calscot

I think for Rogers, you can point out his relative budget, help from referees etc as much as you like, but there is no doubt, he is doing a very competent domestic job with the tools he has. That may seem easy but we had the biggest budget in the second tier and by far the second biggest budget in the Premiership and yet with three managers and three interim managers, none of them have taken the team to what would be its natural position with respect to funding (and that includes Warburton in the Championship and losing the cup final). We've had relatively more resources than Celtic in the past with a much higher standard of player in world terms, and yet still lost games or been run close by teams with a tiny fraction of the resources - and that's with managers such as Souness, Smith and Advocaat (as well as PLG and McLeish). Rogers has done exceptionally well at Celtic and if nothing else is a manager who knows how to maximise an old firm team domestically. Somehow he's worked out how to do it. I'm not doing this as praising the enemy, it's about not allowing disdain for them to lead to underestimating them. Know your enemy. To beat them on a lesser budget, the problem is that we don't just need a slightly better manager than them that we'd need with the same budget, we need a much better manager. That's where the likes of McInness looks to be safe only in delivering a distant second. I can't see how we can go safe as we need to punch above our weight which takes a gamble to have any chance. So to me the gamble only needs to be someone whom we can be confident in to edge out Aberdeen etc for second place in a worse case scenario, but might, if we're lucky, have some chops to outwit Rogers. Until we're on a financial level footing, I think our best chance is if a Premiership or other big league side comes in for Rogers - but even they might realise he's found his perfect niche where his skills don't look transferible elsewhere.

With our relative budget to other clubs, semi-finals should be average - which we're still achieving. Well, my scenario was to have the same playing squad earning the same money on target performance - 2nd in the league, at least one semi final and qualification for EL. I think it's what we're kind of doing anyway, calculating what we can afford with what we see our success and associated income over several seasons to be and averaging it out to pay the players, with a smaller level of bonuses. My thinking is to pay pretty much exactly the same over a period, but pay more in the good years and less in the bad. That way if you have more bad than projected you don't have a huge shortfall and players don't get overly rewarded for mediocrity or less. I do realise that players themselves would prefer to lower their own risks and go for the status quo when looking to sign. Yes, but previously it was worth about £5m a year so say a £1-2m drop isn't such a big difference. I was thinking that our turnover should be increasing this year due to TV and prize money kicking in as well as much increased commercial income - although I suppose our world wide exposure is much less than it used to be. I agree, but I also find the status quo is not healthy. That's the problem, and I can't see how we can guarantee the minimum success needed. With the last two managers, we can't even get close.

The type of scenario that comes to mind for me is when we used to offer a player on £2k a week, say 8k a week with some bonuses. Why wouldn't 6k a week plus £100k worth of bonuses for expected target performance, plus more for above target be attractive to such a player? I don't think pay per play is so good due to the reasons Craig gave, but things like league position, and cup wins to semis, and qualification for the EL etc could maybe be better. Other clubs say in the EPL, could have the bonus for staying up etc meaning relegation does not bankrupt the club.

While I get the point, I don't quite think the numbers are correct as our revenue should theoretically increase to about £35m without Europe, considering pre-Whyte figures. But all it leaves us is with a larger wage that shareholders have to fund when Europe doesn't work out. It just seems pretty risky. Yeah, I get that, but my fuller premise has always been that this should be brought in the football rules where basic wages should be covered by a worst case scenario and then augmented by performance related bonuses. There are a lot of clubs running too much debt as so many are speculating to accumulate but it's not a business where everyone can win. However, there are many times where we seem to pay players too much too easily - can you really imagine the likes of Windass turning down a huge pay rise plus excellent bonuses for the doing well in League, cups and Europe? Thing is, if we had such a system, I don't think you'd see so many players downing tools.

Didn't say he wasn't offside, the point was it's difficult for a human to tell when we're talking about 1/25th of a second. Match officials might be poor but I think this is just one of those one's where it's too difficult to call 100% accurately. To me it's where we need replay technology, and I'd be happy for that to be in play and cause it to be called offside - because we'd also get all the ones that are correct in our favour. I prefer accurate refereeing in any case, but for us I think we'd benefit more considering the type of refereeing that we've had this season, which seems more than random rubbishness that evens out.

I'd still advocate for us to make OF home fans only. Far easier logistics, far less trouble, less police cost, no vandalism, more fans get to see it, slightly higher attendance (with possibly slightly lower for them), better chance of winning home games at the moment, etc. If allocations are equal then due to larger stadium, they have the advantage from a larger proportion for the 12th man.

I'm not sure we should need Europe to break even - it's too risky. I've always thought that we should break even without Europe, and structure our wages to be a bit lower basic and include larger bonuses for it. If a player doesn't like it, then he's not confident in his ability or ambitious enough. Football is a results business and I think wages should be structured more around that as income varies wildly with it. The balance of that should go to the transfer kitty - or pay off the previous year's if we speculate to accumulate somewhat.

There's a freeze frame on the highlights just after the ball has been kicked where it shows the players clearly offside; however, rewind just one frame to just before the ball was kicked and they are on: Now I don't know the frame rate or whether YouTube goes one frame at a time, but I'm assuming 1/25th of a second. So the pass was less than 1/25th of a second after this frame, and while Tav was probably a tad offside , I think it's too close for the linesman to get it right every time at full speed, even if the frame rate is slightly lower. I would take this one as the evening up of the one's we don't get, including some that are far less tight. It shows that if we are ever going to use TV replays, we need a faster frame rate.

Not good, but not quite as bad: https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/sport/football/1909131/rangers-agm-2017-clyde-auditorium-glasgow-dave-king-shareholders-board/

Jack Ross?

Good post Craig - I won't reply to all of it... The Sinclair thing really gets me as we've been talking about how we should not choose size over skill for at least 25 years. Why on earth did we employ him and follow that strategy? However, which club can we look to that didn't do that and have produced more players? Serious question. As for all the improvements, we've talked about many of them for many years to, and as you say Watford are ahead of us in this. But that's my point, if Watford can do it and everyone else is doing it, what makes us different? For a start it's harder for us - a club only needs to bring through players that are as good as their first team, which means the top teams will always produce less for themselves by the law of averages. The only advantages I can see in Scotland that we have are: We can accommodate more apprentices, due to a bigger budget and size of training complex (due to more income than the rest). We can pay more for hopefully, better coaches. We have more kids wanting to play for us. (As a bigger, more supported club and also supposedly with better coaches and facilities.) And so have more choice. (It can be a numbers game after all.) We can pay for better equipment. (Although there is the law of diminishing returns. Spending twice as much on equipment, doesn't get you twice as good a player - eg a dumbbell just needs to be heavy to do the job, a cheap one will do.) And that's all I can think of. However, that's competing against Scottish teams, the problem is that the likes of Watford have more money for this than we do, as do top clubs from other countries, as do Celtic. So what is going on all sounds great but are we producing better graduates than ever before? All the best players we've produced, never had all that.

After seeing the lack of success of big investments into youth development, it always seems more of a lottery than a science. I can't see what we can do much differently than what other teams are doing, and we've tried many times. Judging by the spread of success throughout all the sides in Scotland, I've thought for a while that it would probably be cheaper just buying up the best around, like we used to do. That Man U team was a one off, a true lottery win. They haven't done it since as far as I know. Actually looking at the dearth of talent in Scotland these days, a more mercenary approach would be to look abroad for players like Morelos or better.

Not arguing whether they are, but you'd think they would as they must spend a lot of time standing and analysing the game... Especially when playing for a dominant team.

Are you sure? Seems to me the problem was that they didn't play in any particular way. Certainly not the way the manager intended. I think they are used to playing any old way.

I like the way we're playing but finishing is not the best.

OK we're back to edit = delete on phone. Painful to repeat. OK wouldn't it be logical for Morelos to come off with 1 minute to half time and play with 10 men. Then see how he is after 15 minutes of treatment?

15 min obv- on phone, fat fingers. Can't edit post.

The worst thing about that is that she's with the kids who are at an impressionable age... They'll hear it from others but you're more likely to copy someone close while thinking it's the right thing to do all the time. Otherwise she's not much different to a lot of fans.

I think what has to be remembered here is that the football clubs themselves cannot always be held responsible for the actions of a sicko who hid it well. Clubs are only guilty if they are obviously negligent or deviously complicit. I'm sure that Celtic fans want to find as much going on at other clubs to exonerate themselves when their club is actually fully guilty of the latter. I think they will do their best to shine the spot-light in our direction.

Just thinking, wouldn't it be useful if, in addition to accessible facilities and a standing area, they also had an exercise bike area, especially in the winter. Keep yourself warm - and fit while at the match.

I recommend those who attend a lot of games in winter to buy a battery powered, heated jacket. I wore a waistcoat one under a ski jacket to a match at Wembley on what looked like a nice day but was only a few degrees. Everyone was grumbling while I was toasty, and with quarter of an hour to go, a mate started shivering with a load of layers on and so I ended up lending it to him. I was fine for that amount of time with my ski jacket. The great thing is that when you move somewhere warmer, you don't have to remove and stash a load of layers - just switch it off. Nice and lightweight too. For me, I've a more social problem as I always meet people in the pub on a Friday - and none of them are Scots never mind Rangers fans. It takes me half an hour to cycle there, and so I think I'm going to have to go to the pub and sit in a corner ignoring everyone while I watch it on my phone, and then join in at about 9:20. Trouble is that in England, most people tend to go home by 11 on a Friday (well around my age anyway). Lightweights! The trouble is I can't record it or watch it on demand. If Rangers TV ever becomes fit for purpose, please let me know.

I don't think I know enough about whoever is quoted to understand that...

I'm not sure what the argument is here, but it seems logical for only citizens of a country to be able vote in general elections as they have shown a full vested interest and declared loyalty to the nation. If you want to vote in a country you just have to become a citizen. Even when you think about it, what would stop say Russia, sending a load of people to a constituency and electing a candidate sympathetic to their cause? Local elections are not so sensitive or powerful, and more about what's going on where you live, and so people should be able to vote for them even if they are not citizens as long as they have been resident long enough. Of course, if you are an EU citizen, you should be able to vote for that parliament no matter where you are in the union.

I think this sounds good as I think one of the main reasons for it is to increase the shareholding and therefore control for King-co to marginalise Green-co. It's not detracting to this and indeed within the board's interest to allow the largest supporters group to maintain their shareholding. It also has the added bonus of injecting money into the company from the fans group without being in any way beholden to them as would be with a loan - which was previously rejected. This would put slightly less of a burden on King to meet the income shortfall for this season. It seems win-win all round except for Green-co. In addition it will also put King-co in a position to raise funds by a further open share issue while remaining in full control.

Only partially agree as it will affect the stats for how long you were on the site. But I suppose it's hits that count the most.