calscot

I actually think Naismith is one of the few who would turn down more money because of his love of Rangers. How much money he'd turn down is another thing as everyone has his price, but I feel wanting to be a Rangers player is a consideration for him. West Brom may be doing "ok" in the EPL this season but how long will that last. Even though our league becomes less and less prestigious, I think most of us would rather be challenging for trophies every season as well as a chance of a run in Europe for the team we've loved since being a boy, than struggling to just survive relegation for a middling at best, Black Country team you've no connection to. Given the choice, I'd also rather live around Glasgow than Birmingham for many, many reasons. And who wants their kids to grow up with a Brummy accent? I think a lot depends on who takes us over, how our finances pan out, and if we quickly get back to where we should be competitively.

That reads like a Celtic fanzine. Is it no wonder that we have no respect for the football press these days.

There was handball, deliberateness is open to interpretation - this is when a referee is needed. You may want to argue about correctness but in this case there is no ultimately "correct" decision. It's a time when the referee must use his experience, knowledge and what he has just seen to call the shot. In this case the referee can't actually be "wrong". There is nothing technical to call him on as there was a hand ball, he interpreted it as deliberate, and he is therefore technically correct to call a penalty. It's maybe a 50-50 (I'd say more on the side of a penalty) call and so by definition, the referee's call becomes the de facto correct call. It's what he's there for. Teams cheat and lie all the time and also just get it wrong themselves and so the referee is there to call the shots. The linesman called the offside wrongly as it was technically wrong. The player was technically offside. There is nothing to interpret in this instance. However, with the speed of the game it's easy for a human to get something that close wrong and so it's basically forgiveable and unfortunately part of the game. Sorry, but from what I seen, I believe the referee could not get this one wrong either way. The decision was completely his to make and his alone. There is absolutely nothing technical to argue about. It's all about the referees interpretation. As such I can't see a basis for real complaint beyond having a petulant whinge. The rules say it is the ref's opinion that counts in cases like this and so there is nothing to argue about. You can't argue about his interpretation. As long as his interpretation is his genuine one then he is correct by definition. If it was against Rangers I would be indignant about not getting a penalty, if it was a penalty against us I'd maybe question it but then quickly let it go. For me, I think most referees that seen it would give a penalty and I'd have no long term complaints if it was us.

Yes and it is the duty of the referee to apply a quick answer to that question and he pointed to the spot. Is there not a Fifa rule that the referee's decision is final? To me it looks deliberate and does not look like a natural accident. In the quickness of play and with an instant decision needed I can't see much justication for complaint. My conclusion is still that there is no case.

Don't know how you can say that. I can't see how we could have complained much about that penalty as there is no case for the defence. But we've had REAL terrible decisions to complain about, like the ball being obviously over the line twice - pretty indisputable with TV replay - but we have let it go pretty quickly. You might not agree that you'd have given a penalty there but there is no case against that it was technically correct. The only argument is about whether there should have been leniency and that one is a stretch given the advantage gained inside the box. In fact we had terrible decisions by the officials in Europe again this season but most people completely blame the manager and players. If football was a simple game, I doubt we'd talking about it so much.

Maybe a compelling explanation? I don't know if he's been a net good or bad yet. But I can't see much of an alternative. What would you have preferred? Murray paying HMRC £10m a year for 10 years? Plus £3m a year to LBG? Whyte looks like he could be pretty handy - someone to get rid of the big tax case, the rest of the debt and put us in decent hands for the future. The fact he's a pantomime villain even gives us the excuse that he's nothing to do with us and that we hate him, which makes it difficult to use him as a stick to beat us with in future. Just what's your case against him that makes him overall bad for the club? Apart from lying, a few missing millions and the Arsenal shares, what is his huge negative effect?

Maybe you should have been on this site at the time. He was questioned here at every turn. In fact he was given quite a bit of opposition here - I was completely on the fence playing the wait and see card - which made me one of the more supportive ones here. I hardly think he was rumbled by the media, it was when he was forced to play his hand early by HMRC. To be honest, we've still to see if Whyte didn't just profit from a very dirty job that really needed to be done... If we come out of this with a CVA, new owners and debt free without the shackles of TBC then will he have done us a favour? If that's the case then how can you say he's been rumbled at all? Until we know the full facts and motivation, he's definitely NOT been rumbled.

Could this be reaping what we sow with the very destructive and self sabotaging attitude of "no-one likes us, we don't care". Well we seem to care now... Perhaps we should work at being a lot more likeable and we'd get a lot more support from the other clubs and they might finally see how bad Celtic are. At the moment they just see us as two sides of the same dirty, evil coin. We rarely do ourselves any favours which means we get none from anyone else.

Yeah people can be really irrational - it's the sad collectors' disease. Some people just have to collect things that are similar until it becomes OCD. We probably all do it to some extent but some just take a bit too far where it interferes with rational thinking.

If it wasn't for the BTC would we not have had about 6 or 7 bidders for Rangers last year? I believe we could handle the bank debt and the WTC but it's the potential £75m bill that put us where we are and in the hands of Whyte - who either seen an opportunity to make an easy few million or is a patsy for the insolvency event for someone else. All the bidders have now come out of the woodwork as the the tax case will be neutralised by either a CVA or Newco. I think the question is that seeing as SDM reputedly lost about £100m at Rangers, if that is true, you have to wonder why he couldn't have left us in a much better state? Running Rangers properly and investing £100m should have had us debt free, successful and in great financial shape with excellent facilities - and a decent squad. To be honest I believe if managed properly we could have been very successful and in the black without ANY external investment and EBT's. We might not have seen the likes of Advocaat, Kanchelskis, Hendry, De Boer and Flo but there's plenty of better value players (and manager) who would have done the job - at least domestically. In fact with good probability, a better job. Advocaat was mediocre at best against a less expensive Celtic squad. If Murray had been savy, we'd have a healthy Rangers and he'd be £100m better off and not seen as a failure and a pariah.

Not being funny but that's surprisingly well written for the RST... They must have changed the person who writes the statements.

I hope we live by this and remember for a long time.

We are the fifth SPL side to go into administration; there was no rush to change the rules during the previous events. We are getting special treatment. Maybe they think it's a case of kick the big bully while he's down, but you have to remember he's going to get back up and recover and his memory will be long.

As far as I can tell, we shouldn't need the money. Selling our top player assets only reduces the value of the company in selling to the bidders especially as it's more expensive to bring in an equivalent player than it is to sell him - signing on fees and agent fees etc. To lose a player for far less than his value would be folly in our current situation. HOWEVER, I would presume the temporary wage cuts came at a price - I think that many players may have agreed in return for a low release price in their contracts so they can easily leave if they don't like the look of the new owners or the finances or lack of competitiveness of the club. If we lose players cheaply it's because they WANT to go rather than selling them cheap to balance the books. The books are already unbalanced but that will be taken care of in a CVA and sale to a new owner. I can't see how selling a player cheap right now, would benefit the club, future owners or even the creditors.

You don't agree with the democratic principle of freedom of the press then?

Hopefully we can come out of admin before next season and not be affected by any changes. The ironic thing is that if we do come out with a CVA and new owners, the likelihood of us being affected by the rules in the future is pretty small as we should be back on an even footing and being run in a proper manner. However, what is the likelihood of one of the other clubs going into administration in the next few years and then being hoist with their own patard? I personally will relish it. Any affinity with the others clubs is completely disappearing as I can have no truck with a mob that gather round to kick someone when they are down and then nick their valuables. It reminds me of those bad Samaritans during the riots. One day I'd like to see chairmen of Scottish clubs vote in the interests of the Scottish game as a whole instead of fully for selfish gain. One thing I can't understand is that one minute they are at loggerheads with Celtic over TV money and threatening to resign from the league and then next thing they are being led by the nose by the tainted club.

How about Kinning Park? Or would that be too confusing? 1872 Park is too big a mouthful. Albion Park? Struth Park? Walter Park? (Smith is too boring a name) Grieg Park? Baxter Park? Cooper Park? Laudrup Park? Actually, I really like that one. Douglas Park?

PS If this goes through and immediately hits Rangers then there should seriously be a total boycott of all away grounds for the next few seasons.

The shitty thing is that the SPL are trying to change the rules as they go along seeing as we're in administration. Shouldn't it be the normal and fair thing to give decent notice of this change and not include clubs already affected? This really stinks. If they want to change the rules fair enough but they seem to be doing an HMRC and trying to introduce it retrospectively. Never again will I feel sorry for the plight of the wee clubs... bastards the lot of them.

Being continually doused with water is a pretty crap experience when you don't know it but are suffering from both typhoid and e-coli... Ended up spending most of my holiday in Chiang Mai hospital.

25p worth of work...

Maybe you should base it on what you've seen on the park in WHOLE of the last ELEVEN seasons. You're playing guesswork over the whole of next season so why is your guesswork more valid than mine? Besides wasn't the whole season affected by our financial situation or do you actually think we were fine until the date of administration? You don't think uncertainty can affect players? You don't think the fact that McCoist couldn't bring in his first choice players so then had to scrabble around at the last minute had any effect? You don't think that one of the smallest and weakest and underfunded squads we've ever had is any mitigation? Rangers history has been littered with poor SC knock-outs (Berwick Rangers anyone?) - it's the nature of cup ties, and that makes it a pretty hotch-potch way to judge a manager. However, our history hasn't been littered with threats of bankruptcy and fly by night owners who seem intent on making a fortune out of a crisis situation throwing the club into all sorts of uncertainty. We're struggling to stay on the subject of football on this football fans site with all the stuff that's coming up all the time - you really think players aren't going to be affected by it? Some people seem to think that being professional means being some kind of robot... Maybe it's excuses or not but the fact is, even under the circumstances the team haven't accumulated significantly less points than what is the expectation value for Rangers in the SPL - in fact we're talking one point. If you HAVE been watching the team all season then I can't see how it is possible that you can see three losses in four games is "more of the same" - please explain... Funnily enough though it coincided with administration and negotiation to reduce the players wages significantly. Maybe the players haven't been as professional as you expect under those circumstances but I don't think it's something you can really lay at the door of the manager - and even if you do, what is the likelihood of McCoist having to deal with that situation again? But the big question, is there someone we can realistic bring in that would have done a better job under the circumstances? I really can't see it, but you've already disqualified yourself from an opinion - as that would be "guesswork", wouldn't it?

It's becoming an old chestnut but there is hardly an abundance of clean evidence due to the financial position, especially in the league. Even just giving back the 10pts deduction and subtracting three out of character losses in four games after administration and perhaps giving a more normal seven points for those games in better circumstances and we'd be one point behind Celtic with five games and a derby to go... Even if you forget about those losses but discount the 10pts and then extrapolate the points we have and we're looking at a likelihood of 84 points for the season. Now while that's not exceptional it's one point below the last 11 years' average (85) and would have won us the league in 2010 and 2009 and possibly on goal difference in 2007. However, those three losses surely can be partially attributed to the financial crisis and that's not to mention all the other problems he's had to suffer all season with a tiny and fragile squad with his two best players either sold or injured for most of the season? When someone does averagely for a top job in incredibly trying circumstances, you have to wonder what he can do when given an easier (and more real) run at it. I'm not saying McCoist is a great manager or even the best man for the job, but he's certainly shown he's at least an average Rangers manager and deserves a chance to show what he can do when the club is not in crisis. Who knows, with the experience of this season under his belt he could go on to be a great manager - Man U luckily didn't axe Ferguson on the back of his first season.

Yeah, I get you but maybe Frank de Boer was a better example... but then again he was effing loaded...

If you COULD care less, you DO care somewhat about them - so how much?