calscot

In fact, looking at that, I'd probably bring on Novo for Wier and moving Fergie back to replace Dailly. With the personnel we have, we don't need Hemdani to play barring an injury. I don't think the guy is motivated at the moment and his form is poor.

Weir has had amazing powers of recovery for his age. He's hardly missed a game when we probably expected him to play about half of them. It's a huge boost and with the final tantalisingly close, it seems worth the risk to give him an hour. Putting Dailly in midfield instead of Hemdani might improve things there and the latter could come on in the second half for Weir with Dailly moving back. With Fergie and Thommo back, Davis is sure to start on the right in place of Novo, who could come on as an impact player. Cousin or Darche up front is a hard choice. Both have played well from the start lately and ironically both have been poor when subbed on. I'd give Darche the nod as he did really well in the first leg and they fear him now. With Whittaker on the left, the rest of the team picks itself. I would predict: ________Alexander________ Broadfoot Cuellar Wier Papac _______Dailly Thomson_____ __Davis Ferguson Whittaker__ ________Darcheville________ Subs to come on: Cousin Hemdani Novo

If Barca finish 2nd in the league, then it's ok for them to win it. We need Liverpool out... However, I think we're safe as Scotland are 10th in the rankings. It's the 12th place that should be worrying.

We shouldn't jump the gun, true. But I still condemn the way some people think that it's big to noise up a "celebrity" and I wouldn't be surprised if it went further. Plenty of our players have had their cars or homes vandalised, so I condemn any Rangers fan that does the same to our opposition.

I think the thing with Hutton is that we all seemed to think his value rocketed 5M after one good year - the 9M for what we thought was a 5M player was just too good to turn down. Now Cuellar looks like a 10M player from the start. To put him in the same scenario would mean that 18M would be too much to turn down. Part of the aspect too was the suspicion that Hutton might be just having a purple patch which could end before the summer knocking his value down again - whereas Cuellar looks a lot more consistent and a safer bet. There is also the timing. At the Hutton offer we'd spent 10.5M on players which in reality we couldn't afford and it was going to affect our future transfer budget for a few years. Hutton's sale, pretty much wiped out the deficit and since then we've made a fair bit from Europe. That puts us in a much better position where we can turn down good money for players and build a team. We now have a good budget again in the summer for adding the final pieces of the jigsaw plus the usual staff turnover. I think that Hutton will be easier to replace than Cuellar - and Whittaker was already considered the heir apparent. I think we can find or develop another decent right back, whereas we can't afford to replace Cuellar with anyone that come close to his ability. He's the best we've had for a long time, and better than players such as Amorusso. The spine of the team is always more pivotal than the extremities.

I think since we sold Hutton, we don't need the money. The thing is 9m was more attractive than keeping Hutton, whereas keeping Cuellar is more attractive than receiving 10M. He's a more important player and one we should try to keep for the long term - if we can. I would turn down 15M for him as I think he's that important.

Football is a squad game, if you can't cope with that, you need another job. Or go play for a pishy team in a lower league where you always get picked. Hemdani has shown he did not have the mettle to play every game. Smith saw this and acted accordingly. The likes of Cuellar has shown that if you are really that good, you get picked every game. Hemdani just wasn't good enough, period. If he's like what you describe, then the guy needs to get an operation to remove his head from his arse. Any player is frustrated about not playing every game, but it's how you cope with it that shows your character and professionalism. There is no club in the world as big as Rangers who will pick Hemdani every week and I can't foresee him winning much if he leaves or playing in the CL much either. Most likely, he'll fight a relegation battle in England and then leave for a French team from the bottom half of the table.

Amorrusso may have shown more passion but Numan still showed did have passion for the club and country. Hemdani never showed us any such thing.

I agree with this, but there is also a growing mentality whereby people think because someone is a celebrity that they don't like, they can treat them like shit - and do stuff like attacking them or vandalising their property. It's more-so in the younger generations but not surprising when you see parents take their kids along to the games and proceed to abuse opposition players on the park. The youngsters are taught to abuse players from a young age and will therefore be primed to take it further. There is also the mentality in society today, where the guy who attacked McGeady will actually get a load of Kudos when he boasts about it, when really he should be frowned upon and derided. We can't complain about Celtic fans' behaviour if ours do the same and I'm gutted someone let the side down. I thought we were people because we didn't lower ourselves to that sort of thing. Today, WATP has a very hollow ring to it.

I'd put him behind Dailly too. I always think that a player who can't cope with being picked for certain games, and not for others, must lack proper professionalism. It's not like he's had to warm the bench that much, he's had plenty of games this season, especially in Europe, where you think he'd be happier playing. What kind of player complains of getting of being picked against Barca and then getting dropped for Kilmarnock? I've always felt he was never quite settled in Scotland and so I never really warmed to him. He's just too mercenary. I prefer players like Cuellar and Dado who show great enthusiasm for the club and the country they live in.

Thing is, even if no-one is offended, if he is not punished, it opens the door for players to wear t-shirts saying anything they like. And if Boruc feels we've not reacted enough, what will he wear next time to get a rise? It's a poor precedent for the SPL to set if he doesn't get punished and opens the door for all sorts of controversy. It's far easier to ban all slogans than to argue about which are allowed and which aren't - hence the wisdom behind the FIFA directive. I find it ironic that Celtic fans don't seem to see a problem with his t-shirt but complain when we play in a tangerine shirt... Or when Gazza plays the flute, or even when we put a tartan pattern in the grass. Biggest hypocrites on Earth.

Barca for me. An English team wining is a bit like the Tims winning. They become unbearably up their own arses about football.

We need Cuellar, but I don't think we need Smith.

Read Hemdani has changed agents to try and get a move down south. I've been doubting his motivation this season and it's now becoming plain. If we could get a million or so for him then I'd grab it. He's had plenty of games - especially considering his performance level, but just doesn't seem to have much appetite for the cause. The club seem to have been good to him, the fans have been good to him, he's now starting to win stuff but it doesn't seem to be enough for him. He's starting to remind me of Negri with his sullen attitude. To be honest, I won't be very sorry to see him go - I'd just like a bit of cash to spend on a younger and hungrier replacement. Another one for the annual clear out.

The one's who attacked McGeady bring shame on the rest of us. It's crap that just because you're a footballer that you can't go out for a drink and enjoy yourself. The second incident sounds like they are just making it up. The guy was a Celtic fan so it must be about football. Most guys support some team, so does that mean that any fracas is about football? I've been attacked when I was younger, I'm a Rangers fan, does that mean it must have been Celtic fans attacking me? Unless they have real evidence they should leave the conclusions open and the reporters should not report mere speculation. Maybe he was attacked by fellow Celtic fans for saying that Boruc is a twat... See, it's easy to just make it up.

This is also driving up the price and I can see us avoiding getting into a bidding war. We just can't afford it. For 4M I would have to hope that he improves with time as he's not really playing �£4M football right now, even though he's playing well. He's no Van Bronkhurst, Albertz or Gazza. I don't think he's even achieved the level of 2.5M Reyna.

The level of his ambition is another factor.

What ARE you on about? They're both football competitions aren't they? For the seedings of the CL to have any integrity they would have to be able to be applied to any level of football - and any sport or game from swimming to tiddlywinks. Fair seeding does not depend on the game or on the level of skill; it's a principle in it's own right. That's why in most sports, you don't get the highest seeding for just wining the last competition. I thought my point was a very clear and obvious one that should be easy to assimilate to the CL - but in your haste to defend your own point with a complete non-argument, it's sailed right over your head. I'm sorry, but a rhetorical, "but this is different" repost is a pretty poor answer. If you really think the CL is different in some strange way then tell us how it is different, and why different seeding methods apply - and by doing so you might make a REAL point.

On a one off yes, but that could just means a purple patch. Gretna got to the Scottish cup final last season, does that mean they should have been seeded above Rangers? It's about how good you are over five seasons and as I've shown, quite right too.

No, and I'm not sure that it should.

Journalists are for some reason clueless about the rankings. Have a look at: http://www.xs4all.nl/~kassiesa/bert/uefa/ which is a great site about the subject and gets updated minutes after the games have finished. The rankings for teams are calculated by added the totals for the last five years. You get two points for a win, one point for a draw and a series of bonus points for getting to milestones in the competition: 3 for qualifying for the CL even if it's automatic then 1 for each of the quarter/semi/final and winning the thing. The points are the same for both comps and qualifying rounds don't count. You also get a third of your country ranking added on. So it is not the most representative and rewards lots of wins. A team could get further in a competition than an other by winning and losing but going through on aggregate but still have less points due to the other team winning home and away in quite a few rounds before going out on aggregate. You could scrape to the last 16 of the CL every year and be trounced in the rankings by a team who gets to the last 8 in the UEFA every year. Celtic collected about 15 points this year while we've alread got 21. If we'd won all our UEFA games, that would have been another 6.5 points. Everton are out, didn't qualify for the CL but have gained about 22-23 points. It's a flawed system but I think they are trying to keep it reasonably simple.

Won a lot of games over the last 5 years and got to the semi most years.

PS Last year Celtic were 24th and we were 45th so we've pretty much swapped places due to them losing their run to the final and us putting in a run to the semi. Art Media hurts them too while our Zhizkov no longer counts.

We're now 24th in the rankings which obviously guarantees us a 3rd pot place if we get to the CL. However, as things stand around Europe, we're potentially 17th for the teams that qualify for the CL so if one of the few in the qualifiers slips up, we could possibly be in pot 2. So barring bad luck we should have an easier group than this season where we pretty much had the hardest task on paper of any team in the competition. PS Celtic are now 42nd, but ironically could rise to about 38th if we continue to progress. I would guess they will go into the 4th pot if they qualify. We start next year at 22nd place while Celtic start at 52nd! Chelsea are now the top ranking team in Europe... but Liverpool will start next season on top.

Perhaps you should find their fan site and tell them. Could be good to forge relations with a few foreign teams. I seen a video clip on the Herald website which showed how we welcomed the fans to Glasgow at the airport - it was class. There was a piper in a kilt and Rangers top with a load of babes doing a highland fling with red white and blue pompoms. I think it really put a smile on their faces and made them feel welcome. They'll certainly be telling the folks back home. Made me proud to be a Rangers fan. It's something we should make ourselves famous for - a great, friendly welcome, but providing a loud and intimidating atmosphere at the stadium - and of course a load of bonhomie after the match.