calscot

Good post. I think there is an attraction to the romantic idea that some players, "didn't get a chance," when it's rarely true. At Rangers if you don't take the chances you get, then you can find yourself replaced very quickly. We are not patient fans nor a patient club - and rightly so. If you don't hit the ground running then you're probably not good enough for a club with our ambitions.

Walter Smith is doing more than the minimum at the moment, and if you compare him to a very successful French manager, it looks likes he knows his stuff - and his players. If I remember rightly, in the 9IAR years, Rangers were accused of grinding out results while Celtic were supposedly playing the nice stuff. However, who wants Tommy Burns as manager?

Personally can't remember how many goals as it was so long ago, but soccerbase gives it at 11 goals. Starts (subs) goals League 9 (13) 5 FA Cup 2 (1) 1 League cup 2 (3) 4 Other 4 (4) 1

PS Walter even commented that he seemed to have been replaced by his non-footballing, identical twin brother...

Van Vossen was a brilliant player for us for about his first 10 games. He was then never the same after that miss...

I think Broadfoot is a not bad player, but he starts to look wanting while playing out of position at European level. He's certainly no Hutton. I'd prefer Whittaker to play there and so hope he's fit soon, but he also needs to raise his game to Huttonesque levels. Compensation could come in the form of Smith on the left - if he recapture his form from before his injury...

I thought 6 was generous for Boyd - he's not doing much to answer his critics and Novo has been far more effective (and actually finished for once! ) Adam is getting worse with every game and surely Naismith is a better bet there? McCulloch might be the first choice on the left but he's been out of sorts lately too... It wasn't a vintage performance although I think we shaded the plaudits in both games and deserved to go through against a team fairly comparible with the OF. I'm hoping we can improve the team against Bremen with the return of Whittaker, Thomson and of course Darche in the second leg. A bonus could be the return of the "'Smith on the right', on the left" if you get my drift. Weir is looking tired and incredibly slow and you have to wonder whether Webster could be a better bet in the latter stages of the competition. However, I can't see many managers breaking up a pretty successful and established, central defensive partnership. At least Dailly looks like he might be able to do a cover job. What's happened to Hemdani? He was a much better player when he was only getting a game in the CL... Anyway, the three players I'd like to see replaced in the next round are Broadfoot, Davies and Adam. And whisper it, but I'd probably want Boyd dropped too...

It's easy to beat Grieg's record when you can be a mediocre European team and still get 12 games in Europe a season. Used to be it took 7 games to win the title... Well done, but it doesn't mean much when comparing to the past legends...

Normally I'd want Celtic too win but this time can't be bothered with their childish and hysterical oneupmanship if they do...

Didn't ours cost twice as much?

Actually the next time someone says that Rangers would get relegated from the EPL, check their team doesn't have undersoil heating and if it doesn't, inform them that their team would not qualify for entry into the SPL... Only Mickey mouse leagues don't have undersoil heating...

Forgot about that...

Why so few traveling Rangers fans? You'd think that the sunny climes of Greece would be attractive at this time of year... Saying that it's a bad time for myself to take leave and I'm sure it's the same for many others.

Can't see him getting a call up quite yet. The SPL isn't going to be on the radar much back home and he's now out of the CL. If we can progress to the latter stages of the UEFA cup then he may get noticed again, but it's not looking too likely right now. I think he still needs to up his game a bit at Rangers to be considered for a Spanish call up. He's been good for us, but not yet exactly world class as would befit a team made up from the likes of Barca and Real M.

While I don't want to be sycophantic to Murray, you have to admit he's woken up on quite a few fronts and much of what he is saying is encouraging. The turnover of 33M in the first half of the year is excellent considering we have eschewed about 25M per year in turnover by franchising our retail, catering and ticketing. Well probably about 19M when you subtract the actual net profit that we receive. To the layman it looks to be the case that if we post a yearly turnover of plausibly 64M (including the 11M from the sales of Hutton and Cousin), then when compared to Celtic, our "equivalent" turnover (adjusting for retail etc) could be about 83M. Celtic posted 75M last year... So it looks rather good, although the Hutton money makes a big difference. However, Celtic sold quite a few players last year including Petrov for about 6M. To get back to Murray, he seems to be reflecting a lot of opinions of the more astute fans and the Ibrox redevelopment sounds like a good long term move. We're averaging about 96% capacity in the stadium which makes it fair to predict that a fair amount of season tickets would be taken up if the stadium was expanded somewhat - providing the quality of the seating and view were up to scratch. Dhim Celtic fans point out that we need to fill our stadium every game before thinking about expanding but this is nonsense. At 96-98% capacity means that all that is left is the very poorest seats with the worst views, as well as some allowance for segregation. With more prime seats on offer, there is sure to be take up. Besides if we had a 60k stadium averaging 55k then it's easier to make the decision to travel and buy at the gate. There are still many issues to be sorted out, but we seem to be on a much better road now than we have been for the last few years, when SDM was way off the mark with his direction.

This is just the kind of analysis we need to debunk the Celtic minded propaganda. Well done Frankie.

Boyd had a chance to prove Smith wrong on Sunday but ended up proving him right IMHO. He didn't do much in the game at all apart from a couple of flick ons and scoring a penalty. He didn't even make up for it by scoring in open play. Boyd really needs to improve if he wants to push for a first pick in the team - especially in the areas he is most criticised for. There is no way he can play the lone striker's role.

Hot and cold balls for Man U and Chelski?

No, Rangers are better than Bayern as we beat Aberdeen and they could only draw. Obviously Pana are better than Bayern too but equal to Rangers. Dundee Utd were better than Barca at one point as they beat Rangers and the Gers drew with Barca. So now St Mirren are better than Barca as they beat Dundee Utd. Rangers are also better than Milan as we beat Celtic who beat Milan which means St Mirren are better than Milan. But then we beat St Mirren so we're the best again. Basically you can see that that type of logic is just silly.

It could be argued that the JJB deal is good as we're supposed to be getting the same profit every year, GUARANTEED in what is expected to be a declining market. Could you explain in what way that CFC are getting their books in order as I'd be interested to know? They have a much bigger turnover, but I've already explained about that and we can't help the fact that they qualified for the CL and we didn't - that's about what happens on the park, NOT keeping the books in order. When we qualified for the last 16 the year before, we were 18th and they were nowhere after crashing out in the 2nd qualifier; were our books in order then? Were their's? Were they extolling how superior that Rangers were on their message boards? I don't think so. So basically knee jerk reactions to arbitrary news that none of the reporters understand one iota, never mind the fans who are informed by the ignorant, are not going to do us any good If Celtic's books are better than ours (which is hard to tell as they don't publish them for free on the internet like Rangers do - as well as the fact I'm a Rangers shareholder and not Celtic) then it will be mostly for the following reasons: 1. They took a gamble on building a cheaper larger stadium at a time of increased attendances whereas we rebuilt our stadium at a low point in the 80's and did not forsee having to increase it - or the Taylor report. We revamped ours in a quality way but the capicty means our average attendance is about 8000 less than their's. That could bring in about �£4M a year more gate revenue than us. The board is now looking at how to close that gap. 2. Recently they have been more successful than us on the pitch and in qualifying for the CL and especially the last 16. That brings in quite a few millions more in revenue. But this could be starting to change as we're starting to qualify for the CL more often. 3. Their fans have put their hands in their pockets for I think, three large share issues. Our fans raise a million or so on our share issue - however the pre-Christmas timing was terrible (and affected my decision to buy any). 4. They've sold quite a few players recently for decent money compared to us (except Boumsong) whereas we paid a few player off instead - although that again is changing with Hutton and Cousin. Appart from that, I don't really know what else Celtic are doing better than Rangers unless someone wants to enlighten us. The stuff I've mentioned does seem to be changing again either in our favour to to be more equal.

We've pretty much opted ourselves out of this list as it's a list of top turnovers. We've contracted out our retailing, ticketing and catering, which reduces our turnover by over �£20m. It has therefore shrunk our turnover from about 64M to 44M with Celtic posting �£75M due to the CL and of course, not contracting out. Now the interesting thing is that although our turnover is reduced and therefore our gross income, our net income is pretty much the same and also very low risk. We don't have to pay for premises, staff, equipment, logistics etc. So it shows that while we have reduced our turnover it is arguable that our finances are actually healthier and more stable and we are concentrating on football operations where our expertise is supposed to reside, rather than our attention being diverted as a shop or burger stall. Therefore, you have to question what relevance pure turnover is as a financial metric to grade football teams...? From what I understand more used metric is the Gross margin percentage which has probably increased due to contracting out. So while this rich list is an interesting aside to football, it is not something to get duly excited or worried over. And remember, just because Celtic post a turnover of about 30M more than us, does not automatically mean they have any more money to spend...

EPL is now only about money... They've completely sold out and one wonders what could happen to the clubs if the demand for TV dwindles and Sky pull out...

I'm sorry, but you must have gone for a pint every time Rangers went up the pitch... "Rangers didn't attack" - totally and utterly untrue! Just what game were you watching? I'm I the only person who thought Novo could easily have had a hatrick, if not more? Davis had a great shot saved, McCulloch and Cousin were both unlucky with headers etc, etc?

I still think the point people are missing is that while we didn't score it wasn't from the want of trying; the multitude of near misses provides evidence of that. That seems to be ignored and people seem to be changing history by saying we didn't attack. The truth is we attacked a lot of the time but we didn't score. I'm sure if you look at the stats for possession, territory, shots on goal and off, they will back my premise that it wasn't as defensive a game as most seem to remember. A 0-0 draw isn't brilliant, but there is no way we played for it. Again for me the problem was a combination of lack of killer edge in front of goal and a bit of poor luck, rather than a negative game plan. Like I say, Aberdeen are being praised for attacking when they were far less attacking than Rangers. It's double standards. Bears seem to be having a moan at Rangers these days without really being fair to the team or the manager. I'm actually shocked at the undue criticism for a very solid team when after the last 4 years, we've absolutely no right to expect a Barcelona type of football. The criticism for Eck and Le Guen was justified, but we seem to have got into a habit of criticising and are now doing so when its not justified at all. We've been crap for about 4 years including when we last won the league and now we have a team that can win quite a bit all within our own hands. I just don't get what all the hoo-ha is about. And I get agitated when people seem blind to the actual game just because of the score and the fact the line up wasn't to their taste. I have arguments all the time with the Tims on the Scotsman site, as they are perpetually casting a shadow over everything Rangers do, but now I seem to be doing it here too. The negativity is no longer on the pitch, it's now in the stands.

PS A clean sheet is far more important at home in Europe due to a wee rule called the "away goals rule".