calscot

For me, anyone who crossed the halfway line has lost reasonable doubt in guilt of incitement, with the excuse of celebration. I would need something to convince me that any of the fans that fought with or were attacked by Rangers fans were even close to being completely innocent. There is still a massive difference to that rather than throwing a chair into a crowd because one unknown person threw it first. Maybe you like it better in black and white but when the shades of grey are so far apart I'm not going to find a truthy with the equality operator. If you can't see it then that's up to you; I think I explained it clearly enough. Splitting hairs it isn't, and I hoped you'd at least get a bit of the point. It's boiling down to very basic stuff, where you could maybe start saying, if Rangers hadn't acted in some way (and there are several to choose from) then the Hibs fans wouldn't be on the pitch. But to me, it's more complicated than that and it's about the severity and understand-ability of the crime. If a gang attacks your family and then starts repeatedly taunting and goading you, would it be ever so slightly understandable that you lost it and clocked one of them? Now, if a chair came flying over from a crowd of people and hit your family, would it be slightly understandable if you picked it up and threw it back into the crowd? And then how understandable would it be if you failed and hit one of your own? Come on, be sensible. Apart from the incomprehensible view that throwing a chair at someone in a crowd can be somehow discriminate, we're talking about a scenario, which may not be true, that an Aberdeen fan was hit accidentally by a fellow fan - yeah, it was really discriminate... You're really stretching it here - is it so hard to see the point that you resort to this? Either way it is quite simple.... at least to me.... I completely agree that it's a very simplistic way of looking at it. In assessing human nature and morality, there are obvious complexities that aren't hard to work out. I'll say again, if a guy gets in a fight after running 100m to start one (or pretend to start one), I have a LOT less sympathy for any injuries than someone innocent who gets clocked by a chair because someone else threw it first. You must at least see that point of view even if you don't agree with it surely? You're entitled to think in that way, I just wanted to point out that there is an alternative, less simple, view. Eh, where did I argue semantics? I'm arguing degrees of morality. If you think something so chalk and cheese in that regard is splitting hairs then I can't help you. Who is defending Rangers fans? Read my post - I'm defining the morality, my morals stay the same no matter who we're talking about. Why are you being so unfair to Rangers fans and equating their crimes with far worse crimes? And why do you have to accuse me of bias, just because I don't agree with you? I have no disagreement with that and have argued this online for decades. There seems to be a likelihood that a Rangers fan threw a seat into the opposition fans, I find that deplorable and hope he gets caught and dealt with severely - there is no excuse at all for that kind of behaviour in this context. However, this is an obvious case of two wrongs don't make a right and I also hope if an Aberdeen fan threw it back, gets the same just desserts - there is no mitigation of provocation in this case due to the indiscriminate nature of it and the massively high risk to innocent people. Again, I agree, and as I said have been advocating for us to be better behaved that everyone else for decades. If we want to think of ourselves as the best fans, we need to be the best fans. Now that is pretty simple.

I'm the same but you're kind of arguing it should be more expensive because it's Rangers...

I think the problem is that we can't afford much time for Garner to settle - we're creating chances but not scoring enough and because of this, the title is already a bit of an unrealistic fantasy. He was the guy brought in to fix this under-performance but has looked pretty ordinary - and the likes of Kris Boyd is more prolific for a struggling Kilmarnock. It's best to judge him at the end of the season but the lack of goals in this opening period has really cost us dear. Just Averaging two goals a game would have completely changed our position in the table. Only Celtic are doing at least that, and they are averaging almost 4, so the fact their defence has been pretty average at best makes little difference.

I think it was Kranjcar. I would be more impressed with this stuff if it resulted in some noticeable improvement on the pitch...

A fair bit cheaper than the FA cup semi final tickets (35-65) - although you get a far superior padded seat, good leg room and obviously closer view at the ends at Wembley these days. You're also seeing a lot more expensive players on the park in England.

That has a plausible ring to it with regards to the video.

Again while the throwing of the chair by a Rangers fan is pretty bad, there is no equivalence with the Rangers fans reacting to the goading of Hibs fans. The Rangers fans gave the Hibs fans exactly what they asked for, the Hibs fans were guilty in the incitement and wanted Rangers fans to come at them. No innocent Hibs fans were involved. The Rangers fans could be equated to a country being invaded and the home nation doing some token fighting back against the army of aggressors. To be equivalent with the chair, it would have to be thrown back only at the person who threw it - with no innocents involved. Instead it was thrown indiscriminately, with no regard for innocents. This is the equivalent of a terrorist attack on country, with that country then indiscriminately and wrecklessly attacking the nation the terrorist is from but in doing so, they accidentally kill their own people. Morally, both are bad, but they are not equivalent.

Had a look a the highlights (it's difficult as most of the camera work is from the south stand) and it looks like Rangers fans were confined to P, Q and R sections, and so it's more likely the seat came from the away seats... It still looks the other way in the video though. Got to say it's a pretty shitty thing to do no matter which side you support.

Yeah Huistra was pretty good. Find it hard to remember much about Drinkell. Agree with McCall. Sebo to me tried hard, and was very likeable, but didn't quite have it.

I highly rate some of those mentioned but some of the others for me were more like not quite good enough, or didn't fulfil their promise. Alec Clelland was a big weak link for me which really showed up in Europe. It also showed that while Walter had a bit of money to spend, he didn't have quite enough to build a full team never mind a full squad of class players. One thing I think he got wrong there was that when he brought in his wingback system, it needed two class wing backs as linchpin players - Cleland and Bolan were not class players. A few underperfomers for me (relative to the perception of their own ability and fee/wage) were Hemdani, Buffel and Ricksen. One I think that deserved more plaudits (although maybe not quite unsung) was Stuart McCall.

The all red area looks like it tallies with the "Celtic games" part of the stadium plan above in which I assume Rangers fans were also seated - you can see the second fence. There are yellow seats in the home end also, which are one column away, compared with two columns away at the away end. I have no idea which side it came from but that photo is completely inconclusive. Occam's Razor leans towards Aberdeen fans as the distance involved from the yellow area is far more realistic - ie a they would have to throw it half a column compared to two and a half from the Rangers end. Of course the seat wasn't necessarily thrown from where it was originally installed. However, the more I look at it and think about it as objectively as possible, the more plausible scenario (but not beyond a lot of doubt) - solely based on this evidence would be the seat thrown by an Aberdeen supporter. But I'm willing to accept that it could still easily have been a Rangers fan - although he'd have to take the seat walk over through quite a lot of fans in the red seats to throw it unless it was from the access at the top where the stewards would be... or maybe it was passed along or something. An Aberdeen fan could have far more easily done it without moving anywhere - and misjudged his strength. As said, that is with the assumption that Rangers fans were in the red "Celtic" area - if not, then the plausibility is reversed.

But it can be a bit strange. I knew a Celtic fan who had a strong affinity to Ireland and antipathy to England (although some of that is understandable )... However, when asked to explain it, he said he liked Ireland, had travelled many times there, had family in there and ancestry there. Sounds fair enough till you realise that he also has a bit of English ancestry, has lived in England for a couple of decades, has closer family living in England (brother and sister in law), has an English girlfriend, the vast majority of his friends are English as well as his business associates, and he earns all his money in England... And yet, while he is a Scot, he feels a lot closer to Ireland. 'Tis strange.

A lot of people are saying we played well, but personally I don't think we did. We are up against fitter, better teams with more confidence who are pressing us on the ball, giving us a lot less time, and I don't think we are coping or adapting. What struck me most was what looked like a low pass completion rate. Some of that seemed unforced with a lot of stray balls which I put down to the general increase in pressure leading to less composure, and some forced where there seemed to be a bit of hit an hope when being closed down. I still think our long balls are pretty poor (except maybe from Kranjcar) and I have a hunch that's down to lack of practice - but also a bit of doing them more out of desperation than as a deliberate, valid option. This is also reflective of the fact we insist on playing it out of defence but a better team closes us down quickly - now the simple answer to that is to start playing it long, as you bypass all their players who are pressing and can quickly out number them in their own half. That generally would make them wary of committing too far forward and thus allowing the defence more time to play it in our preferred way. But by stubbornly using the same tactic, it means the opposition can press more and more with impunity. I also have a hunch that when we train, we play the vast majority on the floor, which is good for perfecting our technique, but it could mean our defence gets little practice of dealing with high balls - and it seems to be a glaring omission in our skill set, and we seem to lose goals because of it. We get a vast amount of corners but rarely score with a cross and header, but conversely we seem to lose a lot of goals from them or at least look very vulnerable. If I was the opposition manager, I'd make it a tactic against us to force as many corners as possible and then swing them in. I think we might be suffering a bit from having a manager who believes in a formulaic way of winning - he believes if we play in a certain way and do all the right things well we will automatically win the majority of games. It's not something I personally subscribe to. If you think about basic game theory, it would mean all teams could do this and so who would win - the team with the highest budget? But it also means that teams can study your formula and work out their own formula to counter it - and I think that's what's happening. To me, the best managers are the ones who quickly adapt the tactics all the time to the opposition, conditions and situations. They are the ones that outsmart the oppostion manager to start with, or see how things are panning out and change the system in the middle of a game when plan A is obviously not working, and complete turn the game around - even if it's just a judicious substitution, or swapping the role of a player. Their teams are also taught to do this on the fly, and as such have a large repertoire of different skills and tactics (including highly accurate long balls) and due to that they can constantly surprise the opposition. I think a large part of our problem is that we have one dimensional tactics which become predictable and easily countered when you have a reasonably fit team with enough quality. However, when we play well against a much lesser side, we will thump them. I think the SP sides have realised that it's fine to let us have the majority of the possession, as long as they press us and don't let us do much with it, and packing the box when necessary, while they counter quickly on the break and mix it up with hoofing it long. It's similar to what Walter did in our UEFA Cup final run. Remember, if the opposition are going to study a few teams especially, then we are going to be one of them - and it's only going to get worse in that we play them four times a season. I'm now thinking that maybe it worked somewhat for Brentford as they we an unknown, unfancied quantity - a surprise package, coupled with the fact they only played each other twice a season. It would have been useful to see if Warburton could have repeated the success a second time there. Ultimately it didn't work against the better sides in the play-offs. For me, to be the best, there is no one formula, the best tend to do what nobody else is doing - and continually evolving, innovating and being one step ahead - and never predictable.

I'm sure we'd love it if we got SP team after SP team all the way to the final, while Celtic get lower division teams all the way. And if it's vice versa there would be a conspiracy meltdown... Then how would Hearts or Aberdeen like it if they get put out in the first round by Rangers one year and Celtic the next...? I really don't think we can do that here and while it can be interesting, it lowers the meritoriousness of the competition, turning it into more of a lottery. It also removes some of the romance by dramatically lowering the chances of the lower clubs getting a big game - and when you think that in Scotland, there's not many big clubs to look forward to. Due to avaricious TV money in the EP, and in the lower English leagues, I don't think it impacts the competition to the same extent. In Scotland you could create a very unfair system of distributing the money between hard up sides. It might be "fun" but that reduces the seriousness of the competition, making it a bit less meaningful.

I think to be fair we have between about 3 and 3.5 times the number of supporters than them , so looking at the games in an equal light, it's pretty proportional. You might have a point about the opposition, but no-one seems to care much about this cup until the semis (with the odd exception if the draw brings certain teams together).

I think it would be confusing about whether it was anti Sikh or anti Muslim... ?

The link now just takes you to the same page...

What ARE you on about. Keep it real eh? ?

Would be good to see Crooks although I suspect that would be as a substitute. Kranjcar one of these enigma players: undoubted skill, with great flashes of it, but not enough contribution to the game in general. I'm hoping he's just unfit and needing some game time, as we need an increase in quality, and the only one who has unequivocally supplied that so far, is Windass. Although Rossiter has shown promise and maybe Garner will come good.

I pretty much agree with you but then I put "delayed" in to reflect that.. I think the problem people are having is that the "progress" has been in the second tier after some horrendous club management and a series of managers who weren't up to the task. We've had a relatively easy season to get up to speed but the real starting gun was the beginning of this season and the start we've had has been the poorest in the top tier since Le Guen IIRC. I don't think we're being sucked in by the press, the results themselves are causing a lot of doubts and nervousness. I don't think we're seem to be moving forward any more, and have at best, stalled. The last thing we needed was the Barton situation, and need Warburton to be a bit of a Winston Wolf...

The similarities are there in my eyes. New footballing philosophy not often seen in Scotland but not exactly immediately effective in the top league, a pretty bad start in the league with lots of draws and a defeat to Celtic, a pretty shaky defence that isn't addressed or acknowledged, then a bust up with a top player with an ego and rumours of dressing room disharmony... It's a bit uncannily familiar. Pretty much what we said about Le Guen. It's good but not something that translates to success at Rangers where the difference between number one and two is incredible. Coming fifth and the highest the club has been allows for a lot of leeway in results and not so many must win games (which all games are at Rangers) - and he'd probably have had plaudits for being sixth and possibly seventh. It was also a one season thing, which doesn't show that what he did is repeatable. We can only believe in it if it gets results. There is not much evidence that what he is doing will bring the kind of results we require. I like him but he has to improve the results dramatically. How do you know if we give him a few years that we will overtake Celtic? At the moment we have four other clubs to overtake first and a game at Pittodrie is not a place we can be confident of a win at the best of times. Nobody is calling for Walter Smith, but maybe you're forgetting he turned Le Guen's team round in a matter of weeks and sorted the defence immediately in on transfer window. He then went on to incredible success on a modest budget. And I don't get your reference to short-termism with regards to Walter - as far as I can see he gave a lot of youngsters a goodly amount of games compared to Warburton - including playing giving a debut to the youngest player ever to play for the club. He gave the following players from the youth academy plenty of games - McGregor, Hutton, Smith, Adam, Burke, Fleck, Wilson, Little, Wylde, Ness and K. Hutton. Compare that with Barrie McKay - and that's it. For the long term view we have three league titles, five cups and a UEFA cup runners up place to remember... I'm not saying that we should get rid of Warburton in the slightest quite yet, but we do need to see his methods start to work. A lot of what is happening is not a huge surprise on this forum as it's all the observations and warnings we've been discussing coming to roost. We need to at least see him acknowledging them and doing something about them. The one difference between him and Le Guen that I can see, is that he looks like he can maybe take the pressure.

Overdeveloped ids and underdeveloped superegos?

I would say that Warburton's record against those we have played from the top 14 Scottish sides (outwith us) has been incredibly underwhelming so far. In the EC he did well but failed to actually achieve anything tangible - ie promotion. In Scotland, he again did quite well in the Scottish Cup but without achieving anything tangible ie winning the cup. Winning the SC is ok but expected, but the results strongly suggest he would have finished second to a much cheaper Hearts team the previous season. Winning the Petrofac is more about avoiding the embarrassment of not winning it (something we suffered a few times), but no indication of managerial skill. At Rangers we need a manager who does more than have a good run in the competitions that count, before falling at the final hurdle. Tommy Burns is hardly a legendary for managing Celtic - in fact they gave more respect to a bit part, former player. Warburton talks a good game which gives us a lot of hope and promise, and his teams can play in a nice way, but results-wise he's now struggling to be scraping a pass - when it really should be a pass with a distinction. He really has to do better and soon. It's starting to feel like a delayed Paul Le Guen scenario.

Can we keep the irrelevant, political snarking out of the football and Rangers threads?

Why is the only considered response, "tit for tat"? Or saying they won't do that which is implying an insult to Rangers?