calscot

I've been one of Murray's bigger critics, so you don't have to explain to me that he isn't always right. However, in the last year, I think he's improved immeasurably from the previous 7 years and made some decent decisions, starting with bringing WS back and continuing with the decent amount of spending in the summer. Many fans can now see him do no right in their eyes and are very quick to criticise. I'm a believer of criticising when it's justified and giving credit where it's due. In this case it's a complex and ambivalent decision and I personally think Murray could have been more criticised for not selling Hutton, than selling him. It is not IMHO a decision even slightly worthy of so much derision and more of a case of the head ruling the heart. There is no guarantee that a similar offer would be forthcoming in the summer or that Hutton would not get injured. In fact, according to WS, prices are inflated at this time of year, which is why the deal is so good. It's not too long since we were talking about being happy to accept 5M for Hutton. I think the decision has helped the medium to long term future of success on the field for our club as well as helping towards financial stability. If WS gets half the money in summer plus the usual 3-4M budget plus any other player sales (ie 5.5M + 3M + say 1.5M = 10M; then 5.5M plus any CL profit to lower the debt - say 4.5M = 10M) then I for one will be pretty excited for next season.

Don't know how to take this as I thought it was common knowledge that we accepted 8M up front with 2M of add ons. That makes 10M to me...

I think the crux of it is that people are now criticising Murray no matter what he does. If he didn't sell Hutton he'd be accused of not looking after the money and putting the club into unnecessary debt. If I was in Murray's place I'd have bitten Spurs hand off for 10M for Hutton and personally booted him out the door myself. We'd be crazy not to accept that offer and I think the reaction has definitely been OTT. It will be impossible to prove how much affect his sale will have on our fortunes this season, but Hutton's prevarication has contributed to the lack of a replacements - and by replacements I mean a LEFT back to replace Whittaker and a striker to possibly replace Cousin - and that is the real danger. We have weakened our first team in the short term but I'm sure the money will eventually be spent to improve it in the long term. Without player sales we would have very little budget this summer as we basically spend at least two years player transfer money in the last year. We sold a high performing player in Boumsong a few years ago and the money played a big part in us winning the league. This year we are not so desperate to spend immediately, but I bet Walter will strengthen in the summer for next season, when for the first time in ages, we will not need to completely rebuild the squad.

Amdy Faye as a stand out? There must surely be an oxymoron there... Maybe he wasn't deemed good enough to lace anyone's boots in the changing room and so had to stand out-side?

The annoying thing is that if he stays, we'll have lost him for the last few games for nothing. FIFA are being absolutely pathetic with their timeliness. Just how long does it take to make a decision about 20 minutes of play?

PS I always said we were doing the wrong thing lately - buying high and selling low, now we're buying low and selling high, it seems like we might be financially stable from now on.

In an age where players think of themselves and money way before loyalty, I really have to doubt that Hutton was a die hard Rangers fan who didn't want to leave. He may not have wanted to leave but that was because it didn't suit him at the time, and if rumours are to be believed it's because he thought Man Utd would bid for him in the summer. Whatever the reasons, I'd be pretty confident that they were in his own self- interest and nobody else's. By delaying things he's upped his wage by about 650k a year and if rumours are again true he's also received a 1M golden handshake. I don't think he has much to complain about except that his only suitor was not as big or "winning" club as he'd like. I'm sure he'd prefer a team that regularly play in the CL and challenge for the league. When you consider that none of these teams put in a bid and that he has been compensated with earnings beyond my personal wildest dreams, I will not shed much of a tear for his so called poor treatment. SDM has his faults and has been lambasted for not selling players for millions when he could and then getting nothing. A case in point is Laudrup where he turned down 5M for him to play one more season due to the fans love for him. Laudrup played poorly that season and we lost the league. Murray admitted it was a huge mistake that he wouldn't repeat and most of us agreed that we should learn from it. Well, here is the application of that lesson and the sooner we decide whether we want to spend ourselves into debt or be actually astute with our money, the better. Make up your minds guys.

Huistra is still missing though...

Glad to see Rod Wallace is eventually mentioned. Not a big name, but he was an excellent performer for us.

How about Frank de Boer in central defence with Butcher? I think I also prefer Cuellar to Amo...

am could be "Amplitude Modulation"...

The post was mostly numbers, or was it mathematical or computer code? "sign" is a function which returns 1 for a +ve number, 0 for 0 and -1 for a -ve number. "or" is a logical operator 1, 2 and 12 are obviously numbers. b4 is hexadecimal for 180. Not sure about the "am sure we" bit...

Thing is, I agree with Beattie. We should all at least put in the minimum effort to communicate well with each other or what's the point in posting? Writing like that is very annoying to read - and potentially embarrassing if we get non-Bears on here who then judge us by some of the writing. Or worse, non-Scots who judge us by it. Poor writing like that just makes the author look like someone who can't articulate a point, and as such, why should we listen to them or pander to them? It doesn't take much effort to keep your posts reasonably legible without it having to be Higher standard. If it's too hard for anyone, then they really should think about going back to school. Scotland has one of the best free education systems in the world: maybe some people should try it... PS I think the quality of much of the postings on here are some of the best on net.

Don't think undersoil heating can do much about the rain except maybe speed up the drying out process - but with the amount of rain we're having, using it is probably ineffective and a waste of thousands of pounds. It's drainage that's important there but unless the soil has a chance to dry out, even the best drainage isn't going to help. Covers might help but they have to drain the water somewhere and there is still the ground water coming in from the surrounding area.

Whittaker taking on the mantle of Hutton wasn't too inspiring last night. Maybe he was trying too hard, but he often lost the ball and his passing was rarely picked up by a team-mate. I would have given him about a 5 for last night. Adam's distribution was also a bit woeful and his first touch really needs working on. I'd probably give him 6. Weir could do with clearing his headers better - higher and further. Looking at the Hearts penalty claim: while Cuellar shouldn't have touched him, the Hearts man diving into the penalty box was pure simulation. He felt the attentions of the Spaniard and launched himself. If it was a foul, then it was outside the box, but if it was a foul, then Burkie is owed about 20 free kicks and a couple of penalties. Due to the cheats in the game, if you go down too easily you get nothing, Burke suffers for that and last night was a dodgier example. The Darcheville penalty claim looked far more substantial, as he was sandwiched by the defenders. Perhaps the ref thought he was trying too hard to get a penalty. Our second claim for a penalty looked like a stonewaller and I can only assume the referee did not see it. It was a clear, deliberate hand ball which stopped the ball getting through to Weir and so definitely gave an advantage. In contrast, Bazza's handball was purely accidental and he gained no advantage. He was fending off the attentions of a defender and the ball bounced high and touched his arm. I don't think anyone can claim it was deliberate hand ball to gain and advantage and as such, I can't see how it was a foul. In the end if the ref gave everthing, we'd have had a goal chalked off, two penalties and Hearts would have had a free kick on the left side of the box. So looking at it that way, we were actually hard done by assuming we'd have scored the penalties.

I once seen an under 15 Scotland v Rep Ireland match at Rugby Park about 27 years ago - you weren't playing were you? Scotland won 3-0.

PS A country large, rich, footballing nation like England having a foreign manager is an absolute disgrace and embarrassment.

I like Butcher but would rather have 100% Scots from top to bottom. Only countries without much of a football pedigree should need the help of outsiders - and as we invented international football, we shouldn't need any outside help.

Are you saying we have to chant every day at Miller time?

Is hoping you never need to claim on your car insurance stupid?

I think one thing that makes WS such a good manager and leader is that he'll play whatever team he feels is the strongest for a given game without worrying about who's ego he hurts. Not only that he seems to be able to do it without overly upsetting anyone. Only small fry managers are worried about walking on eggshells or stepping on toes. I think the team can do without any cutting off of noses to spite our face.

It was obvious that Smith wasn't going to spend much in this window, he really pushed the boat out in the last. When you blow all your wage in the first weekend after you get paid, you have to be a bit tighter for the rest of the month. Since he got here, he has signed: Carroll Smith Whittaker Wier Ehiogu Cuellar Webster Broadfoot Beasley Thomson Faye McCulloch Gow Cousin Darcheville Naismith That's a fair few and at sometime you have to consolidate. With the fees from Hutton and Cousin, he should be off spending again in the summer.

I'd like to see him being replaced by Larsson with 1.5M pocketed for spending in the summer. Cousin did well for us but he's not the most motivated and I can't see him being very effective if what little motivation he had is completely gone. He now seems like a busted flush. If he goes we definitely need someone to lead the line in the UEFA cup if Darche is going to be banned for three games. Each round is probably worth about 2M, so I hope we're not too blas�© about our squad.

Totally disagree with the sentiment on here. I'll listen to Walter Smith's opinion on a player before anyone on here. I might not be excited by some of his signings but he's sitting top of the league and still in all competitions. There is a lot of ageism on here and yet Walter's "vets" have trounced Le Guen's young guns. It's not even that old a team: here's my approximation of the ages: MacGregor 25 Whittaker 22 Wier 37 Cuellar 25 Papac 29 Hemdani 29 Thomson 22/Adam 21 Ferguson 30 Burke 24 Darcheville 32 Naismith 21 An average of under 26 which becomes about 24.5 if you take out Weir as an outlier. I've always said that if you are unorthodox and succeed, you look like a genius, but if you fail you look like an idiot. However, it follows that if you are orthodox and succeed you show great wisdom. So Le Guen is the idiot and Smith is the wise man. There is not many decent pros you can bring in to cover a multitude of positions on not too high a salary, and with someone who won't complain about warming the bench. Walter spent about 12M in the summer and pretty much built a winning team, just think what he could do this summer, with a good team already in place and about 10M to enhance it... In the meantime we need a stop gap insurance policy, on which I hope we will never make a claim. Walter has performed miracles in the last year, I for one am not yet ready to slag him off about how he does his job.

I for one think that in the past, Rangers have made many financial mistakes, and can assure you, if this was my money at stake, I'd want to cash in on the 10M rather than risk the play getting crocked. It's just too good to refuse and equivalent to about two or three years of player transfer fee budgets. I can't have seen us turn down that kind of money even during NIAR. The player is going to get a huge pay rise and if he does as well as predicted could move to a bigger club in a few years for an even bigger fee. He'll be able to show what he can do as a first pick for a reasonably big Premiership club and also have a better choice of house and nightlife than Manchester. We overspent in the summer and either pay it back by hardly spending in the next few years, or keep a good budget by decent player sales. It all makes sense to me.