calscot

Come on, there's far more to it than that - imagine you assaulted someone from another company during a business meeting and as a result lost a �£20M contract for your company? Do you say, "Oops, my mistake" and expect that to be that? Again this crap. He was offered that because he threatened to leave if he didn't get it. He demanded that money and probably a lot more before he compromised. It's not like he was on 30 grand a year and Rangers benevolently said, "Here, have a million pounds a year from the fans hard earned cash, because you're such a nice guy." What are you on about? While there is a lot of knee jerk reaction on here, I think a lot of the opinion on Whit is based on the last couple of years, not the last game - it was just the anvil that broke the camel's back. For once, it's criticism where it is due.

It's also got to be said that the team that put us out (and I'd say unluckily so) were the most successful club in Sweden - a country with similar population (although a lot healther) than our own. It's no disgrace when you also consider they are in the middle of their season while we have just started and not even finished putting our squad together. Early knock out competitions are murder as all it takes is a bad performance, a bad referee, a stupid player, a bit of bad luck - or all of those, to put you out. That's exactly why Rangers invented the Champions League - however, the original idea was for all champions to go straight into the league stage. You'd at least think that the top 24 champions would be in there but instead we get this bastardised competition where the five largest and richest countries are pandered to and it's killing the diversity of European football. Perhaps the answer could be a preliminary league where the champions of lower ranked countries fight it out in a qualifying league. But would that be interesting enough to bring in the fans?

It's also got to be said that the team that put us out (and I'd say unluckily so) were the most successful club in Sweden - a country with similar population (although a lot healther) than our own. It's no disgrace when you also consider they are in the middle of their season while we have just started and not even finished putting our squad together. Early knock out competitions are murder as all it takes is a bad performance, a bad referee, a stupid player, a bit of bad luck - or all of those, to put you out. That's exactly why Rangers invented the Champions League - however, the original idea was for all champions to go straight into the league stage. You'd at least think that the top 24 champions would be in there but instead we get this bastardised competition where the five largest and richest countries are pandered to and it's killing the diversity of European football. Perhaps the answer could be a preliminary league where the champions of lower ranked countries fight it out in a qualifying league. But would that be interesting enough to bring in the fans?

I'll add to the count of 2-1 to Rangers predictions. Davis and Naismith the scorers.

Blackburn are like the rich tourists in poor countries who drive up local inflation by paying well over the odds for things because it is small change for them. That may not be "fucking about" but it's hardly desirable behaviour.

How can IRA songs not be sectarian but Fen. Bas./Blood is? Or songs about a razor gang? Isn't the "Famine song" political (and satirical) too? And as the famine affected all religions, in no way can it be sectarian. Isn't is all about "rational people" being offended? I that is the case is not singing songs in praise of terrorist atrocities and banners denigrating the memory of those fallen in the wars about as offensive at gets? Anyway it's pretty obvious, if you want to argue about it, that the IRA ARE sectarian and the so are the majority of the Celtic support.

There shouldn't be so much pressure on Rangers managers to win EVERY year, it's just ridiculous. Winning more than half is pretty successful, especially when you have less money than your rivals. We really should have bagged four in a row if it wasn't for their cheating, so expecting no less than to better them for a fifth season in a row is asking for something pretty rare in the history of Scottish football. Sure we should hope to win, but to have it as unacceptable to come a close second, to me is unacceptable expectations. We need Ally to compete well every year, yes, but we need to get real about actually winning every season. Lennon lost his first season but Celtic fans are still behind him. What does that say about us getting stuck into a legend after only three games?

UEFA need to decide what they are trying to achieve with their rules, or whether they are just there for purely bureaucratic reasons. In what way have Rangers not complied? What have they done that is against the spirit of the game? Seems to me that it's the kind of technicality that doesn't break the spirit of the rules and therefore is why they have the appeals process in the first place. Rules are supposed to be there to thwart the guilty, not the innocent.

Didn't know Jefferies had been sacked again! What does a manager have to do at Hearts to keep his job? Oh yeah, put his nose up the owner's arse...

The irony is that people tend not to use the semi-colon enough when it's needed; this guy just puts them everywhere...

I don't get how that works... You think Utd wanted �£2M and Blackburn turned them down and said, "that's too low, we'd like to give you more"? Isn't it normal for an SPL team selling to Rangers to ask for add-ons? The only thing that could change the price was the court case but as Utd always said they wanted �£2M up front, I can't see how their price changed that much. The court case presented a risk which lowered his value and we bid accordingly. Nobody else was interested until it went away.

Come on guys, the guy had a rape case hanging over him and you wanted us to pay �£2.8M straight away for him? Get a grip. And remember, if he could easily have been bought for less than �£2.8M, do you not think Blackburn would have paid the lower price? The price is �£2.8M and although we may have got him for about �£2.4M (minimum when you include add-ons) before his case was dropped, do you think that was worth the risk? The price is the price and was probably higher before Blackburn negotiated them down. However, if we match Blackburn's terms for the fee and wages, it should then be down to the player where he goes. If we get him for that price, there is no evidence whatsoever that we could have got him for less. Quite the opposite. And if we get him for that price now, what is the advantage of getting him earlier for the same price apart from him being available for four games? The advantage of not paying that earlier is that there was the possibility of getting him for less. That only changed when Blackburn made an offer. If no-one made an offer we'd have a good chance of getting him at least a bit cheaper when the window was due to close. Basically we've been playing the game to our advantage and in the end, could not have saved money by playing it any other way - so I don't see where the criticism comes in. I think too many people are so used to going into Tesco's and just paying the ticket price, and have all but forgotten how to haggle.

One of the biggest semantic problems is that they think sectarianism ONLY means to slight someone who has a connection to Celtic, Ireland or Catholicism even if that connection is completely irrelevant. In contrast, abuse of people who have a connection to Rangers, Protestantism, anything orange, Britishness, unionism etc is considered by them to be a pure and divine pursuit that should be greatly applauded. It so plain in his diatribe that: Calling someone an "Orange Bastard" == good Vilifying a bigoted, scrote of a Celtic manager due to his anti-social actions, who also happens to be Catholic and Irish == extremely evil sectarianism Stitching up a Rangers manager on TV == good Speaking up against singing anti-protestant songs which praise a terrorist organisation who like to kill protestants == evil The thing I can't understand is that with arguments like that, it's pretty shocking that they get so much sympathy from the media, politicians and even judges - despite them not making the slightest bit of sense or rationality. It seems a bit like the character in the wheelchair in Little Britain - people are too scared to say anything due to his perceived disability...

The thing that always gets me, is that if the SPL is so poor, why do so many players from so called better leagues often struggle or at best find it quite challenging? And that's when they are playing for by far the best teams. Shouldn't a Premiership player like Beattie find it pretty easy? By all accounts, Ortiz was well under the cosh against Hearts and there's a zillion other stories. While Weiss looked a decent player, he hardly set the league alight, and for being in a reputedly piss poor league, you'd have to worry about his actual level of ability after his recent showing. I don't think the SPL is one of the highest quality but it's hardly a walk in the park, and many leagues are not that fantastic outside the top teams.

I thought he pretty summed up the twisted logic, double standards and heavy irony that comes from most Celtic fans...

There is the point though, that ANY manager requires a bit of "suck it and see", there are no guarantees and it's pretty difficult to predict when a manager will be a success - even if he's been pretty good elsewhere (PLG, Alardyce, Adriaanse, Van Gaal), or even if he's been fantastic for quite a while at your club (McLean, Clough). That being the case there is not much point being overcritical at the start of a manager's tenure. Unless results are pretty disastrous with no mitigation and no obvious sign that they could improve, a new manager deserves some time before suffering a deluge of criticism. The call to get behind him is a wise one as most people in all professions, but especially football, respond far better to positive support than constant criticism - and so does the team. There seems to be a modern day trend for people to constantly attempt to predict failure at the earliest opportunity and to me that's happening here. People like to portray themselves as the cleverest and most knowledgeable and take huge credit when they are right. In the more often case when they are wrong, they become incredibly quiet and brush it under the carpet. Hence the complete lack of humility from these people after uncompromising predictions of Bougherra leaving in every transfer window for the past two years, or sure-fire predictions of winning nothing for the past four years, or of administration, or of no takeover happening, or of no money being spent in this transfer window or others etc, etc, etc. The laughable part from these doom-mongers who get it so wrong, time and again, is they say they are the realistic ones... For me, I think it's better to be positive then disappointed, than uncompromisingly negative and proven right, and the rewards for the opposite scenario, are so much greater - how can someone celebrate the double when they have said, "I've given up on this season, we will win nothing!" In the end it's not even about being positive, it's about being objective, fare and reasonable - that's something that never seems to describe the perpetual whingers.

Where do you get that from? People have been saying that for the last four years, and yet we won 8 trophies in that time and reached a UEFA cup final. It was one of the most successful four year spells in our history. I think some people must be pretty new to Rangers or have some really rose tinted view of the past. You could almost say Rangers have a tradition of not offering over the odds and "losing out" on players. It was certainly like that during the Jock Wallace and John Greig years - we couldn't even compete with Sunderland for Ally McCoist. The only time it hasn't been like that was during Souness's short time and then the time where we were so "successful" and "professional" in the transfer market, we ended up about 78 million in debt and still have fall out from that era threatening to swallow up what little money we have now. I think those that who have the highest of expectations are the dumbed down ones who can't use their intelligence to see what realistically the club can achieve. If anyone is not living up to the expectations of Rangers FC, it is the large section of moronic "fans" who seem to have Tourettes when it comes to offensive chants and songs that harm the club. If there is an embarrassment at the club it's there - when you look at that aspect, you have to wonder what are these "standards" that people are talking about.

The next headline should be "Orebro told to take Bedoya offer or get nothing plus a less motivated player." I think he's worth less than the likes of Miller as we will get him this season rather than at the end. Besides the usual value for a player is the wages left on his contract and I'm sure he's not on 20k or more a week at Orebro...

You can see his nickname in the East-end already - O'Donkey...

Strikers are susceptible to a bit of luck and Naismith is no different. He could be picked as centre half and it wouldn't make a difference to his misses. His selected position is irrelevant to the chances he had - and he had several.

We have different rules to other countries and it's irrelevant which other countries have granted him a work permit. He WILL get one, it's just not automatic as to streamline the process the govt put in some hard and fast criteria for automatic granting of the permit. One of those is to prove the player is not just an average one putting an equivalent British/EC player out of a job, they must play 75% of their country's international games in the last two years (I think). Goian hasn't but that has been down to injury rather than non-selection and so the appeal should be a formality once that case is presented. However, appeals committees take time to schedule and that's where the problem lies.

To be fair, neither can McCoist... Then you've got the hefties of Jimmy Calderwood and Bobby Williamson...

I think it's fairly obvious that budgets are affected by massive differences in income and incredibly naive to think otherwise. We already have cumulative commitments and offers in excess of the �£5M guaranteed so what's the problem there? That guarantee is an artificial situation in any case. We need to spend what is needed to put together a decent squad and at the same time balance the books and keep the debt down, and so value for money is also very important. The actual number of pounds we spend should be as a result of that, not the diving force. When you tell people they have to spend a certain amount in a hurry, they rarely spend it wisely.

Only if you live in a mythical land where the higher ranked team always wins... (And what a boring place that would be.) Malmo are the Swedish champions and we can lose 1-0 to almost anyone in one game - even Berwick Rangers.

Very poor sounding apology. A bit arrogant too.