calscot

I don't think I subscribe to this theory of slowly building a team for the future while being rubbish for a while. I think recent history has shown it's best to get in there spend a wedge of dough and get team winning from the start. Souness, Smith, Advocaat and O'Neil have done that. The secret though seems to be not to break the bank and then to back off the spending and keep a consistent squad. Advocaat broke that rule and it ruined Rangers for a while. O'Neil did it right but perhaps kept the same team too long - but he still left Celtic in a financial position to improve the squad. Souness is difficult to judge as he left too early but Smith showed how you can sustain a winning team by augmenting the squad by a few quality players a season. Strachan seems to be starting to do the same kind of strategy. A few cheap players along with a couple of expensive ones every season. However it's probably not the managers that choose the strategy but the board. And that's where we're failing. Since Fergus, Celtic have been quite prudent with their spending - splashing out when necessary and holding back when needed to afterwards. They have also concentrated on increasing income to give the manager a reasonable budget every year. Whereas DM lost control of the spending and now won't spend reasonable amounts when it's absolutely vital. Rangers need one more, one time cash injection to spend on a decent squad and then only need to maintain that squad for years without needing to over spend. We should not be afraid of debt to do it, we should just make sure the debt is totally manageable. However, with DM talking about selling up you can see why he's reluctant to have any debt at all. It's time for him to commit to Rangers properly for another 5 years or so or leave NOW.

PLG -> 7 Months -> 17 points behind Celtic and out of both cups (I attribute the SC exit to him). Dropped something like 30 points in 23 games. WS -> 3 months -> 4 more points than Celtic, dropped 4 points and 3 goals in 10 games, with 7 clean sheets. How come WS didn't need loads of time with virtually the same team? No Old Firm manager in history would have survived the run of results that PLG brought. It was unacceptable. If PLG had said that this would happen for him to build a team then I think the answer would have been "No thanks". But the crucial point is that he didn't even say that, he predicted he'd win the league, so obviously bugger all was going to plan for him therefore his plan was flawed. To say he would have advanced Rangers onto a higher level is laughable given the evidence. I think he made far too many crucial mistakes and dug himself a hole so deep he was never going to get out of it. I think he could have taken Rangers to a new level IF he'd got a lot more right from the start, there was a window of opportunity but he missed it due to naivety, arrogance and sheer bloody mindedness. The first thing any manager needs to do is build a solid unit that are hard to beat and who usually pick up 3 points from lesser teams. You don't build a winning team by putting on a bunch of gutless players who capitulate to the bottom of the table teams. That's how to build a losing team. Winning breeds winning and Celtic are an example of that. When you win all the time you expect to win and that helps you win when you are up against it. You start by building a team with a solid goalkeeper and no-nonsense defence, a midfield who hold onto the ball and a couple of strikers who can put the ball in the back of the net with regularity. You also need to build a team spirit and have a leader on the park. The players should respect you but you have to earn that respect it's not for free. The way I see it you can survive ok on meat and potatoes, and it's the first thing for which you have to work to put on your plate, but when you are guaranteed a supply of these basics, THEN you can think about making your food more interesting with spices and sauces. You can't start living on sauce and spice and hope to add the meat and carbs a year later. That's what PLG seemed to be trying to do. WS has come in and done the former and although the football isn't tasty at the moment it sures fills a hole and stops us from starving. I think we'll be on bland but sustaining food for another season before Walter can afford to go to the spice market.

No it coincided with Fergie losing form. Our worst game was away to Osasuna where Fergie didn't play. When Fergie is on form we play far better eg at home to Hapoel, the 3-0 defeat of Hibs. When he's off form or not playing we struggle.

PS Van Vossen was an excellent player before his miss. I remember watching Sky's hour long programme at the end of the season showing how Rangers won the league and the guy had some great games showing excellent skill. He just totally lost his confidence after the miss and even Walter said that it looked like he'd been replaced with his non-footballing twin brother.

Ashikodi had all of 3 seconds on the pitch in his Rangers first team career... Shame. Jeffers was given a chance after chance but didn't take any, at least Flo could score against the wee teams. I thought Amato was a great player but got moved on very quickly. Boli won the CL and then was pants for us. I don't know whether Guivarche (sp?) was any good as he hardly got a game after winning the world cup. I liked Charbonnier. Clelland was never good enough for Rangers. Fraser Wishart!!! Carcary and N'Guessan looked good in the reserves but never got a chance.

Played 10 Won 8 Drawn 2 Lost 0 For 19 Against 3 Clean sheets 7 Points 26 Now extrapolate that over 38 and the 33 games: Played 38, 33 Won 30, 26 Drawn 8, 7 Lost 0, 0 For 72, 63 Against 11, 10 Clean sheets 27, 23 Points 98, 85 Now I know it's not that simple but it's obviously championship winning form and if we'd got Walter in at the beginning of the season and had these kind of stats we'd be at least 7 points ahead of Celtic and talking about "grinding out results". The remarkable thing is that Walter is doing this with a squad of players that have failed to win a trophy in two years, have gained some of the worst records in Rangers history and has only had a few players of his own choosing. So while the football might be bad at times, take heart from the results at the moment. Now is probably not the time to grumble about poor football especially when the results are rolling in and racking up the points - we'd have taken this kind of football for the last one and a half seasons. Phase one is stopping the rot and the leaking of goals and points using mostly the inherited squad with a few extra players brought in on a modest budget - I think that is being achieved with great aplomb. Phase two will start this summer and will be about improving the quality of the team and providing a sustained challenge for the title as well as CL qualification. Once we have achieved a level where we are consistently challenging for the league - wining it at least every second season, and doing well in the CL, then maybe we can think about producing a much more watchable football. That will be phase three and four. Have patience.

It funny how players threaten to leave if they are not played while playing pants when they get picked... It just makes me think, "close the door after you when you leave".

The annoying thing is that there is very little chance of selling him in the summer, and even then only for a pittance - if only he had moved to Hanover in January. I'm getting pretty sick of this guy.

I don't agree with this, even with Eck as manager we comprehensively beat Championship and lower Premiership teams with ease. I went to the Fulham and Ipswich games and although the scores weren't huge, Rangers dominated both games. You may not think friendlies count but what more compelling evidence are you using for your argument? Rangers have also been in last 16 in Europe two years in a row, which lower end English teams can do that. Newcastle, Tottenham and Middlesburgh might but they are more upper middle tier teams who have spent far more than us but are inconsistent in the league. But the truth is we are now equivalent to a mid table Premiership team who like the rest of British teams, can't get close to Man U, Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool. However the longer the gap in TV money goes on the more the likes of Bolton become bigger than us and the more the likes of Reading catch up. Rangers may have problems but let's not disparage the team for being worse than it actually is.

Frankie, re-reading my post I think I've been too harsh on the BO especially as you've informed me that they try it. If they are catchy enough and you have 200 singing them every home game then I'm sure some will catch on eventually. But it's hard to join in if you don't know the words as you can't always make them out so some way of publishing them would seem to be a good move. Also the wittier and catchier they are the more likely others will want to sing them, which is why the likes of "Every Other Saturday" just won't take off no matter how much sentimental value they have to some. I remember when I started going to Ibrox all the singing would start in a corner of the Copland road stand by about 50 or so fans and then the songs would spread around the stadium. And I don't remember so much of the "party tunes" which is probably why I still don't know the words to the Sash. I do remember the likes of "It's my attic and I'll fry if I want to" and "Do you want a chicken supper Bobby Sands". They are both a bit sick and not really Rangers related but I do remember finding them amusing and there was more of a good natured banter feel about the singing, rather than any real animosity. If we could do the same thing but less sick and more Rangers related then there is a chance it could catch on.

I think plenty of blame has to go to us the fans. If they were my family I'd be disowning great swathes of them. It's no wonder the atmosphere is poor when so many are more interested in dredging up centuries old conflicts and chanting about fornication with leaders of religions while pretending to be some sort of christians and good British citizens but not acting as such in any way. You also pay your money and can leave when you like, but leaving early does not make you a good supporter of the club and the vast areas of empty seats is becoming embarrassing - and no wonder the team don't finish games strongly - the crowd aren't called the 12th man for nothing, and if there is one man not pulling his weight at the end of the game then the 12th is probably the worst. It's all good an well to blame the chairman who deserves his share of criticism but perhaps the fans are struggling to pull themselves into the 21st century in terms of supporting a modern day football team. However, instead of the blame game, perhaps we can look for solutions instead. I've already suggested that Rangers show the Setanta post match interviews, goal replays and highlights on the big screens to encourage some of the crowd to stay a bit longer causing less congestion at the end of the game and so people don't feel so compelled to leave early. They could also show the goals from the other games if there are any. When watching Setanta I always wait for the manager's interview before changing over and wouldn't mind doing that in the stadium. Perhaps they could hand out some free bovrils to those who stay for encouragement... As for the atmosphere, what is wrong with our fans that we can't make up new footballing songs. They are dead easy to do, I made up loads of instant songs a while back without much effort, but it needs a bunch of guys to start singing them in unison. That's where I'm incredibly disappointed by the Blue Order. Why aren't they coming up with modern, catchy songs that appeal to people today - and then singing them as well as promoting them? Other fans can make up witty, topical songs and get them known pretty quickly, whereas ours sing the same old, boring non football stuff or don't sing at all. Or they make up something about Jack McConnell's wife being a whore - yeah really funny. Even when we sing about a player, it something totally cliché like, "There's only one Dado Prso" when it doesn't take much imagination to come up with "Dado, dado Cool" to the Boney M tune. There a loads of clubs who have large supports who make up footballing songs, and create a great atmosphere without having to rely on divisive religious or political subjects. Do you really think the GSTQ dirge gets a crowd of mostly Scots going never mind a team full of Scots and foreigners? Perhaps the Blue order could make up a couple of new songs for every home game that are based on our current players and modern pop/rock songs. They could then try and get Rangers to publish the lyrics in the programme and when the Blue order start belting them out in unison perhaps the rest of the crowd will join in and they could become anthems of the future. I don't think we're going to get anywhere with archaic songs like "Every other Saturday" and "Wolverhampton Town" which just won't appeal to today's fans. We should be basing the songs on catchy tunes in the charts and make them modern and topical as well as hopefully amusing. Then we need to sing them and get involved in the game instead of watching it like it is an episode of Eastenders. The leadership for this kind of stuff isn't going to come from the chairman, it's got to come from fans groups like the Blue Order who don't seem to be doing enough obvious stuff.

Every team is going to have a bad game now and again - even the best Rangers teams had them during 9 in a row. However when you look at it with a bit more of a sympathetic eye, since Walter has come in, without being able to change the team much, he has produced the best form in the league. 9 games, 7 wins, 2 draws, 23pts, 3 goals against, 6 clean sheets. That's championship winning form and equates to about 97pts if extrapolated over a season. It all depends if Walter can turn this result into a hiccough by motivating the team to producing a good performance and gain 3pts next week. If the team can bag that rate of points now, think what Walter might be able to do given some funds and 5 more recruits. We know Prso is on his last legs and Smith plans to bring in a replacement - fully fit target man could turn Boyd into a superstar while the new guy could be scoring a fair amount himself. Brown could give us another dimension on the right wing and give Novo and Burke some competition to think about. A left winger to rival Adam or allow him to be substituted would be good too. And I'm sure Smith and Webster will improve a defence which already has an impressive record while Stevie also offers far more in attack than Murray. Gow and Broadfoot will also be good additions to the squad when players are tired, unfit or injured. So I don't think we should get too down about one bad result in a good run of games.

Oh yeah Lennon supposed to be good.

Fleck is the really big prospect but he's still only about 15 - and playing for the under 19's. I thought our best ones on the horizon were Ashikodi, Carcary and N'Guessan but for some reason we've let all three go...

Yeah but they are not on international duty every week! Another point is that because we play U19's a lot we don't seem to win that much which means they don't get that Rangers winning mentality. Contrast that with Celtic who seem to win the league at all levels and then when it counts in the SPL they never believe they are not going to win...

I totally agree with you there and Walter has hinted that that is what he's looking for. That's the great thing about Walter, he looks for the obvious weaknesses and enhancements first before trying to finesse. We've needed to shore up the central defence for a couple of seasons yet PLG brought in Papac and Svensson then puts a midfielder in defence and then said he wouldn't bring in anyone in January. Walter comes in and straight away signs Weir, Webster and Ehiogu. PLG says Barry needs to play more forward and yet puts Hemdani in defence and only a young Clement beside Barry in midfield. Smith puts in Hemdani and Thomson to give the Captain a more forward role. PLG doesn't rate Boyd despite his goal scoring record, Walter compliments him and says he needs a big target man up beside him. PLG is probably still a great manager, but he seems to have forgotten that you have to get the basics right first before you start thinking about building a new team with a new formation for the future. Rangers can't afford to wait on dodgy looking players to get on track while losing to second bottom team and I don't believe that building a young, unsuccessful team in the present will result in a hugely successful one in the future. How many teams have really gone backwards to go forwards? I think most really successful teams take incremental steps forward until suddenly they have got all the pieces of the jigsaw and become a great team.

Looks like he could do a job in the SPL anyway...

This is what I don't understand. We have Sebo lacking in confidence and sharpness and yet he's not playing in the reserves where he could score a few, sharpen up and become confident. Same goes for the likes of Svensson, Sionko, Papac etc. In fact barring injuries our reserve team should be something like: Klos Lowing Svensson Papac/Webster Smith/Murray Sionko Rae Furman N'Daiye Sebo Buffel We have an under 21 and under 19 league for the younger ones and if we want to bring them up a level then isn't is better to take just a few and play them with experienced players to learn from them? There is something wrong with the thinking there and it's no wonder our foreigners don't settle when they don't get a chance to play a proper game.

I don't quite agree. I thought he was terrible as a striker but quite reasonable if you think of him as an attacking midfielder...

Would that be anything like "A weekend at Bernie's"?

Well written, Frankie. Everyone's far too quick to give unfair criticism.

Hopefully we can get a result too. Even a draw would be fine when you consider that their squad cost about 20 times as much as our squad. I've roped my brother in to going now so I'm less concerned about it being a bit expensive. If it gets too much I'll just have to send my girlfriend shopping instead...

PS At least it's glamourous opposition and the club need to do this more to raise extra dosh. Bring back the Ibrox tournament I say.

I feel the same although since I'll already be in Scotland I will probably be prepared to spend more as it's a one off and I don't get to as many games as I'd like. However if it gets close to 30 quid I'll be looking to go by myself or find a Rangers fan who I don't have to pay for as well...

Sounds like they are trying to raise significant money from the friendly while giving Chelsea a cut.