calscot

Or maybe SDM is...????

Hey you're stealing my idea from a couple of months back...

I heard Stokes was available for about 600K.

This seems far fetched but at the same time incredibly plausible. It all fits together very neatly. Hats off to you, Cammy, if you are right. Interesting read in any case. A side point about McCoist - in a straight popularity contest between him and Barry, I think our top goal scoring legend would win easily. There's no way Barry could manipulate a dressing room with Walter and Ally around... and if he did he wouldn't get away with it.

My shopping list would be Brown, Thomson, Webster and Stokes and I think all four would easily come. Two for the money and two for top class first team action.

Cheers...

I think this is a good point. Perhaps he was tactically naive because when you had his Rangers team against the rest of the SPL at the time, any old tactics brought easy results. That probably gave him a false sense of security in his decision making. Everton probably taught him a thing or two but in such a league it's difficult to be learning and be successful at the same time. He's now putting his knowledge to great use with Scotland and I think we're seeing a much more mature and developed manager.

Yep got it in one. Although you only want her short term while you groom a younger, inexperienced great looker that you've known and flirted with for a long time...

The analogy can be applied to previous managers too. Bill Struth was the love of your life when you were young, and was as perfect as you could get and you got on like a house on fire. It's your longest relationship but she got ill and died... Jock Wallace was an upfront local girl who was fantastic in bed but left you for someone else when you were too tight with your money and didn't treat her well. You then went out with a promising girl next door, but she was crap in bed and so you dumped her and asked Jock Wallace to come back. You spent a bit more money on Jock but not enough and she was now not a good girlfriend so you dump her, cash in your savings account and go out on the pull in Italy where you meet a great looking, posh Scots girl. You lavish a bit of money on her and she's great in bed and behaves well when you take her out to the posher places. She becomes the best girl in town especially as the local babe leaves for England at the same time. However she leaves you for another, better looking guy in Liverpool that she once had a fling with before. So you then go for a girl that's already a friend, Walter Smith and she turns out to be fantastic at first and is great in the Poshest places of all. She's great in bed and although you spend more money on her than your mates on their girls, she's easily the best girl in town for a long time. This is a long term relationship as you get on really well, but you can't help wondering if she's only the best as the local girls are not the best at the time and she's embarrassing when you take her somewhere posh where there are far better girls around. Eventually you get in a rut and you hanker after a posher girl who isn't just the best locally but you can be proud of her in the poshest places in the city and abroad. So you split up agreeing to still be friends and her performance in bed is not as good as before and your rivals short term Dutch girlfriend ends up being better than yours just as you part. She goes off and finds another bloke in Liverpool. You then pull a really classy Dutch girl who has a great reputation and almost famous. She's fantastic in bed and at home and far better than any girl locally. In the posher places she's sometimes the best and sometimes not, and overall you can't help but think she should have done better especially with all the money you've spend on her clothes and jewelry. She's got the potential but seems unlucky. However, she's emptying your bank account and maxxing your credit cards and you realise you're going a bit crazy especially when you build a second home. You've also done up your house but the bank manager is starting to knock at the door. Your rival then gets this great Irish bird and your girlfriend starts to get a bit annoying with her demands and she's a bit to overwhelming. Her performance in bed is not good and she becomes the second best girl in town. You buy her the most expensive jewelry ever bought in your town but it doesn't make any difference and when you tell her that you can't spend any more money, she's off. So you're skint and can't pull a classy bird so you try it out with a young, local girl who has had a good reputation with lesser boyfriends. She's fantastic to start with and becomes the best girl in town very quickly, but is embarrassing to take anywhere posh. You give her time but she gets worse and although she has her moments, you know she's not as good as the Irish girl who has a good reputation in the posher places too sometimes outshining girls from places such as Barcelona. Her performance in bed gets worse and worse and she starts to get grumpy and patronising you. You have the worst spell ever in a relationship and you really know it's time to end it and you go looking for someone better and meet that beautiful French girl. However she agrees to go out with you but she's busy with her career and will have to wait. So you string your present girl along and even tell her about the new girl. But her self esteem is so low and she still wants to be with you so she agrees reluctantly to stay with you for a while. However she is then outshone by the many girlfriends of a rich but ugly Lithuanian guy. But she does you proud in the posher places in the city and abroad without actually distinguishing herself. And that's where we came in...

Ok, whacky analogy time. I thought about this while procrastinating about getting up this morning. The whole situation reminds me a wee bit of this fantastically gorgeous Spanish girlfriend I once had. Ok picture the scenario. You're one lucky bugger who's pulled a young, beautiful French babe that you know is just far too good for you and probably way out of your league. You're insanely happy and totally nervous at the same time and can never quite believe she's agreed to go out with you. She was single at the time but was formerly a really, really great girlfriend for a suave, good looking, rich Frenchman and always turned heads when out at a posh do. She treated him well and her performance in bed with him was amazing and she was the easily the best girlfriend in that French town. Her reputation was impeccable. She keeps you waiting but finally comes to be with you in Glasgow. You spend a bit of money on her and promise her more but not too much as you're pretty skint from a previous relationship that maxxed out your credit cards and you had to remortgage to get it under control. However she's fine with that as she's no gold digger. You're never quite sure if you or Glasgow is good enough for her and she's very enigmatic, aloof and is still learning the language. Her performance in bed is not the best to start with but not bad and hints at a lot more to come once she settles in and she's pretty good to take out to the slightly posher places (UEFA cup) both home and abroad, behaving impeccably although you haven't taken her anywhere REALLY posh yet. However the promise at home doesn't materialise and her performance in bed gets worse and she blows hot and cold. She gets grumpy and uncommunicative when you try to talk about it and she's not great with your mates. One week she'll be great in bed and the next she'll be rubbish. Overall she's doesn't seem much better than the girlfriends of your less good looking mates and you're main pulling rival has a Scottish girlfriend who seems to be doing great and is really good when she's taken to the really posh restaurants in Glasgow but not so good abroad. But overall she seem a far better girlfriend than yours and you start comparing them a lot and yours just doesn't seem to measure up. Your girlfriend then starts to fall out with you over strange decisions and her incredible stubbornness, and when she's kicked out of a down market pub in Perth for bad behaviour, you defend her in public but you're privately livid. But she's still behaving well in reasonably posh restaurants at home and abroad. After finally starting to look like she's going to come good and even appears at least as good as you're rival's girlfriend in an important local function, she then becomes crap again in the more mundane aspects of your relationship and after a particularly bad Christmas, when the sex is crap she has a massive fall out with you after kicking out your best friend from a party at home saying he was undermining her in front of your friends. She gives the ultimatum of him or me... You realise that although she's probably the best looking girl you've ever had that it's probably not going to work out and overall she's probably your worst girlfriend ever - although it's only been a short time. She's not too bothered about you as she feels you're making her look bad, she's not enjoying herself with you or in Glasgow, you keep going on at her about her behaviour and performance in bed. Your mates are starting to slag her off and anyway she's homesick and there's a good looking french guy who's really after her. She probably feels she can do far better than you anyway. So you have a big argument about your best mate and in the end spit up by mutual consent especially as you've far too much pride to wait for her to dump you, but you can't help thinking about what could have been or whether you should have given her more time to come good. She was after all, your best looking girlfriend ever... And there ends the shortest relationship you've ever had.

Maybe not everyone would choose Rangers but I'm sure Davis would - as an ex player he knows how big the club are. Also would you rather be going for leages, cups and European competitions or a Premiership relegation dogfight?

I think it's obvious that it wasn't Le Guen. DM would be my bet.

Sounds more like a dig at the press.

Walter was terrible at tactics before and won mostly by virtue of having the best (and most expensive) players and good man management meant they were very motivated. That worked at home but not in Europe bar his first year when you could argue Souness' influence was still there and we played a proper 4-4-2.

Reminds me of a joke from 20 years ago that no longer works. Q: What's the difference between Graeme Souness and Saddam Hussain? A: One's a mad mustachioed dictator and the other is the President of Iraq... Then there was: Q: What happened to a scud missile that flew over Ibrox? A: Terry Hurlock brought it down...

Walter was a very experienced number two to Jim McLean and Souness and it was reckoned he was the steadying hand on the training pitch that allowed Souness to be so successful at Ibrox while the mustachioed dictator was pretty good at attracting top class players and getting them up for a fight.

I agree with you that it's different (and isn't it always different?) I was just citing a precedent. Disagree about the Celtic thing though, they weren't the best but not bad either, however it's overshadowed by the fact Souness came when the SPL was pretty strong with Aberdeen and Dundee Utd ruling the roost and doing very well in Europe. When we won the league it was about a strong as you will ever see the SPL especially with the England teams banned and TV hadn't entered the equation yet. We were fifth the season before too so there was a hell of a lot of squad building to do. Yes he had money but as we know that's no guarantee and if you see what he spent - it was pretty reasonable as he tended to sell loads of players for a profit in England, and our finances were pretty much in the black. I'm not trying to hype him up but fair's fair.

The "you heard it here first" was a red rag to a bunch of bulls... You won't get such comeback if you just post the news and a link... But it's all meant in a friendly manner.

Souness had no experience and Ally has his certificates and limited experience with Scotland. It is a risk but we've tried everything else - Advocaat (successful ex Dutch and PSV manager), McLiesh (successful up and coming SPL manager), Le Guen (successful young French manager considered the most promising in Europe)... Maybe we have to try someone completely new... I still hope that Walter keeps the reigns for Scotland.

PS I think Murray needs to go to town for the next manager and give him a proper budget to totally revamp the squad. We now need to get rid of Eck's AND PLG's rejects. This squad is obviously just no good and we really, properly need to build a new one - and that takes money.

Murray is to blame for much but I'm sure he thought he was doing the right thing by appointing Le Guen. We couldn't have asked for a better candidate and he can't take all the blame for it going bad although maybe he didn't help. I also believe Le Guen also had more money to spend than he did, preferring to hoard it for later and I'm sure that he would have got at least 4M in this transfer window had he convinced DM that his choices would make a difference. But I think Le Guen was looking at unknown players on the continent while DM was thinking more along the lines of Thomson, Brown, Webster and Pressley. I think that's why PLG kept down playing the money to spend bit as he didn't like the choices offered to him. You have to wonder who instigated the inquiries into the Hibs pair...

He got it well wrong. And reading it now makes it look like PLG has no guts at all...

Actually I heard it on the BBC site... http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/r/rangers/6231867.stm

Gordon Smith's interview made a lot of sense - you can listen to it on the bbc site. He reckons that the Ferguson spat is only the latest of a long list of things and that Le Guen didn't fancy continuing as he wasn't happy with the way things are going and there's a more "appetizing" job coming up for him.

Sadly Jock Stien and Ally McLeod have passed away... That leaves Sir Alex... two chances of that...