calscot

That's good enough for me!

Yes the differential in money in the four big countries to the rest of Europe cannot continue for long without ruining the game. How different would things be looking if the Premiership allowed us to join about 10 years ago????

One question is - is it better to have one 8M player and be looking for a 1.5M player, compared to buyging 3M, a 4M and a 2.5M midfielder, which is a position where we're are considerably lacking in quality? I think if we'd qualified for the CL, we'd have spent this money anyway and kept Carlos, but that's the way the cookie crumbles. You need money in the bank, or the promise of money, before you can spend it.

It's amazing the difference a few signings makes... However, let's not get too carried away, going from zeros to heroes in a week sounds too easy and a recipe for more disappointment. It's got to be said, I'm starting to feel a lot better about a squad which looked third rate yesterday. The officials at the club are definitely hurting and we are seeing some decisive action. The championship is a must this season and it's starting to shape up especially with Celtic actually looking a tad worse than we are. History suggests we actually have the advantage without Euro football and to be honest I'd like to see us treat the League cup less seriously too and use it to blood the youngsters and give key players a rest. I think a lot of us would have swapped a long Euro run this year for the title, but I think we were more thinking about going out in the last 16 of the CL or being 3rd in the CL and going out in the last 16 of UEFA. Anyway, what a difference a day makes.

Maybe you could change "perfectly" to a more realistic "expediently" or some other less than impossible word.

I should specify that my definition of a selling club would be one that constantly brings in more money from transfers than it spends. Not only that they constantly deliberately break up good teams when they are offered good money for their best players (not the plural) without consideration of the impact to their success. While you could squeeze the facts to shoehorn certain recent events into this definition, I think it's obvious that it doesn't fit comfortably in the slightest and is undone by a cursory wider view of the facts.

They wanted to go and there was little we could do to stop them without having unhappy players in the squad and then getting nothing for them. There was no business or footballing case to keep them against their will. So an offer of �£22M has nothing to do with it? In a football sense what they did was spend the money on about four excellent players that vastly improved their team. How is that different from the Boumsong scenario? The only way you can sell from a "footballing perspective" is if the player has no place in the team. Boyd could be sold from a footballing perspective, but not a first choice player. We sold Cuellar because it was in his contract, so yes I suppose we had to. The money will go towards the midfielders we've been crying out for so there is little to argue that there is no footballing benefit to the sale. Read it again, it was not speculation at all, it was HYPOTHETICAL. I was making the point that IF Man U sell their best player it will not make them any more a selling club than if they don't sell him. I think that point has some worth. Whether there is an actual sale is irrelevant to the concept and so categorising it as speculation is just meaningless. Fair enough but I was struggling to find examples of losing our "best" players. I think you misinterpreted me there - I meant he has been our best keeper for years not that he would stay for years. Although there is no reason to suggest he won't. I can't argue with that but it is still not evidence of being a selling club especially considering the amount of money we stumped up to bring him back. It still doesn't show us as a selling club. There has been rumours about Man U being interested. But it's just another example of one of our "best" players still being here. I think there is a massive difference between taking extra-ordinary offers that come along and spending it on other players than being a selling club. The Hutton sale was a gamble that may or may not have paid off. Without a parallel universe we will never know, but basing it on one player is pretty thin. The reasoning behind it was obvious but it's also a one off and not a general process. I think I've given pretty rational arguments about how calling us a selling club is not a well developed premise, but if you choose not to consider them and give a more developed counter argument then that's up to you.

Boumsong was definitely sold for "silly money", he looked good yes, but how that equated from free to 8M in half a season in the SPL is baffling. I'm not surprised we grabbed the money, look at how we almost got 3M for Cousin and now can't give him away. Not only that the money was reinvested in the team and we were a much better team for it. That means it was also done for footballing reasons. If it was two or three players, maybe, but not just one who was prone to glaring errors and hotheadedness. Hutton is good but he doesn't make a team. You're right, we were a worse team when we left but that is the risk you take when you are also dealing with huge financial implications for the club. You are twisting my words or not reading them properly, I said Brougherra is the closest to a replacement "by default". He came as a partner not a replacement, but when Cuellar left, he was "effectively" his replacement. I don't contradict myself so easily. Nothing whatsoever to do with knowing beforehand and I think beyond getting into conspiracy theories, all the evidence points towards Cuellar's departure being a surprise and against the management and chairman's wishes. It's obvious Murray is too smart and egotistical to lie one day when he knows he'll be found out the next. His all guns blazing interview afterwards completely confirms this as well as our instant spending spree.

Funny how Brown wasn't even a success either - and Riordan too. Pressley hasn't been great either. The two successes they have had are MacD and Hartson - although the latter was actually rejected by Rangers.

I think that seems likely to be the game we were playing. Celtic have paid a ton of money for someone with 10 months left on his contract. Doesn't seem very clever to me and the motivation could be to get one over on us. However, if your rival beats you in an auction with a huge bid that you would never pay, does he really win?

Cuellar CHOSE to leave with a clause in his contract. You are not a selling club when you are forced to sell. Boumsong was found out a Newcastle and there was no way he was worth 8M. Every players has his price at every club and when you're offered silly money you take it. That money actually went towards IMPROVING the team. Hutton also falls into that category except this time we didn't reinvest the money properly or timely enough. So your examples are poor especially as I already explained my thoughts on them beforehand. I would love to see you actually give a rational and compelling explanation for your rhetoric that considers and counters my arguments. I can't see how you can "know" that ONE player would guarantee us the SPL. That's just speculation at best and fantasy at worst. Knowing Hutton there is a good chance he would have been suspended or injured during the run-in in any case. As for your second paragraph, Weir, Broadfoot and Webster, were NOT brought into replace Cuellar, if anything they arrived BEFORE the Spaniard. You just don't seem to get it that we were FORCED to sell Cuellar against our will and the money is NOW being used to buy Mendes and Bresciano - and maybe more. If you want to talk about replacing Carlos then by default I suppose right now it's Brougherra.

It's easy to trump people when you throw your money at it. But you could easily end up with egg on your face and less money to spend.

So does that make Arsenal a selling club? If Man U sell Ronaldo are they a selling club? Don't agree with you at all. According to your definition, we've sold two players - and one went against our will by triggering a clause in his contract. For the other, we received a "silly money" offer and ALL clubs attest that ALL players are for sale at the right price. People forget Hutton was considered "shite" the year before, 6 months later and he was "worth" 4M, 6 months later and we get offered 9M. I wouldn't consider myself a selling person when it comes to houses, but if someone offered me 10 times what I paid for my house, then they would have a deal. In any case I still can't see a trend for selling our best players, when we have had few players we could call our "best". We're keeping our best goalkeeper for years and our captain is still here as well as our top scorer. Thomson is one of the very few bright lights we have and he's still here. Our most promising young player for generations is also still here. Just what "best" players do we have left to sell? Where is the trend of selling our "best" players? Could we really have stopped the sale of VBronck and Reyna? Did we force them out the door or did they choose to leave? Did we really profiteer on Albertz and how come we turned down 5M for Laudrup? Other best players like Prso retired. Was Boumsong that good or was it a great bit of business that helped us win the league. Arteta was sold at a huge lost and Clement wanted to follow his mentor. Bazza did leave but it seemed he chose to as Rangers were a sinking ship and he wanted to try the Premiership. I challenge this perception because as I wrack my brains, I just can't see enough examples to support it. The amount of players we've sold for a big profit is pretty low and only one didn't want to leave "yet". The rest pretty much engineered their own sale. As far as I can see Rangers have absolutely no trend for hawking our best players for profit.

I think the situation with Webster is pretty simple to understand. He's a very promising young player, who cost us next to nothing. Unfortunately he's been injured for a while, which was sustained when training with us. At Rangers we don't always have the breathing space to get players into the team when they are not yet match fit, especially when they've almost never actually played for the team. Putting him out on loan seems an eminently intelligent thing to do. He gets fully match fit without jeopordising any results and at the same time we save a few pennies in wages. If he looks like he will never recapture his previous form then we can see that from a distance and move him on. If he looks fantastic, we get him back as soon as possible and into the team. As for the vagaries of his transfer, his case is unusual due to the rules he used and the rules against him moving directly to another Scottish club. Rangers seem to have worked with the rules and instead of a proper transfer and contract which would not have been allowed, a gentleman's agreement seems to have sufficed.

Great post Carter.

How do players become favourites? They can't become favourites automatically. Why don't you think the new players will become favourites? Age doesn't seem to be a barrier as after all, Adam became a "favourite" at 20 years old - one year older than the young Spaniard...

I would say no. Not me. I have no idea if any of my ancestors supported Rangers, my father and the grandfather I knew, definitely didn't, neither were interested in football at all. I chose Rangers independently for me and by me, not for anyone else nor to carry on some kind of family tradition. Rangers has also changed substantially through the years and so is not totally the same club of 50 years ago.

I think what is plain is that the manager is at fault for the Euro exit and Cuellar chose to leave due to no Euro football.

We have no room for him up front. If we could swap Cousin and Darcheville for him then fine, but I'm far more interested in midfielders and Loovens at the moment. Actually, I think both those strikers could do a pretty good job for Birmingham under Eck, but both are probably eying the Prem or French league.

It does seem to me that with all the malicious rumours flying about that Murray is perceived to have been acting against the interests of the club. He therefore wants to clear that up. Basically the exit from Europe and the sale of Cuellar is the subject of conspiracy theories which make DM look like he engineered it when both occurrences were completely out of his hands. It's what I've been trying to point out for a while now. It's no wonder he's speaking up for himself although many will wonder why he doesn't do this when the club or fans are unreasonably verbally attacked. Many fans do seem to think finding and recruiting players is like going to Argos but at the same time a club like Rangers cannot afford to go completely out of Europe to Lithuanian minnows in August and the manager is highly culpable for letting that happen, as it's unacceptable for a club of our stature. I think it's obvious that he did not lie about the intention not to sell Cuellar but was made to look foolish and accused of lying soon after, when the player himself engineered a move. This is his denial to make it clear.

I've just taken up tennis and want to win with craft and guile, however at the moment I'm happy to get the ball over the net and win points. In fact I've been recommended a tennis book called, "Winning Ugly" which I think I'll buy. Rangers are by no means newbies but we are still at a position where the analogy may be something like trying to get back on our feet after a serious illness. We need to build the foundations for success before adding the aesthetics. We should have been in a position to play with more flair by now but a combination of less than great chairmanship and management as well as bad luck has delayed our recovery. We're basically entering our 12th year of rebuilding. With 4 in row looming, we have to have an element of short-termism this season to ensure we win back the trophy. After that we can build on it and plan for the future more.

Didn't the latter win Gladiators one year? Random tangent loyal.

When you sign a player for �£2.5M, a �£7.8M release clause doesn't seem so bad. Not many players will exceed that value and only three players in our history have - Van Bronckhurst, Boumsong and Hutton (unless I've forgotten any), and none of them by much. I don't think anyone could have predicted Carlos to be worth say 12M in one year so using hindsight as a judge of naivety is a bit strong.

Don't know of mob rules ever achieved anything constructive. The Romans built a huge empire on the back of having the most organised army with the clearest objectives and command structures. They easily defeated any spontaneous uprisings and barbarian attacks. The fall of the empire was due to losing sight of their aims and clouding their objectives.

I don't really get the point of this. Are you saying WS WANTS to fail? I think the actual money spent is somewhat irrelevant - it's the quality of players coming in and how they enhance and balance the team that counts. That has been lacking so far, so hopefully WS will make huge efforts to partially redeem himself.