calscot

I think I remember the club being wary of offending him with someone chatting her up, so while he was in talks, they had Davie Dodds take her out...

So our senior squad is 9 new players plus 3 old players: :na: :aa::sf::ec: :lm::ib: :fs::kk: sub :stella: Four of those are injured, Stella hasn't played yet (he's only 21) and Kyle is well off form. Andrew Little and Ross Perry are our oldest graduates of Murray Park at 23 and 22 but even Little has been injured for quite a bit of the season. The average age for the 23 players we have played is 23.6 year old. Take away our 8 oldest players (all of our over 25's) and the average age is 20.4. That's the average age of players we have to fill half the squad if all our older players are fit and on form.

In the normal run of business I don't think we’d have signed those players as they are not good enough in my opinion (as mainstays of the team) to win the SPL. However, they were signed to win division 3 and we were limited in our attraction as such. Hopefully we have enough talent in the youths to make a team that can do so. When you look at our squad, outside what could almost be seen as our second choice youths, we have hardly any players to even make up a whole team – especially with the injuries we had to those few. We are relying on youth and even in the 7-0 game I counted 10 home grown players and 6 brought-in seniors in the squad. That score-line suggests we have enough talent for the job, but the number of inexperienced players shows we have the potential to be inconsistent. Experience can be a great equaliser which is why Wier did so well for so many years against talented youngsters. I think our squad is neither particularly rubbish nor particularly great, and we’re probably getting about as much out of them as you’d expect. I can’t see us winning the third division by less than double figures but I also can’t see us thrashing teams in every game or avoiding some less than pleasing results and performances – especially against SPL teams. I can’t blame the management for the squad we have as I think under the circumstances they’ve done about as well as you could expect. I am disappointed we didn’t bring in a few more experienced players and disagree with CG that managers always want more. That may be true, but in this case I don’t believe Ally was asking for more than what was really needed to cope with injuries and individual poor form – and he’s been proven correct there in my eyes. The squad is as it is though, and we can’t change it for a year, but I do think that the younger players will improve quite a bit with the experience of each game and the team will benefit from this enormously. Even good, experienced players play worse when their team-mates aren’t playing well or confidently so I can see our team getting a lot better over the season – with the caveat that there will be the odd step backwards.

One of my favourites after Davie Cooper when getting old enough to know all the players, was Bobby Russell. Played for 10 years and according to Wikipedia made 370 appearances. Ronald de Boer was only around for four years but is one of the most talented players we've had and the same goes for Arthur Numan who was here for five.

Just read that the north stand holds 9100 seats. That leaves about 43k seats available.

I’m wondering what kind of numbers will turn up to Queens Park as it’s an extra outlay for supporters. If we go by the cup games, that would suggest about 24-28k but perhaps the novelty of playing an away game at Hampden will bring more. I read the capacity is supposed to be around 40k and although, when it comes to Rangers fans turning up in numbers, it’s hard to be taken aback any more, I’d still be surprised if the demand was more than that number. That would still bring in over half a million to the Queens Park coffers which for two games makes over a million. However, you have to wonder what they’ll spend it on… They can’t buy or pay players and I would guess the main stadium expenses are picked up by the SFA – they are hardly likely to spend money on improving Hampden. I think their training facilities at lesser Hampden also need no investment. You’d have to expect that the income from normal gate money, advertising, catering and the SPL TV money pays for their normal costs for kit, equipment, stewarding, policing, cleaning etc. So, once you subtract the extra costs for a game against Rangers, it seems they will have a windfall with nothing really to spend it on. Seems to me, that perhaps they would be best investing the money and using the interest as a buffer income every year. If they could get 5%, that would probably be the same as the gate money for about five normal home games.

Trouble is that bears keep reading it.

The work is to allow it to hold athletics for the commonwealth games.

Do you read the threads? I've already made the point that it doesn't matter when you win or lose your games, it's your points total that counts. You don't take two managers with the same points and praise one for a good run of results after a poor start and sack the otherfor a bad patch after a great start. It makes no sense. A bit like having to make the same point twice...

I've take it you are on the sauce? The number of disparaging posts about Rangers is unbelievable - mostly withthe agenda of slagging the manager but putting down Rangers nonetheless. It's pitiful.

I just want to point something out to the anti-fans out there. Imagine we're back in the top league and for some reason Celtic have to postpone 5 games. We could go 15 points ahead. Now if Celtic win those games, that is a 15 point swing - should our manager be sacked?

I don't know who that article is aimed at. It's a yawn fest from start to finish and makes little sense...

You sound like the Rangers Tax Case site. All "facts", all negative spin. All let's twist stuff to make Rangers look much worse than they are. With Friends like you etc...

You know it's a hard job defending Rangers. You'd think it would be easy on a Rangers sites. Welcome to the rise of the anti-fan...

It stands if you're out to do a hatchet job and want to exaggerate your claims. Not if you're trying to fairly assess the situation. There's nothing McCoist can do about Celtic's games in hand. If they win them, then the gap was never really there in the first place. Yeah, let's sack Ally because of another team's results even though he has no influence on them. Brilliant argument!

And Leggo pointed out the case where a more direct link from a negative story to Celtic wasn't published in many media outlets. Some on here said his blog was irrelevant...

How can you say it was a 19 point swing when Celtic had two games in hand. More propaganda - why can't you play fair? The point is though that after 26 games he had 61 points which if continued would have brought in 89 points - above average. How do you deserve criticism for being where you are just because you had an amazing start? I really don't get this. Do you deserve praise for starting very badly and then having a great run, or more praise for just mosying along and picking up the 61 points on an even basis? What the hell kind of criticism is that? And this is supposing that the lead up to administration had no effect on the players - a very glib assumption to make. You can see more and more the desperation of those trying to scapegoat the manager.

If admin was out of the blue for you, you weren't paying much attention...

Then what the hell are your opinions about? You can't predict that Ally will get any more bad results. Therefore there is no point in sacking him. We just don't know... What kind of weird thinking is that? Why is it that the Ally bashers can't debate anything fairly that goes against their opinion? That's my biggest problem. The bunker mentality is amazing. It is impossible to really say what would have happened if we did not go into administration but with a bit of intelligence you can gauge it. You extrapolate the rest of the results of the season. Or is that too difficult for you? It's pretty obvious that administration affected those results so lets remove them from Ally's record - and the second Celtic game. That makes 80 points with five games to go. From that position we could have won the league. Or just take Ally's results up to the point of administration and compare it with other seasons. The worst thing that the Ally bashers do is that they try to pretend that administration had no bearing on results. It suits their blame Ally agenda. The people arguing with you and not seeing it your way, take mitigation into account. I can see the frustrations with the team and results at the moment, but I can see the difficulties of the situation. It seems that those against Ally do not take administration into consideration AND think Ally should be fired for not achieving more than 102 pts ie winning by 9 points or more. It just highlights the ridiculousness of the arguments against him.

This "throwing away a 10pt lead" is a weird one. I thought you were judged on the full league season - unless you lose it well before the end? That means you can have a bad start and recover, or a good start and have a bad patch. Imagine a runner who leads all the way and then trips up and loses his lead near the end - do you think he's worse than the guy who finished equal with him after a bad start? Wanting someone to get the sack for losing a lead they got themselves in the first place even though they are still doing well above average is the strangest thing I've seen. Talk about making up a criticism. The worst part is that the 10 pts is actually not even true. The other strange part is that we know nothing about what was happening behind the scenes at the time but we do know all about the stuff that was being printed every day. But even then it doesn't matter. We lost one of our best two players to injury and the other one was gearing himself up for a transfer. We then had a bad patch - what team doesn't? But were recovering before admin actually happened. And like I say, this is all with the background of the behind the scenes stuff. But the fact stands that before admin, we had an above average points total and were still in the title race. Going on about where we lost the points is petty in the extreme and shows why the whole campaign against McCoist is very extreme and hardly rational. I really wish PLG had thrown away a 9pt lead but you can't do that from 17pts behind. Now *there* was a manager.

Yes. Check the figures. Extrapolating our early season form would give you about 100pts. It's pretty easy anyway. We finished with 83 pts, and had an uncharacteristic three losses in four games straight after administration. The more likely scenario judging by the rest of the season would have been three wins and a draw, giving us 90 pts. That's despite off field troubles which probably affected far more results - and the fact that our last loss to Celtic was a nothing game. Seeing as your opinion is obviously bases on falsehood, it seems to me, that you need to rethink your position... Or are you too entrenched?

And yet there's a load of people on here that feel they are experts and can choose one...

Exactly, if Le Guen had as good a record as McCoist's in the league last season (before administration), he would not have been so unpopular - even if he had been put out of Europe. If he was where we are now, and top of the league, he would be safe. PLG's league record was unprecedentedly poor, McCoists (before Admin) was well above average. You think you're fair? I'll give you that the standard of football and signings are subjective, but the results? Are you new to Rangers per chance? I'll give you the cups but in the league, without administration, McCoist was at worst looking at about 90 points total - and that's with all the background stuff and rumour happening. 90 points may not have been enough to win the league that season as Celtic played a blinder and also cheated their way to a few more, but most seasons that would win the league and there are few seasons where we have gained more points. What you say is about as fair as saying McCoist is a world class manager. And that's my problem. If you're going to criticise, at least keep it somewhat real. I think the sad thing is I suspect you really do think you ARE being fair...

The first season was always going to be not too bad with the defiance of the fans, the patience of the TV companies and the theft of Rangers' money. Next season will be the one to measure it by. A one horse race in a scrapyard of a field, interests very few.

I've nothing against people doubting Ally - I do so myself. That's a lot different to a lot of the unfair abuse he's getting. Where am I being unreasonable? Or am I just supposed to join in with the mob? I may be acerbic at times but in case you didn't notice I get a lot of abuse aimed at me - for being positive about Rangers. I do understand the frustration - I'm frustrated, but don't see the need to throw the toys out of the pram. I don't think we really knew what le Guen was doing - I don't think he had much of a clue. You don't change one thing into another without know how it works in the first place - not when you want it to work during the transition. If he wanted to do the job then he should have committed to Rangers and removed Ferguson. He walked away instead. Maybe this is where I find it unfair criticism - how has Ally had 15 months to develop a side? He lost 30 players in the summer - you don't think that restarts the clock? That's incredibly harsh. Yeah, you don't think I'm allowed to have mine, eh? People are incredibly precious on opinions but most opinions are based on a load of bollocks. If you can't defend your opinion in a debate then how much is your opinion worth? Too many people have a certain opinion formed and when asked why, they basically say, "because I said so". If you value your opinion then allow it to be questioned and see if you can find the right answer. Sometimes through this we find a better opinion. It's like a free upgrade. Maybe you'll convince me, you never know. But like I said, I've no need for Ally to prove me right as I've made no prediction - if he fails I will not be wrong in any way. I just fight for fairness and you've shown even in your last post, that you're not always what I consider fair.