calscot

You can add Mo Johnson to the list.

My point is not that you're supporting Rangers less, but undoubtedly it looks as though you do. Instead of looking like a Rangers fan you might be mistaken for a neutral West Brom fan who is just visiting. I don't really get your point though, you could easily wear a pre Murray Rangers shirt or just a blue t-shirt. Let see - "I'm going to a Rangers match today, what will I wear? I know - a Barca top." Sorry it just doesn't make any sense to me. The wearing of a football top to a game is usually to make some kind of point - mainly where your allegiance lies, otherwise why wear sporting attire to just watch a game? I also don't get the avoidance of buying a top due to DM. It is not he that is responsible for the money aspect of the game, and most Rangers fans would like the club to have more money to spend to keep up with the bigger leagues. I doubt Murray makes a penny from the tops (although he makes money elsewhere from Rangers) and he asserts that all profits go to improving the team. I can see why you don't like Murray and you have complete choice of how you spend your money but wearing a non Rangers top is not going to affect the man in the slightest. I've nothing against you wearing another team's top to Ibrox, I just don't see the logic in it. The same way that I don't see the logic in singing the sash. But I guess this will be yet another subject where we disagree.

While not his biggest fan, I think we could get him fairly cheap and on a reasonable wage and as such would make a decent backup player, especially with the lack of depth at centre back and the pelters our central duo are taking.

He can sign for another club in Scotland but not for free. He can go free to a club outside Scotland.

I've wouldn't condemn people for it but I would find it hard to understand some who apparently coming to support Rangers would openly display an allegiance to another team. It does water down their support somewhat. Instead of being a Rangers "fan" it looks like Rangers are just one of the teams you "like". It just doesn't seem so genuine when you have more than one allegiance bar your national side.

I know you don't think DM defends our club in public, but I'm pretty sure he put up a very strong defence in the UEFA investigation and produced a hell of a lot of evidence. That's why it was originally thrown out. UEFA didn't have the resources or knowlege to properly answer our defence and so threw their hands up and said "not our problem". Then the official who didn't attend the hearing pushed them into a rethink and so, to not look so weak, they decided to pick on a song that is reasonably hard to defend. They will not pick on Wolverhampton town or the Bouncy as it would leave them open to ridicule and label them as farcical and they would have to apply the same rules to every team. It would ruin their whole campagne to get rid of racism etc from their competitions.

There's two points where I completely agree with you 100%.

I'm pretty sure that if the Tims repeatedly report us for these kinds of songs, the UEFA investigations at Ibrox will definitely stop. It's a very good example of crying wolf.

I'm sorry, Cammy, I really don't know what I've done except rebut your points with what I think are reasonable counterpoints. But fair enough, if you don't want to discuss it, no problem.

To make it truely non offensive we could have: We like to use war metaphors. "Surrender or you'll die"

Not a bad line stan fits the rest of the words well, although it still doesn't rhyme!

I'm sorry but in my opinion, a manager with a wage budget would find it very hard to choose a squad properly without have knowledge or any control over what the wages would be. It's like trying to send someone to do your shopping on a budget without knowing how much anything costs. Imagine Bain was crap and ended up giving Sionko 60 grand a week and then telling the manager there was no more money left... I'll take that for granted but it would have cost nothing to let him go after his contract expired so how do yo explain that? Your point is irrelevant to why Ricksen is still here on a HIGHER wage. What an easy question to answer. He has a budget, if he signed Beckham (presuming he would come and we got him for say 3M), his 100 grand a week wage demands would mean PLG could not sign any more players. Beckham instead of 6 or 7 new players? It's pretty obvious. Unless you don't understand that PLG cannot control how much total budget he has and he also cannot control how much a player wants... It's pretty plain to see that the players PLG has gone for are good players on lowish wages, that's nothing to do with Bain negotiation skills, that's knowing the market in the first place. You wouldn't allow someone to do the bidding for you at an auction without telling them the maximum you would spend on an item. I still think the manager chooses which point of the wage structure the player fits into and can veto any extraordinary demands. I would still say that the manager sets the limits and Bain does the negotiation.

PS Do we really have to block words like, "fen****"? We don't tend to use it offensively here but it is needed to be able to talk about it so we can persuade people to stop it. There's another site that is so bad that you can't even write the first name of our dutch ex-manager. And I remember another that blocked IRA which meant you couldn't even write about how IRAte (***te) you were about the filter as well as many other words with that sequence of letters.

It's more than one line, the "Billy" aspect is also distastful. It's funny how the defenders of the song go on about the true meaning of "fen1an" but don't seem too bothered about the true meaning of "Billy Boys". Is glorifying a razor gang not some kind of "extreme propaganda" in the same vein as the IRA? What problem does any decent and loyal Rangers fan have with singing, "We are the Rangers boys"? I think it shows how low in the priorities Rangers FC itself is, for many so called Rangers fans who will not stop singing songs that harm our club.

Why didn't Eck let Ricksen go at the end of the season before last? He must have said he wanted him and knew his wage demands. But I just don't buy the notion that the manager has nothing to do with how much the players get paid. The manager has a wage budget and has to pick a squad to fit that budget. How can he do that with no knowlege of how much a player will be paid. How many times have we heard that Eck couldn't sign a new player till someone leaves to free up a wage? Bain might be doing the negotiation but I'm sure that Eck will have set the limits and given him a good idea of how much he's worth. DM says that PLG has full control of all first team footballing matters. I'm sure that means he has full say in whether a player stays or goes and the ball park figure of every players wages. I'm presume the board set the wage structure but it will be lower, not higher than the manager would like as you seem to be suggesting. I also didn't hear Eck complaining that Bernard's and Ricksen's wages were more than he'd like. Eck chose the players and he did it in full knowlegde that both their wages would be high.

One season out of six for 4.5 million and at least the same in wages... What a waste. The million pounds in wages for last year was one of Ecks biggest wastes of money. Add that to at least 1.5M for Fanfan and Bernard's wages and you start to wonder what we could have done with the money. I've never been a fan of Ricksen and I'll be glad to see him go, however I've a feeling he'll be hanging around like a bad smell as no-one will match his wages, he's way overpaid.

Rory Loy is the 10th signing. 25K from Kilmarnock. 18 year old midfielder yet to play first team football.

I'd like the SPL crown and semi-final minimum in all three cups. And I'd like the football to be great to watch with a feeling that we can beat anyone if all goes to plan.

It's the country coefficient that gets us our 2 CL places and if we are ninth the Champions automatically qualify while the 2nd team go into the 3rd qualifier. We were tenth for the sake of this year's competition which is why Celtic's highish club coef elevated them due to a fortunate turn of results. If we were 11th in the country coefs it wouldn't have made any difference. We're 11th now. It's country coefficients first, then club coefficient second. If we drop to 16th place then we even lose a CL place. Last year, despite Rangers doing well, Scotland only achieved 4.25 points, had the last 5 years all been the same we'd have been in 19th place, which would mean the Champions would go into qualifying round 2 and the runners up into UEFA. That would be despite us getting to the CL last 16 every year. We NEED the other Scottish teams to do reasonably well to at least be 15th and hopefully 9th.

But to answer Gribz's question, I think Sionko, Buffel and Adam will be the ones who really shine, while Clement and Svensson will do the business but in a more understated and less plaudited way. Burke will hopefully also shine if he can get a place but I'm sure he'll at least be a super sub. Sebo will fight it out with Buffel and I'm sure both will score a reasonable amount while providing many assists. I think Smith may establish himself as the best left back in the country and of course Boyd will score a barrel-load. Prso will be very influencial, especially in big games but I can see his appearances being limited to keep his knee in good nick. I think Barry and Rodrigez will be totally solid without making a huge impression and Letizi will be good enough without being spectacular, that we'll hardly notice him. Hutton is the main worry as are any injuries to the back four although I think Murray can be an adept replacement for almost any of them and Ponroy looks promising. I can't see Ricksen or Fanfan being involved much except during an injury crisis and the Frenchman will hopefully be off to the Blades allowing us to bring in a replacement on lower wages. Namouchi and Novo will be on the fringes as cover for injuries but I can see them both leaving at the end of the season. I can also forsee the gentle introduction of Ashikodi, Carcary, N'Gessan, Furman and Stanger.

I think you might see Clement doing more of the spraying of passes while Fergie does more of the mopping up and winning the ball back. With this formation, I suspect both of them will generally stay pretty deep and cover as well as feed the next line of three in the formation. The wierd thing about the formation is that is feels like we've got more men on the park!

If Hearts do well, Celtic don't do too badly and we go on a long run, it will bring coefficent up so that we automatically qualify for the CL every year when we win the league... If we win the league this season we'll probably have to qualify next season due to Scottish teams' dire performances, Rangers appart, last season.

If someone is good enough for the full squad but qualifies for u21 team, then I'd rather they played in the u21 qualifier than go to some get together. Gives the u21's more chance of qualifying. There's plenty of time for Smith to get into the full team when he's over 21 and picked up some more experience in the SPL, Europe and u21 internationals. He's only really had half a season for Rangers, and look at the way Hutton's development has stalled. I think Naismith can do a job for us in the meantime, after all he does play in the EPL.

Well Le Guen has completed his 9th signing and it doesn't look like he'll be able to bring in any more till a few leave. What does everyone think of the new team? Five will be heavily involved in the first team with one on the periphery and three youngsters. That's not bad for a layout of around �£3 million and enough for going on with. I'd presume he's got a couple of million left in this season's budget to spend in January and is being careful with the money. Our first team squad now looks like: Letizi/MacGregor Hutton/Ponroy Svensson Rodriguez Smith/Murray Ferguson/Hemdani Clement/Rae Sionko/Burke Sebo/Buffel Adam/N'Diadyi Prso/Boyd With Namouchi, Novo and perhaps Ricksen as cover. Fanfan, Andrews, Malcolm and Bernard seem to be surplus to requirements. Our weakest position now seems to be centre back so I'm not sure if Fanfan will be allowed to leave quite yet or whether there is someone lined up straightaway if he does leave. Right back also looks a bit weak but passable as long as Hutton and Ponroy both continue to improve. But otherwise the squad looks reasonably strong to me and I can see us building on it in January and next summer.

I agree with the 92 CL run especially against Leeds after being told that they'd show the Scots how to play football and that McCoist couldn't score outside the SPL. I was at that '83 final and as I recall - we were robbed...