calscot

O'Neil, Strachan and Smith have shown you can go a long way with a less than fantastic team if you make them play together and for each other. That's something we've lacked for a few years but should have next season.

Not to mention Whittaker who is still there.

PS Can you imagine what Hibs could be like with the following in their team?: Caldwell Murray Brown Thomson Riordan Killen O'Connor Any others?

Sno - N'Daiye? Both pants, give it to Sno. Beattie - Sebo? Hard to tell, both promising but don't deliver. Draw. Can't think of any more players apart from O'Dea who's probably better than our untried equivalent. But to be honest, I think Rangers actually shade it, which is bourne out by the WS form and beating them twice. So to me it's now all about the summer signings, how they play and improvement/decline in current players next season.

Nakamura - Burke? Burke has again been slow to recover from yet another injury while Nakamura although over-hyped compared to Adam has been a much better right midfielder. McGeady - Adam? McGeady can show flashes of brilliance but his terrible inconsistency must have Celts pulling their hair out. Adam is a bit inconsistent too, but has performed to a higher level than the Irishman on far more occasions. Gravesen - Hemdani? No contest the gers player of the year wins hands down. Lennon - Ferguson? Ferguson has had an up and down season while Lennon seems to only have downs in between mediocrity. Fergie easily wins. Hartley - Thomson? The former Jambo has been poor since his transfer while the former Hibee has steadily improved. Thomson wins. Jarosik - Rae? Rae hasn't been spectacular except maybe spectacularly mediocre, but that's enough to be better than a complete joke of a Celtic player. Riordan - Sionko? Derek has hardly played yet looked good when he did. Sionko played a lot and looked terrible. The former Hibee wins. Zurawski - Buffel? Both have been poor this season, but I think Buffel is a better player when playing well so he gets it.

Naylor - Smith? Naylor has been very consistent last season but can't match the all-round wing back play of Smith who will go on to be a far superior player. Smith's injury unfortunately limited his effectiveness last season. Wilson - Murray? Much of a muchness, Murray wasn't as good as previous seasons so Wilson maybe shades it. Doumbe - Papac? The Celt had a slow start and I haven't seen him lately but he did score in the cup final didn't he? At the moment I think Papac has shown more.

I think we've shown that the only things that Celtic had better than us for last season, was a bit of pride and determination to win. Their squad is hardly more talented. Buroc - MacGregor? Pretty even but MacGregor had far more clean sheets and let in less goals, so I say he gets it. Brown - Klos? No contest, Klos every time. Telfer - Hutton? Hutton was probably the best right back in the country while Telfer was punted. Pressley - Weir? Pressley may be a few years younger but Weir was the best centre back in the country and Pressley hasn't impressed since his switch. Caldwell - Ehiogu? Caldwell is ok but had a nightmare start and is big a bombscare as Ehiogu. I think the Celtic player only just shades it. McManus - Webster? They both show great promise while also having the inconsistency of youth. McManus maybe gets it due to Webster's injury. Balde - Svensson? Both were terrible last season but I'd much rather have the Swede.

I got Kirk Broadfoot's name mixed up and called him Kirkwood... I think Robinson is actually English...

PS Makes you wonder when we're impressed with Arsenal's cast offs... We used to be a much, much bigger club than them.

I was recently sorry to see us get rid of Ashikodi, Carcary and N'Guessan. All looked promising. Ponroy and Stanger also never made it. I'm still wondering what happened to Chris Vinecombe - "the future England captain" !!! One of our own, Stevie MacLean is doing really well.

We might sign Naismith and McCulloch too...

On the bench we also have: Lowing Kirkwood Murray Shinnie Gow

Cheers guys, thanks for the support...

West Ham are now demanding 4M for Konchenski...

We may not be able to afford £4 but that does not mean we're stupid enough pay it if we could. That's a ridiculous fee - £1m tops is his worth. The article does remind me that the English really use the word, "tight" where we use something like, "no mug". Oh well, they'll have an unhappy player on their books and we'll get someone else for 1M. Their loss. PS it's funny how they think their Scottish Internationalist is worth 4M but then they think a Rangers team full of Scottish internationals has no-one worth the same...

Regarding the lower leagues, why DO we have 4 leagues? OK we need to concentrate the talent in the SPL and maximise attendances. But it's not so necessary for the teams in the other leagues to play each other 4 times each. OK maybe an SPL 2 is necessary but the rest of the teams are much of a muchness and could benefit from playing say 21 different teams rather than 9 or 11. I suppose double the promotion and relegation spices things up a bit... However there could be automatic relegation from the lowest division with promotion from the Highland and regional leagues. And also introduce playoffs for promotion to SPL2, like in England. That should happen in the SPL2 to SPL1 as well. We need to relegate one team automatically and then put the second bottom in play offs with the 2nd to 4th in SPL2. That would generate more end of season interest and importantly more income too.

I think Dunfermline rich vein of form in the closing stages is evidence that the threat of relegation motivates teams. They had the best results in the league over the last 6 games.

Frazer is 100% right. When you qualify for the top half you cannot finish lower than 6th. 7th place finishing with more points than 6th is to be expected and normal since 6th has to play the top 5 teams and 7th has to play the bottom 5, so nothing remarkable there. The split is a huge compromise to expand the league to 12 - a stupid concession in the first place. However is it best to have a 10 team league where everyone plays everyone 4 times without much interest in the mid-table, or an 18 team league where attendances and income are low with loads of meaningless and boring games eg St Mirren (11th) against Hamilton (14th). The split is highly flawed but it does create some much needed drama in the latter stages of the league. The only way to improve things is to have an Atlantic league. I think teams like Dundee and Dundee Utd merging would help. The joke this year was the poor seedings which ruined the symmetry of the fixtures. I think picking the top 6 was easy this year... I agree that the cup runners up should not qualify for Europe. But outwith the OF the SPL teams are almost always so bad in Europe it won't make much difference...

To be fair to Smith, he inherited a bunch of slackers...

Last 2 seasons - 3rd and 2nd out of 12 - well above average. Last 16 of CL and UEFA. Well above average for Rangers. Above average players means you should finish 6th or higher, but it does not guarantee you'll finish first or do well outside the SPL. The proof of the pudding pretty much shows we're well above average... All of the players you mention were above average, some of them not much above average but above, nevertheless. BTW Gow is second top for assists in the league, Naismith is second top scorer. Hardly average sounding to me. Unless you take a different meaning of "average" than most. I usually think of the "mean" or "median".

I didn't know they used to have a different brand of hairspray but I'm sure the players will be more confident if their hair looks good... Get that Harmony installed.

The best thing is that we are now 0pts behind Celtic who won the SPL with the least points by miles since the split was introduced six years ago.

Like I said, with 8M to spend, we can't blow over half of it on a top class keeper when we have one that has performed as well as any in the league. I think our record of keeper signings in the last 20 years, along with good goalkeeping coaches has finally resulted in us producing some of the best goalies around. MacGregor is the best of that bunch and has done nothing to suggest he won't be a great stopper. In my opinion he's been better than Waterreus and Letizi and hasn't made the recent gaffs that Klos has. I also think if we brought in a number 1, MacGregor would be off, meaning searching for another number 2 as well. I definitely think we need some new 1st choice players, but the goalkeeper is probably the least of our worries in that department. Other than a backup keeper, we need 1st choice Left and right midfielders, a backup creative midfielder, another striker and some backup at both full backs. All these seem more important to me. That would give a squad of: MacGregor/Other/Robinson Hutton/Other/Lowing Weir/Papac/Ehiogu Webster/Svensson/Broadfoot Smith/Other/Murray Other/Novo/Burke Ferguson/Other/Furman Hemdani/Thomson/Shinnie Other(McCulloch?)/Adam Darcheville/Sebo/Gow Boyd/Other(Naismith?)/Lennon That's 3 players for almost every place and the chance to shuffle a few too. It means saying goodbye to Klos, Sionko, Rae, Buffel, Prso. What Rangers will never do, is sign average SPL players, and Rangers will NEVER be an average SPL team. Rangers are signing the best players from the SPL which guarantees we will be well above average in Scotland. Whether that is enough to win the league or compete in the CL is another matter.

The last two dismal performances have highlighted the character in our current squad - or complete lack of it. People have complained that Walter Smith's return has not exactly resulted in total football, but it has to be said that it would have taken a magician to turn the sow's ear into a silk purse. What Walter has done is turn the offending ear into a reasonably servicable, if scappy looking, leather wallet. There is definitely some skill in the squad and the odd bit of fight, which has been brought out in them by a man who has instilled a great purpose about "achieving" second place. It seems the players will play for Walter given enough of a goal, but not when that goal is gone, and they won't play for another man whose goals they don't share. This to me suggests a lack of intrisic character in these players, and that their motivation does not come from wanting to excel themselves but has too many other complexities. The trounble is that, we don't have the finances, or even the attraction to bring in another whole new squad but have to make do with these spinless players, and instead augment the team on a limited budget. So it seems to me that Walter, not only has to look for fit, skillful players, who can fit in the team and adapt to the SPL, he also has to find players who are driven by an inate desire to win. Who also find losing, totally unacceptable and who are willing to expend every last calorie of energy on the pitch to avoid defeat. With a few changes to the team with these kind of players, this character may rub off on some of the others. On the positive side, I think Walter recognises this and you can't get more character and professionalism than a player like Weir. What we need are more players with that attitude. I think players who are not too bad are: MacGregor Hutton Weir Hemdani Novo while the worst are: Svensson Ehiogu Burke Sionko Adam Buffel Boyd Although some of them might just be lacking in ability. The jury is out on Papac and Thomson but I would find it hard to defend them on their depth of character shown so far. Ferguson has been an enigma and at various times been committed or AWOL. I think he'd pull up his socks a bit if he had a few more highly talented and experienced players around him, whom he can't bully and who show him up when he's poor. I think it's fair to say, he's been a failure of a captain in the last two years and I would really like to see a new captain brought in, but can't see it happening. I can't see how Brown would have helped with this aspect so it might be best if his 4.4M fee was spent elsewhere. Here's hoping that Smith brings in some character and the new goal of winning the league inspires our present insipid lot.

The only keeper around I can think of that is better than MacGregor is Gordon, who has a huge price tag, and he's not that much better. MacGregor actually has the best record in the league this season for goalies. So to me there is no point in spending a load of our precious budget on a top class keeper. However, with Klos leaving, if we don't think Robinson is good enough as a reliable backup, we need to find a reasonable, experienced and not too expensive keeper, who is happy to play second fiddle to MacGregor due to bigger wage and better club. Langfield makes sense for that type of signing... Remember the goalie is a different position to the rest and we only got away with two good keepers before by paying extortionate wages.