glee, as it is imperative to retain the title, and the new man (or woman, eh?) really has to fire, and to fire up the team, immediately. I won't ask, "$teven who?", because I really want to see Villa relegated.

It would be their agents who would write their heartfelt messages. Probably.

I expected more, in this age of instant messaging. Perhaps tonight/tomorrow. We'll see.

Has anyone seen any valedictory messages from any playing staff?

Like Sunderland; and Wolves; and sundry others.

Is it too bold to appoint Kevin Thomson? He could persuade his pal Ryan Porteous to join in the next window, I am sure.