calscot

I agree with some of what you're saying but we do have to accept some of our financial limitation, especially with the strange policy of zero debt. I would also say that Pressley is above average in the SPL and was a big part of Burley's unbeaten team last year, he easily fitted in a team that looked like they could challenge for the title. We need emergency treatment at the moment and he fits the bill as a pretty good bandage until we hopefully do the major surgery in the summer.

I think Fergie has had a really good run of form recently - since he fully recovered and got fit after his operation. He's been outstanding in 5 or 6 games and if he did have a bad game last week, you have to look at the team around him. If I had to drop a midfielder for inconsistency, Clement would be my first choice by miles. When he plays well, Barry and Charlie are far more effective but too often he's just not in the game. He did far less than Barry at Falkirk and at least our captain was one of about three players who were putting the graft in. Clement seems to be getting an easy ride above the criticism when we perform badly - when he's one of the main culprits, and far from being a success so far, all he's showed is that he does have the potential. I think there's a bunch of players who are consistently doing a job for Rangers and for me they are Fergie, Smith, MacGregor, Boyd and Prso although the Croatian is limited by his dodgy knees. Burke is good when he's fit and Novo tries hard and doesn't do too bad. Clement is good every second game as is Adam, Hemdani is never a centre back but played not bad in midfield, Hutton is hot and cold, Buffel has the odd ten minutes. The rest don't even get pass marks.

His goal was a peach, he told Adam exactly where to put it, knew where the keeper was and delievered the perfect header. Adam also did well assisting with his perfect chip.

He may be a good player but how many good players have come to Rangers and milked us for what it's worth without giving much in return? I'd rather have someone who is less mercenary.

But what if it doesn't get any better? Suppose his grand plan is already in place and just not working? Supposing he thought he had the answers and they are all proving to be wrong? Now I'm all for taking a couple of steps backwards to move ten forwards but what if we're just stepping backwards? We need to be given some glimpse that what is happening at the club now will be of benefit in the future and that PLG really does know what he's doing. At the moment his lack of acknowledgement, lack of stating what the problems are and what's he doing to rectify them, his refusal to explain strange decisions and in-congruent match summations just makes him appear a bit like Berti Vogts. It all feels a bit like: "What can I do? The players are not good enough, they are not efficient, I am disappointed, we cannot replace them as we have no money..." I think it's time to tell us just exactly where we're heading... It's not as if any-one's going to steal his ideas right now and I can't see us getting any worse just because our rivals know our plans.

http://www.football.co.uk/rangers/gers_interested_in_olic_238459.shtml Let's not touch another mercenry with a barge pole. He's not a professional footballer, he's a professional money grabber. A footballer would take many other footballing reasons into account before making a move.

Agree with you on that line up unless Dado is feeling his knee then I'd presume Buffel would come in.

He may be better than he looks but he's nowhere near as good as I thought he was. I though he was good enough to take the second best and most expensive squad in the league by far, spend a few million on players commanding salaries ten times greater than rest and easily create a gap between us and third place. In fact, I'd expect any manager in the SPL to that. I'd expect your average punter in the street to do that. But the fact is, he's doing no better than the likes of Calderwood, Jeffries and Collins who are on a far tighter budget. He's actually doing worse than Graeme Rix and not much better than Vladimir Romanov who's never done anything before in football... There's no excuse for doing so badly with either of the Old Firm. I didn't allow Eck any last year and I won't allow PLG any this year. The only difference is that I'll give PLG a bit of time, whereas Eck already had 4 years and so his time was up. If we're as bad as this in two years time then PLG's time will be up too.

PS You have to wonder why he's so desperate for significantly more than 600K a year plus bonuses and endorsements?

Well I for one think 600K a year plus bonuses for a not yet fully proven 22 year old who is constantly injured or ill, playing in the SPL for a club struggling to compete on its budget, is highly generous. I think I'd have offerred him 10 grand a week He should look at his peers, Brown and Thomson, who are on 1500 a week and would jump at the chance to sign for Rangers on 12 grand a week. I also doubt Letizi, Clement, Papac, Svensson, Sionko or Sebo are on more than that and Ponroy and Stanger are probably on a tiny fraction. Vignal was offered 9k, take it or leave it. He has to remember that the money for his wages comes out the fans pockets and I for one have no sympathy for a guy who's been offered a contract that will earn him more in 3 weeks than I do in a year. It's a fair offer and turning it down is a great slap in the face to the fans as well as the club who stood by him while he spent years on the sidelines due to illness and injury. At a time when we're crying out for loyal players, he is displaying a distinct lack of it. There's holding out for a good deal and pure greed and this smacks of the latter.

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/football/tm_headline=you-two-aren%2Dt-half-as-good-as-you-think%26method=full%26objectid=18222949%26siteid=66633-name_page.html No nonsense and a hell of a lot of sense from the 83 year old.

"Just look at the goals we lost tonight. We lost them from a throw-in, a free-kick and a corner. "That shows we were poor dealing with set-plays. We need to deal with them better in the future. "Rest assured I know the problems and will sort them out." I wish our manager would acknowledge stuff like this, it would give me a lot more confidence in him. I would like him to state that he knows we are crap at dealing with cross balls, that our centre halves aren't playing up to scratch and that he will sort the problem. At the moment you sometimes wonder if he's watching the same game as us with some of his comments and you never know if he sees the problems that we think are obvious.

Ian you may be right, Sebo MAY come good. He's done it at his last two clubs. It's just very hard to believe it will happen when he looks like he plays for the likes of Cowdenbeath. Judging by his history he only plays well for the second half of the season so he might be a waste of a shirt for a couple of months longer...

That's where timing is crucial. Celtic were in disarray at a time when the biggest income was from gate receipts and so it wasn't too hard to turn them around as one big share issue to build a cheap stadium and getting 60,000 through the turnstiles is all it needed. They are in reasonable shape now - better than us despite how bad a state they were in then and how good a state we were in. They've also learned a few lessons on the way and I don't think they'll throw it away like us. They have a wisdom and balance in their spending that we have yet to learn. They use prudence but also realise they sometimes need to spend a bit to get quality. At the moment for the Old Firm to maximise earnings to keep up with the rest of Europe, they need to be playing in the CL every year. However you can't play in the CL if you can't compete in Scotland to get at least second place and you also need to be able to mix it with the big boys of Europe to get the results. To do that you need quality on the park, which requires money, but if you don't spend it, you don't get into the CL and you have less money to spend. Every year we pass on the CL money creates a bigger finance gap between us and the Europe elite, and now also Celtic as they seem to be playing there most years. They had one hiccough last year but have made up for that by getting to the last 16, and they seem to be overall moving forward over time and I can see them continuing to compete in the medium future. We're so off the pace and moving backwards so quickly that it feels like turning the ship around will take a long, long time, and where will we be in relation to Celtic then?

I agree with you Craig, he's come on and had a few chances and the best he's done is blast the ball at a defender. Hasn't even come close to scoring lately. The ironic thing is, that out of five strikers, we only have one who knows how to finish, and he gets a slagging by the manager and some of the fans. Novo only tends to score with lucky deflections, Buffel can finish when on form but he is only on form for about 20 minutes every month, Prso is usually never quite in the right position and never seems to get the ball quite under control in the box for a good shot and his headers are usually over the bar, and Sebo can't seem to hit the proverbial barn door.

PS It's ironic that it wasn't our 9-in-row years that produced our huge debt, it was the Advocaat years that did that. Although we do have to remember that we spent about 40M on our stadium and 17M on Murray park in that time too.

BUT - here's the domestic results for nine in a row: Champions, Champions, Champions, Champions, Champions, Champions, Champions, Champions, Champions. We were also were the third best team in Europe one year and if it wasn't for bribes and the lack of a semi final, we would have had a pretty good chance of winning the CL. I think our lack of results in Europe after that were mostly down to Wattie changing from a solid and succesful 4-4-2 to his disastrous 5-3-2 plus buying the likes of Clelland, Bolan and a few other donkeys that seemed to get in the team every week.

In the new year I'd like to see: ---------------------------McGregor-------------------------- Whittaker--------Pressley------------Anderson----------Smith ---------------------------Clement--------------------------- ---------Burke------------- Ferguson--------Brown------------ ----------------------Stokes--------Boyd---------------------

We've been rebuilding every season since 9 in a row...

We were 17 points behind Celtic after 17 games last year, this year we're only 16, so that's an improvement... God it's depressing. I think someone really needs to get stuck into le Guen and demand answers of him like: "FFS - 16 pts!!! Falkirk! St Johnstone!! Please, please explain to me how the hell can you sleep at nights while being this shit? How can you show your face in public? When are you going to show us that you have the slightest idea about managing Rangers?" The thing that pisses me off is that he rubs salt into the wounds by being so crap with the press. It's so refreshing to listen to managers like John Collins and Yogi Hughs, who just tell it as it is. Even Gordon Strachan is far more open and acknowledging in his answers. Le Guen is following Ecks lead by patronising us instead of giving honest answers. I really think le Guen need a big kick up the arse instead of the kid gloves he's been getting. He needs someone to give him an epiphany, that light bulb moment that says, "you're obviously doing something wrong, and if you keep doing it, you'll most likely get the same results." But there is another bit of wisdom that applies here, "You can't change what you don't acknowledge."

Lets get Anderson AND pressley, that should sort our defensive problems out, especially if you add Whittiker. Then sort the midfield out with Brown and Thomson. Stokes up front would be a good shout for a reputed £600K.

They still gained a point on us... I can't believe that Aberdeen lost, Hearts drew and again we failed to capitalise to give us breathing space in second...

I would take Brown, Thomson, Whittaker, Anderson and Pressley from the SPL. We could do a hell of a lot worse. However the usual problem with the other SPL clubs is that they overprice their players and even after we got the likes of Novo for a so called bargain, he turned out to be worth no more than what we paid for him. It's been a problem for years and why the OF have spent Scottish money abroad for players who were often nothing better than at home, except they were cheaper. If the other Scottish teams would stop being so gready, more OF money would stay in Scotland and they would earn more in the long run.

Why don't you think so?

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/football/tm_headline=elvis-still-missing%26method=full%26objectid=18203500%26siteid=66633-name_page.html Not a long term solution but we need someone half decent in now to lead the back line and Pressley fits the bill and importantly we should be able to get him on the cheap and his wage will fit into our wage structure. If PLG and DM can't see a solution that's handed to them on a plate then I don't have much hope for their decision making.