calscot

"We are not in favor of it at all. We are against it," United spokesman Phil Townsend said. "Our view is it's the English Premier League and should remain that way." A. Why is not call the the "English Premier League", it's the Premier League with whatever sponsor as a prefix. B. What about that Welsh team in this English league?

I tried to work out what they would be losing this year with reduced TV and attendances and without the boost of 59k at two OF games. Even being pessimistic for them it was something like four or five million. They are being well compensated this year with the CL and so should bring in at least £15m there giving 10m surplus or say 5m over a Europa year. They are fine this year. It's the next two year they have to worry about if we're not back and they don't to the league stages of the CL.

Sometimes you have to wonder where the motivation will come for a European League. England are doing fantastically well without it and get their European kicks from the CL. Germany and Spain are also doing very well without it. Italy are never really that interested in Europe and usually have a low turn out for CL games compared with domestic stuff. And France don't seem to be too bothered at all. The people that want to push for is most are the big clubs in small countries, like the top Dutch, Portuguese, Belgian, Greek teams and the Old Firm. There's a host of other teams from small countries that would be interested in it but they don't seem to be drivers - like Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Austria, Switzerland etc. I think we've missed the boat in joining the EPL and so an Atlantic league is all that's left but the problem there is the fight for qualification for the CL between those clubs and the clubs that stay in the top domestic league. Also, playing the likes of Braga, Malmo, FC Twente, FC Copenhagen and Brugge isn't going to get the stadium bursting at the seems at £40 a ticket (with almost no away fans), and isn't really going to get people in a rush to buy an expensive TV subscription (and the same in other countries with the likes of Hearts or Motherwell). So I may be wrong but I don't see enough powerful clubs getting in on the act to force change. They are mostly doing too well right now.

Makes you wonder why we couldn't have done that - and it reflects incredibly badly on the RST who have failed to achieve the level of credibility required.

Might have to go and see that one...

I don't know about the story you're referring to. Care to expand?

To shore up a very leaky defence and compete for the title. And it worked, in spades. Rangers were by far the best team in Scotland for 4.5 years after Smith came back. Weir in particular was invaluable for us. He may not have brought a "return" but he brought us titles, trophies and a UEFA runners up place. You can develop kids all you like but what about actually winning stuff? I'd also say Weir was a great influence not only on the whole team but expecially on any youngsters around him. I prefer trophies to sell on fees. We may have been 17pts behind but that's no reason to give up the ghost. We needed to show we were credible again and make the margin less embarrassing. Smith succeeded there. He also developed the team for the next season in that six months, one that were two games away from the quadruple. We should certainly have won the treble if Celtic hadn't cheated - and that would also have given us a better chance in the Europa final. I'm not sure a team of kids would have done the same for our club. You seem to be perpetually living for the future and forgetting about today. Arsenal are a good example of the same thinking. They keep developing a team but it never seems to actually come to fruition. When you look at Smith's record, I think it was money well spent. McLeish didn't have that much to spend. But agree with Advocaat. The return for his spending was poor and it ended up being the ruin of us. The point of Murray park is to have top class facilities for our first team to train. It's also there to develop young players. However, there is no team in the world that can produce a conveyor belt of players capable of being the best in the country. At best you'd hope for an average of one squad member per season but youths is a numbers game - you don't know who is really going to make it. Fleck is a good example, he was given a messiah type tag when he was 13 or 14 but as he got older, the gap between him and the rest closed every year until he was nothing special. Just because you have state of the art facilities doesn't mean you can miraculously produce dozens of young players who are better than the best experienced players the country can offer. McCoist will only get as much time as he gives himself. He needs to keep a minimum level of results to keep his job. When you're doing ok you give yourself another month or two where if you start doing badly you have a bit of time to turn it around. If you can't you're off. McCoist is definitely doing the minimum required but needs to show improvement over time. PLG didn't do the minimum, used up his time and showed that he wasn't even close to turning it around. He was the biggest disappointment of my life of supporting Rangers. He came as an instant hero and left as a zero. Anyway, the best time to judge is at the end of every season - as long as you're not floundering half way through.

Murray didn't refuse to back him according to reports. But he wanted a firm commitment before sacking the very popular captain who was a talismanic player for the club. It starts to look a bit strange the whole argument for PLG. So the players were against him, the medical staff AND the owner. Not a popular guy, was he? Seems to me that he was the lowest common denominator and needed to be the one to go - and he seemed to come to the same conclusion. However, I can't really see how Murray could be against him - it was considered a great coup by him to bring such a manager to the club, he must have worked incredibly hard on it. He then promised us moonbeams, so his ego was also involved. Letting PLG go because he was floundering and didn't have the gumption to stick it out was a necessity, not a choice.

How can injuries to our experienced players be a positive for our future? I don't get it. Putting that much pressure on a team of youngsters is never going to do their development much good IMO. And there are plenty of examples where young teams have burnt out - Ferguson admits that for his Aberdeen team. I've nothing against playing youngsters but surely they do better when played beside more experienced players? I think some people think that young players don't kick a ball. They usually play in an U21 league but if everyone played their U21 team then we'd be as well just watching the U21 league. And so what happens to players when they become 22 - do they retire and replaced by someone younger - where does it end? If young players are to be developed for playing when they are older, there must be a place for them in the team. It seems some people are against any older players playing football at all. How does that work? What makes our naive, inexperienced youngsters so much better than older, wiser, more experienced players just because they play in Division 3? Is it the coaching they get?

There's nothing wrong with fans teasing their rivals but employees of the club should not do it themselves...

I fail to see where Le Guen was vindicated. He could have dropped and sold Barry if he wanted to but he had to commit to the club. There's no point getting rid of what is considered you best player, if your manager then walks away later.

Plenty of stronger managers have survived dissent in the dressing room. Smith showed he could get rid of Barry if he didn't tow the line - why couldn't PLG? A good manager doesn't have debilitating dressing room splits. Funny how McCoist has been criticised in not knowing how to motivate the players, but PLG is seen as a victim... PLG bought a whole team of players and had a few million left for more, he should have played them and dropped or sold the dissidents. If his methods worked then the players who followed them should have been at least as successful as most Rangers sides and if they really improved the team then their results should have been better than average if not exceptional. I Ally had as poor results as PLG and had a dressing room split, I'd be wanting him gone.

How does a manager set a football team back years? In that case surely nothing is McCoists fault as Smith, Advocaat, Eck, PLG and Smith again must have set the club back decades. How is winning three titles (and cheated out of the fourth), four cups and a European final setting anyone back years? Maybe he set us back to the early 60's... And how would it have changed the financial meltdown? That's what REALLY set us back years. What did PLG need time for? After six months we were 17 points behind. Was he turning it round at the time? No - we were in the middle of a full blown dressing room crisis. Then he was offered more time as long as he was committed and didn't take it. A couple of years of winning nothing does not guarantee success. Our fans can't even take a couple of lost games in the middle of the most difficult rebuilding of our club in its history - why should they put up with being totally uncompetitive with absolutely no light at the end of the tunnel and not even the players' endorsement? How do you know Ally isn't quietly revolutionising our club? Things have certainly changed and we've never seen so many youth players in the team. Why doesn't he deserve three years of no criticism. But the fact is NO Rangers manager will get that. PLG needed to have a minimum of competitiveness to survive the three years to put his plan in place, he failed there in half a season. Ally on the other hand, has had that minimum competitiveness and is being hounded out... Massive contrast there.

Where in his three year plan did walking away after six months come into it?

I haven't seen a game yet where that is the main tactics by Rangers.

Well for me it's a very strange complaint. The strangest part is that you presume to know the whole story of the player when in reality I doubt you know much about his fitness, how he is settling in and how ready he is to fit into the team. The guy is a very young player who we acquired for free, I don't see why the manager should be compelled to play him immediately. It just doesn't make sense to me. He's hardly a vastly experienced player either and falls into the same age bracket as a lot of the youngsters we've been playing. Managers make a lot of signings to build a squad and not all of them get to play in the team in the first third of the season for many and varied reasons. To say he's been wasted is a strange conclusion from some who does not know even close to the full story. Usually five of the "Murray Park graduates" start a game - for me that's a hell of a lot, and more than I'd like. Don't know about you but I see 23 and under as pretty young even for a footballer. I really don't know where you're coming from as Rangers have haven't won so many titles and trophies by playing a load of under 21's or even under 23's. They have done so by playing mostly experienced players, and there is no doubt no matter what age these guys are, they are hardly seasoned pros. What we've done by playing so many youngsters is exceptional in our modern history - why are you trying to dumb it down? I find that very strange. You seem to take great efforts in turning positives into negatives, I really wonder why...

No it doesn't.

So McCoist can "ruin" players in a matter of weeks? I don't think so.

Would be better to know the mean, mode and median prices...

Maybe that's the reason that despite huge attendances they still can't really compete with the English for players. But then it explains the huge attendances - the best in Europe by miles.

There is more to how way play and our results than training but lets have a look at it anyway. I think you can only blame McCoist for players who he has had a reasonable amount of time with. The only three that fall into that category are McCulloch, Alexander and Wallace. Funnily enough those are our three best and most consistent players. Are you saying McCoist is a better coach than the previous coaches of all our signings? Other players he's had a wee bit of time with are Perry and Little - they both seem to be doing quite well. Another plus mark for McCoist. He's recently started working with the likes of McKay, McLeod, Hegarty, Crawford, Aird, Hutton and Naismith. Are you saying they are all dross? The likes of Shiels, Black and Argyriou will still be affect by their previous training but they will slowly be affected by McCoists coaching. As will Cribari, Faure, Sandaza and Kyle. Stella also falls into that category. Some strange person complained that this guy hadn't had a game yet - he's 21 and we're already playing 8 youths so what is the problem? Perhaps he's not up to speed yet and not showing the same standard of readiness as those 8 others. It's not like McCoist doesn't play young players - although some people have slagged him off for that... We played pretty well at the weekend and that was with EIGHT players from our youth development. That's pretty amazing. However, the thing about youngsters is that they are more likely to be inconsistent, get lost in the game or show their naivety - so with so many in the team we are very susceptible to a poor performance especially is there is a lack of experienced players to talk the kids through the game. They are certainly not always going to have a good game against an experienced SPL side in a one off cup game... We struggled at the beginning of the season but we had three players in the team who wanted to leave and were playing more players who were the result of other coaches' training... Overall it looks like the proof of the pudding is positive on Ally's side but the time to really judge that is at the end of the season - when he's had time with the players and time to develop the team. If you're watching dross, which are the players who are the main one's for causing the dross?

Good, I hope it stays in your mind...

Well you referenced my post which was talking about league games... "I think we've been generally good in the league at Ibrox and that is reflected by the high crowds at every game - I think the more open minded and less critical fans are enjoying themselves at least at home games. "Away games have probably been a lot more trying - especially when you add in the effort to actually get to some of these remote places." So I think my reply to yours was perfectly valid... Don't know why we have to nitpick though...

Those were cup games, I think the topic was the league...

I can't see 11 SPL clubs voting for it. Maybe half of them...