calscot

Boyd would be the likely candidate to move on...

Yes but if he takes his ball away not only will he have no mates, he stands to lose a hell of a lot of money. We're the one's who actually provide the finance for the club, he shouldn't and probably won't forget that.

I'm not so organised as to know the complete ins and outs of either... But I did an internet quiz once and it came up existential, but I take your word for it that I'm not.

Yeah, there will be a load of decent bears who disagree with that... although I do doubt many of them go to church or vote Tory... I don't follow any set religion (the nearest would be existentialism or humanism) and I prefer to keep politics out of sport so it's obvious where I stand.

And the fact is if our fans had the intelligence to change just four words then we'd still be able to sing it too - "Ibrox" Boys, "Celtic" blood, and "Glasgow Rangers" boy. It would still be blood thirsty but no-one could say it's sectarian. Some idiots have to learn that if you don't compromise and take a fair deal, then sometimes you lose everything. These very fans have sold those "Rangers traditions", that they keep going on about, down the river for a song. However, I suppose the good thing in my opinion is that they are helping a new secular, non-political Rangers to rise out of the ashes.

I think that's one of our big problems right now. Ok Man U proved Alan Hansen wrong but lets look at some of the players in the 1996 Man U squad and their ages at the time: Peter Schmeichel - 33 Raimond Van der Gouw - 33 Gary Pallister - 31 David May - 26 Denis Irwin - 31 Ronnie Johnsen - 27 Brian McClair - 32 Eric Cantona - 30 Plus: Karel Poborsky - 24 (still youngish but world cup star) Andy Cole - 25 (youngish but best striker in the country at the time) So you can see that they had plenty of experienced heads scattered round the team. Our older players are (name - age - influence/10 - comment): Klos - 35 - 0 - doesn't get a sniff of a game Letizi - 33 - 1 - could learn a thing or two from MacGregor Papac - 26 - 3 - Has been very disappointing and lost his place in the team Rodriguez - 28 - 2 - waste of space, prefer him not to play Murray - 25 - 0 - been injured all season Hemdani - 28 - 6 - Consistent but nothing special N'Diaye - 25 - 0 - reserve player Rae - 28 - 1 - hardly gets a game and will probably will leave Ferguson - 28 - 9 - Our one decent older head but one is not enough Sionko - 28 - 1 - mostly injured and outplayed by a younger player - Burke. Buffel - 25 - 2 - just not consistent enough and shouldn't be getting a game Novo - 27 - 4 - tries hard, not a bad squad player but acts pretty immature at times Prso - 32 - 8 - great player but a bit past his best now - still a good role model So we only have two older players with much influence and another with a bit. I think that's a big, big problem. We need older heads to mentor and bring on the youngsters, giving them the benefit of their experience.

Yes, that's true, we could put a few scenarios of how much he would make or lose depending on the share price and people could work out the rest for themselves.

Yes, this is a point I really want to ram home...

I think one problem is, the answer can't fully be given till DM sells his shares and we find out what he gets for them...

Pretty good formal treatment of Murray's and many fans false logic. I've been saying for ages that just because we got up to 80M in debt by borrowing to spend doesn't mean we'll do it again. If we borrow a reasonable amount and manage it properly there is no problem. I think Murray his followers believe the following: Debt == bad No debt == good whereas I believe No debt == good Some manageable debt == ok Big debt == bad however I also think Low spending => bad results == bad Reasonable spending => better results == good High spending => better results => big debt => low spending => bad results == bad (Now there is a correlation between spending a results however it is very inconsistent, but I think we can all see that not spending doesn't work) Now other assumptions: Bad results => lower income == bad good results => higher income == good So putting it together No debt => lower spending => poor results => lower income => lower spending => poorer results == bad Some debt => reasonable spending => good results => reasonable income => pay off some debt => reasonable spending => good results == good High debt => high spending => good results => higher income still lower than spending => low spending => poor results => bad A bit simplistic but glaringly obvious at the moment.

So are we after Naismith now? Good player but I really, really, really think we are lacking experienced players right now. I keep feeling we'll end up with a team full of promising youngsters and in a few years, when they start to peak, they'll all leave on free transfers at the end of their contracts...

Would it really kill these morons to shout something like, "F*** the Tims/Celts!" and sing, "We hate Celtic, manky/wanky/stupid bast**ds" instead? What is their problem? Do they have obsessive compulsive disorder?

Well we've averaged at least 10 points a season less than Celtic for the last 8 seasons! That's one hell of a slump and despite a couple of scaped titles papering over the cracks, he's pretty much had us playing the second fiddle for almost half his tenure. Murray has pretty much proven he hasn't got a clue, when he brought DA in he spent 3 times as much as was needed for the success we achieved and now he's spending a third of what we need to even compete. His sums are all wrong and have been for a long time. Instead of spending 30 million a year or 3 million a year, we need the middle ground of around 6-10 million a year depending on our earnings from Europe. If his metals factory was in dire need of some new machinery or risk failure to compete in its market, I'm sure he'd make the investment. At the same time I'm sure he wouldn't throw silly money at it and buy twice as much as he needed. Why can't he EVER apply proper business sense to Rangers FC?

Ah but are they not the first Scottish team team to get through with the present rules which changed slightly in the summer??? Stachan's doing a pretty good job at Parkhead and makes you wonder why PLG is considered the best young manager around... Just shows that foreign is necessarily the best... Hopefully PLG can eventually overtake Strachan and we can have a competitive league and a pretty strong top two in Europe. However it's also blown the "Scottish backbone" theory out of the water as Celtic only started with 2 Scots and brought 2 on as subs.

I've looked at the Man U stats and all the players I picked have played over half the games this season with most playing far more than that, so at least it's in the realms of plausibility...

Just looked at the rankings and noticed Greece have that final scenario happening to them. If they don't get a load of wins, in two seasons they'll go from having 6 teams in Europe to 3... Romania look like they'll go from 3 to 6.

I don't watch or follow Man U much so my version of the team is pretty much the players I know best...

I think you better bet on a high interest savings account then...

You know, it feels so RIGHT to name a 4-4-2 line up...

Man Utd: ................van der Sar ...Neville...Brown...Ferdinand...Silvestre Fletcher...O'Shea...Carrick...Giggs .............Rooney...Saha

Celtic should also have Graveson and JVOH fit and on form as well as Miller back. I think that the first two really raise their level as a team and Miller adds the graft up front. I think Celtic will go for: .........................Boruc .......Telfer...Balde...McManus...Naylor Nakamura...Graveson...Lennon...McGeady .....................Miller...Hesselink Marshall, Caldwell, O'Dea, Sno, Jarosik, Maloney, Zurawski (I think Beattie and Pearson must be injured/suspended) BBC say Balde should replace the doubtful Caldwell.

I think it's a no lose situation tonight, if Man U win the Tims shut up, if Celtic win, the English shut up. Living in England, I'd prefer the latter and it would be better for our coefficient especially as countries like Romania have zoomed ahead of us and we're now down to 12th. The sweet spot is 9th where the champions automatically get into the CL and the runners up into the 3rd qualifier. That doesn't happen with 10th and 8th means you get 4 teams in the UEFA cup. While that sounds good it means our co-effs get divided by six and judging by how crap the non-OF teams are in Europe that would put our ranking back into free-fall.

There's a rumour in the press that J-Rod is to be moved on. That makes sense as he wasn't brought here by PLG and he's been around for a while without showing any signs that he's right for us.

Three million for both is more like it. I always think that the starting point for what club thinks their player's worth is, is what's left of his wages on his contract. That makes them worth less than £200,000 each... The are on £1200 a week each till 2009 and 2010. Our negotiating will be stronger when the players realise they are being blocked from a 1000% payrise and don't want to play anymore... I think the compromise will be half what Hibs are claiming for.

Fletcher was a Rangers youth player...