calscot

Don't understand that. Barry does little else but pass the ball. He collects it, makes himself some space, looks for a defence opening pass, does it pretty well if he sees one, if not he chooses the easy pass to a player close by. Now and again he'll see and opportunity and have a shot or play a one-two. He may be greedy in wanting the ball but it's mostly to pass it on to someone else. He hardly ever dribbles except to make sure of possession and make space. What he wants is players running into space and he gets frustrated and angry if no-one makes a move. He hates the side pass but realises that keeping possession is crucial. He very rarely doesn't complete a pass and rarely loses the ball.

PS I read the offer is still on the table, so maybe it depends who comes sniffing for a pre-contract agreement.

He doesn't exactly sound committed, does he? He's no Rangers fan that's for sure so may be looking to move on.

Please no! I think that experiment has been successful in showing how ineffective a formation it is in Scotland. It's time to stop experimenting and going with what obviously works.

Totally agree, he's not fit to lace Burke's boots, or even Novo's for that matter. There may be a good player inside him, but he's off on sabbatical somewhere...

PS We also play a lot of home grown youngsters but you have to wonder how often we can discover the best youngsters in Scotland when all the Scottish teams are scouting for them. To guarantee you pick up the best young talent in Scotland you have to cherry pick from all 42 teams. You also have to look at guys like Stokes up on loan from Arsenal. He's scoring for fun in a mid table team while we have a young 1.8M striker who can't buy a goal. The best thing about buying in Scotland, is while the quality may not be the highest, what you see is usually what you get.

Murray was from Hibs, Rae and Novo from Dundee and Boyd from Kilmarnock. They are not brilliant players but all settled in and played far better than most players from the continent. Buffel from Feyenoord, Letizi from PSG, Rodriguez from Monaco, Papac, Sionko and Sebo from Austria Vienna. They are not exactly showing the SPL players that they are of a better pedigree, are they? I'd pick the SPL sourced players and our home grown ones before these players and it looks like PLG thinks the same. Svensson from Gothenburg is also nothing special so far and neither were the two Man U kids. Klos and Prso are the two really successful imports and they will both be gone at the end of the season. Not too suprising since both played in a European Cup final. Clement and Hemdani have not been too bad but not overly convincing either. There are huge lists of players we've bought in the SPL that have been very successful and similar lists of donkeys from the continent. Goram, McCoist and Gough are legends who started in the SPL and then you have the likes of Brown, I.Ferguson, Robertson etc, etc. There are loads of former SPL players in the Premiership. Why do we always knock players from the SPL when there's loads of times we've struggled against them with our fancy foriegners?

I see what you're getting at, and it was the Dutchman's downfall. How else could a guy like Eck come in and instantly turn things around. They were good players who were upset at their treatment by the manager.

This seems to me to be the most probable and plausible explanation. What we have here, is failure t'communicate... They have exchanged words already on what a captain's role is and maybe Barry is doing what you'd expect him to do - getting stuck into players who aren't giving 100%, while Le Guen sees him as just another player with an honorary title who should shut up and let the manager do all the talking. Bazza then objects and PLG says right you're no longer captain and you're dropped... That's what could have happened and it doesn't sound like they sat down and worked it out in his office. However if this is the version of events, Le Guen is demanding respect without fully respecting a club captain of some standing. I'm not backing Barry but having seen the Le Guen refuse to budge on anything at all for six months or give one single reasonable explanation for his strange decisions, it's hard to believe he's been even a little even handed in this one. I will give PLG more time, but at the moment I really don't like the way he goes about his business and as a fan I demand more answers and proper explanations. PLG may prove to be a very good manager in the long run, but it's not very enjoyable or nice at all to have him at your club - I am willing to pay that price for success but at the moment we're getting the exact opposite. I know nice guys come last but it's not good to start to dislike your manager's personality. But I suppose I don't like our former captain's or our chairman's personality either.

The Billy Davis bit just doesn't sound credible to me...

I don't think it's all about Fergie, it's just he's a particularly big and heavy straw...

I think we did know our best 11 but injuries and internal politics put paid to that. What we can see is that we have very little depth of squad. I don't think it's too much of a coincidence that we lost points when either Smith or Prso was missing. Boyd and Burke have also been big misses.

We should perhaps do the same with other SPL teams and see how close they are...

Not really true. Eck inherited a much more expensive and talented team built by Advocaat. PLG inherited Eck's team... How much is our present first team squad worth anyway? Klos - 0 Letizi - 0 MacGregor - 1M? Hutton - 300k? Rod - 100k? Svensson - 500k? Hemdani - 500k? Papac - 500k? Smith - �£1.5M? Murray - 500k? Burke - 500k? (end of contract) Sionko - 500k? Novo - 300k? Barry - 3M? Clement - �£1.5M? Adam - 700k? Rae - 100k? N'Diaye - 0 Buffel - 1.2M? Prso - 0 Boyd - 1.5M? Sebo - 1M??? That's about 15M and I think I'm being generous, they probably cost us about 21M. We should really be spending about 5M a year on players with fees that don't just disappear and with players coming through the youth system along with some gaining in value to balance out depreciation, so our squad should be worth more than 25M.

BTW I'm not the biggest Barry fan but there is no doubt he has been one of our best players this season and has played reasonably well even when the rest of the team were dire. He created most of our chances against St Mirren for example. I don't think there is an argument that he's not doing it for the team and he plays much further forward than some would suggest. He's not been worth 5.5M - more like 3M. But how many other players in the team could say they are worth that after their performances in a Rangers shirt?

The trouble with PLG is apart from never adequately explaining his decisions - and not because of his English, but his track record of man management at Rangers. It started with a bang with Fernando Ricksen, who to be fair deserved to be kicked out the club long before, but the lack of any attempt at reconciliation set the scene here. This should also have set the scene for him to have blown off any steam and pre-empted any other upsets. One big bust up in a season is unfortunate, two is careless and more smacks of bad management. There is then the Letizi/MacGregor affair which did nothing to suggest that PLG was making decisions that were good for the team or the players. This is where his halo started to slip. The fans knew the young Scot was a far better keeper, the Frenchman disagreed, and in the end the fans were right. So how are we supposed to respect all his decisions after the man in the stand was more astute? Then there is the constant putting down of Boyd while bumming up Sebo. Boyd might not be the best all round player but only one person in Scotland rates Sebo as a better pick. The fact that it's bad management to keep putting a player down in public while he's banging in the goals is secondary to his apparent inability to assess a player's form. Then we have the Bardsley barney, which stemmed from what most people think is a silly policy of not tackling in training. Again there was no attempt a reconciliation and he was dispatched forthwith. Hutton also seemed to fall out with the manager to be replaced by Bardley earlier in the season. Martin was also booted out quickly amid rumours he was complaining about not getting enough games. Amid this is the failure to sign Burke on a long term contract and you have to wonder whether he doesn't fancy playing under the manager after being criticised by him. The rotation in defence has also been a fiasco and we seem to have settled for a young Swede with no concentration and a midfielder. Add to that some baffling formations then it's no wonder that after a load of poor results that the players are getting restless. Things now come to a head with our best player and captain and the pattern is repeating itself with over the top falling out and no chance of reconciliation. Add to that the bringing in of a fringe player, who wanted to leave, as captain and the dropping of Novo, one of our better performing players for another of the manager's pathetic misfit imports and it doesn't paint a pretty picture. There is now a huge list of players who have fallen foul of the manager and due to his very dodgy decisions on team selection and tactics, it's very hard to believe Le Gaffer is blameless. Here's a list of players who won't be singing his praises: MacGregor: dropped when playing very well, transfer request Letizi: dropped for a younger player and probably will leave Klos: doesn't get a look in, will leave Ricksen: kicked out the club after plane incident Hutton: dropped for a loan player, not happy with manager Bardsley: kicked back to Man U after spat with manager Rodriguez: Dropped from the first team picture, will leave Burke: criticised and not signed new contract Ferguson: Effectively sacked Rae: not in the picture, requested transfer Martin: sent back to Man U early Prso: rumours of spat Boyd: criticised and dropped unfairly Then there's minor grumbles: Svensson: Dropped Papac: Dropped Sionko: Dropped Adam: Dropped Novo: Dropped Buffel: Dropped Sebo: Hardly played N'Diaye: Hardly played That leaves only Smith, Clement and Hemdani that have escaped his wrath although the latter may be aggrieved to be playing out of his more natural position... I'm not saying that the players are blameless either, but there are other ways to rule the roost without using a big stick all the time. If Le Guen wants respect from the players, he has surely gone about it in a very strange fashion?

One of my biggest criticisms of Setanta is that they never broadcast in widescreen which is not only very annoying on a widescreen tv, it means you miss some of the off the ball action which makes widescreen so good for football. However, over the Christmas period I think one of their Leprachauns must have scratched his head and said in his best Irish accent, "I wonder what this switch does, I t'ink I'll try it." And lo and behold there is light where before there were black bands. You see they were always recording in widescreen as proven when they now showed action from earlier in the season... They still haven't done it for Rangers TV though...

Yep pretty much sums up my feelings. I've always said, if you do strange things and are successful you are considered a genius, if you strange things and are unsuccessful, you look a fool. A successful manager can do what he likes, an unsuccessful one has to be more careful. It also follows that if you are unsuccessful then there is a great need for you to explain your decisions which is another thing that PLG is becoming infamous for not doing. No matter how good Le Guen really is, he has a terrible knack of turning the fans against him in just about everything he does or doesn't do. It could be that he is one of these people that is so used to winning using his own way that he gets such an unshakable belief in his ability which results in that he is blind to his faults when things are going badly and he ploughs on regardless blaming everyone else. I can't help feeling that the Bazza incident is his metaphorical way of kicking the cat.

Paul Le Guen himself said something like, "You have to believe that a manager can influence things or what is he there for?" I agree 100% with that statement. If it's only down to the players then we don't need PLG but it also means that Bazza is far more important as we do need all of our best players. So if you think it's down to the players then it follows we should sack Le Guen and reinstate our captain. However, you only have to look at what Levein has done at Dundee Utd to see that a manager can make a huge difference. So take your pick, the manager is either responsible or worthless... For me, a manager is responsible for the consistency of the team, the players are the ones responsible for the blips. So if a team is performing below par too often then the manager must take the brunt. If they only have the occasional stinker then blame the players.

I'm now on the fence. When a manager is doing badly then has a big bust up with his captain, you start to feel he's not going to recover and is on a downward spiral. A lot of good managers have never recovered from losing the dressing room and that includes Advocaat, Eck, Souness at Newcastle and Graham at Spurs. So I'm ambivalent, the season's a write off anyway so I think he needs one more bite at the cherry with the transfer window now open. He has five months to turn it around big time or he should be off. Co Adriaanse is again my favourite if we replace him although he has recently signed for Metalurg Donetsk. But I'm sure we could prize him from such a second rate club.

Fantasy headline: John Collins in for Collins John...

I know that it's easy and clich�© but just think about it. We thought we'd turned the corner and IF we'd beaten the bottom half teams like we should have: Dundee Utd Falkirk Inverness St Mirren We'd have an extra 11pts and be SIX behind Celtic. IF you extend that to beating Celtic like our domination of the game deserved then that could have been THREE points behind. IF Celtic hadn't showed resilience and fought back to draw a few games and beat Falkirk, we could have been ahead. Celtic are going through a bad patch as all championship leaders do, but they have shown guts, determination and the crucial ability to grind out results. We on the other hand have been handed a fantastic opportunity to get back into the title race and have shown ourselves to be gutless and useless against the wee teams. Surely if the SPL is harder than it looks, the hard part is not taking international players on high wages and motivating them to beat teams on less than a tenth of the wage? Surely that's the easy bit... I think this shows that it's not so hard for a manager to guide one of the OF to the title even with a shaky start, it's just our manager has balls up big time.

As the saying goes, PLG is either very brave or very foolish, it's not easy to guess which one it is.

Sir Alex is looking to send out Smith on loan but I agree we may have blown it there. I liked Webster before but I'm not keen on players who move from the SPL and then struggle. It suggests there is something lacking in their quality. He's obviously not of bottom to mid-table Premiership standard and therefore not Rangers standard. I think that we missed out big time on Pressley. It's sad to see our struggling manager pass on such an obvious recruit and then picked up by his counterpart who is doing very well for himself. If it pays off for Celtic it will make Strachan look like a far more astute manager when it comes to transfers, not that he doesn't already look that way...

PS I think part of our trouble is that we don't have enough older players in the team. Consider that Prso and Bazza are two of the oldest and yet two of the best players in our team who also seem to give 100% to the cause most games they play in.