calscot

Rangers fans holidaying in Blackpool who fancy seeing the match perchance???

I can see it coming out in a book by PL but people who write about themselves tend to try to come up smelling of roses.

Totally agree with you Danny. The guy was CAPTAIN of his former team, and I don't think he'd have signed to then sit on the bench. I'm certain he was signed as our first pick along with J-Rod. There are quite a few weeks left in the transfer window and I reckon PLG still has a few mil to spend. I think he just wants to use it wisely and make it go further. He wants at least 3 more signings, probably more. Even now we have a team without playing the new youngsters: -------------Letizi Hutton Svensson J-Rod Smith ---Barry/Hemdani Clement ---Sionko Buffel Burke/Prso ------------Boyd I think we need to give PLG a chance. After all didn't most of our present team do well in the CL last season? I think our team has already improved and we now have a tactical manager who will get our players fitter and more disciplined. I'm glad to see the back of PL, he was greedy and showed no great respect for our club. Most of the papers say that we've offered 1.2M and they want 2M. That's 800k difference which puts a big dent in a 3M budget when you still want two more players. The guy is in the last year of his contract and so we can try to play hard ball and not be fleeced. AV are also playing hardball and bluffing as much as they can to squeeze more money out of us. It'll probably work and we'll end up paying something like 1.8M which leaves less for the extra couple of players we need. I think one of the biggest troubles is that our esteemed former manager, Eck, has left us in a bit of a mess with his high salaries and long contracts for totally useless players. Le Guen seems a bit better at this kind of thing but he has a hard job correcting the mistakes of his predecessor.

We don't know the real story but what Gisabeer just said sounds the most plausible one.

I was hoping it was less especially as he didn't exactly fill even hemdani's shoes the other night. But 3 grand a week for a year is a gamble I'm happy for us to take.

The one's with free tranfers will be the one's in the same position as Webster ie in the fourth year of their contract. They can give notice to quit.

Yep Amen to that and I bet he's on a "modest" wage of no more than 7 grand a week...

The guy has ruined any credibility in piece by twisting facts and putting in an unbelievable part where a whole section of the crowd were insulting to DM's disability. Firstly Murray didn't rescue Rangers from oblivion - If anyone did it was Lawrence Malborough and David Holmes. That is if we were facing oblicion in the face in the first place - which I think is a ridiculous thing to say. More of a deep slumber than near death. Murray then bought Rangers at a bargain basement price of which the stadium and other properties more than covered never mind the club and expensively assembled team. In fact the team itself would have fetched more than �£6M on the open market. He also did was not wholly responsible for Ibrox being a great stadium, he improved on what was already one of the most modern and best arenas in Britain built in the 80's to ensure there was never another Ibrox disaster and payed for by the highly successful Rangers pools. He lowered the pitch to add some rows of seats all round while allowing the enclosure to be level with the pitch for more seating, then filled in the corners along with the jumbo screens and most significantly rebuilt the main stand with an extra tier to take the capacity from 45,000 with 36,000 seats to 51,000 all seater. He should be thanked for taking the stadium to the standard of the elite UEFA 5-star status but it should also be remembered that his own companies both provided the steel and had the building contract. He did bring us 9 in a row which was a fantastic achievement but it must be remembered that he was spending big money at a time when Celtic were in financial crisis and still using the biscuit tin while the rest of Scottish football quickly over spent trying to keep in the same league as Rangers fiscal muscle until they quickly ran out of money and challenge. The first few years were very difficult but after that, winning the league became a breeze. It should also be noted that once Fergus McCann sorted Celtic out, our run quickly ended and Celtic have been our equals ever since. Which goes to show that DM is not unique in turning round a big club and despite DM's head start, we've ended up now playing catch up to Celtic. That could be in large part due to DM almost taking us to a real oblivion by extremely careless profligacy that he blames the fans for encouraging which without knowing how the book balancing was going, is not surprising. I think most fans would have cried, "Stop!" if we knew what financial abyss we were heading for. To then praise him for what could be construed as weak leadership is just baffling. Keeping managers and players beyond their sell by date is very dangerous in such a competative business, and although it's good to be loyal to your friends it should not be rammed down the throats of those who are not party to lunch with Walter Smith, Dick Advocaat or Alex McLeish. To the average football fan the needs of the club far outweigh any cosy cronyism by the chairman. He did belatedly bring us a training ground that although expensive probably cost less that the amount we lost in wages and transfer values from our injury jinx which was greatly linked to the fact that players injured training on an uneven public park had to use a bit of ice and sit on a bus until the session was over before receiving proper medical help. Murray has done a lot of good for our club, I agree with that but to conveniently forget the negative or negligent things he has done is not the way to hit out at his detractors. His detractors are there because his single minded control of the club has been a bumpy ride which is out of the control of 99.99% of the fans. His false promises, half truths and sometimes downright lies have aliented many of us as did his storming off in a huff when we didn't appreciate him taking us to the brink. If Murray had run Rangers more in line with the rest of his companies, I think we'd have had an even better 17 years and be in a very strong and healthy position both financially and performance-wise. But Rangers seems to have been his plaything to massage his ego and he's let his emotions run away with him instead of using sound business sense. There is nothing wrong with borrowing and spending as long as it's done wisely and geared towards bring a return. And there's nothing wrong with having loyalty and faith in your manager as long as it's not blind. I think it probably is time for DM to move on and it would be better to have a consortium so that the club is not at the whims of one man. We should thank DM for some of the things he has done but with the number of his mistakes and the money and prestige he has gained from Rangers FC, we don't owe him our blind homage.

Just exaggerating to make a point...

I've got a Tim mate who doesn't seem to know the score so I did the kind thing and offered to record it from Celtic TV for him. He's looking forward to watching it this weekend with his dad who's visiting...

I was going to say the EXACT same thing. I'm only 5 years younger than him but I think he could pass for my dad... He was a great player and taking Livorno to 6th is pretty good. And by the looks of things could retrospectively win the Serie A by default when the top 5 are stripped and relegated...

My donation is sent...

PS Pity Mojo wasn't the manager .

That game looked like it could have been Brazil against Cowdenbeath. Either DC are an excellent side or Celtic are so dire they made them look like world beaters.

We'll have to wait for the year end report to know that.

I make it: In: Furman - free Ponroy - free Stanger - free Letizi - free Sionko - free Svensson - 600K Clement - 1.1M We also have N'Diaye on trial but he will not command a fee and will presumably have to pay Murray Park something for Charlie Adam. Out: Waterreus - free McLean - free Kyrgiakos - free Lovenkrands - free McCormack - Undisclosed Khizanishvili - 500K So the balance is about a 1.2M spend. Should be a few mil left in the kitty but PLG is spending it wisely and probably has to free up a few wages before recruiting more players. We actually seem to have a bigger squad now than before! Although others do look set to leave: Bernard and Malcolm weren't even invited to SA. Fanfan is unlikely to stay and Andrews, Rae and Namouchi seem on dodgy ground. Also Ricksen now looks to be on his way out. I think I'd like us to discard Bernard, Malcolm, Andrews, Fanfan, Namouchi and Ricksen, replace them with N'Diaye, Sebo, two full backs and two centre halves, while giving Rae a chance as a squad player.

With the information we have about how the team is playing I think Frankie has the formation spot on. I'll go for: --------------Letizi Ponroy Svensson Rodriguez Smith --------Ferguson Clement ------Sionko Prso/Buffel Burke ------------Boyd/Sebo? Burke played well on the left against Linfield and linked very well with Smith. Ponroy supposedly played well as right back in SA and Hutton was inconsistant last season. I can't see us failing for a second striking target so I think we'll get Sebo.

Scratch that, it's so long since I used my account they've suspended it and want me to jump through hoops to reactivate it. They want me to do three things I loath doing: Filling in a long form using HANDWRITING!!! Finding some utility bill to send and my chequebook for a cancelled cheque. Finding an envelope and stamp and actually posting something! I'm on the internet for a reason... I just don't do snail mail very well. Expect my account to be activated next year sometime... I suppose I'll have to open a PayPal account.

Is there a nochex account I can send to?

There are a lot of Catholics in the world who don't hate Rangers. I think the only thing his religion has done is help him choose his objects of hatred. However he was brought up he was always going to hate someone, it's in his nature.

We also need cover at LB - who's backup to Smith? (I'm discounting Bernard.)

I don't think we're that split, I liked the look of him on a couple of occasions but he didn't exactly set the world alight. I agree that Boyd is the best young Scottish striker around and we already have him. I would have liked to have seen him play instead of Jeffers but that's in the past now. I was disappointed with Nieto but maybe my memory of his is a bit dim or my expectations too high. I'm maybe vindicated by his present status but agree that football can be an ironic world. But Ross has got a gig at Motherwell which suggests he's not too bad, but not quite up to Rangers standards. Basically I thought McCormack looked promising without yet delievering that promise - and he's getting on a bit too. If PLG thinks he's not up to it then who am I to disagree. I think Carcary and Ashikodi look even more promising in any case and look forward to them improving under Le Guen. Maybe he can give Ashikodi more than 5 seconds on the park...

Eck won his first 5 trophies on the back of being more laid back with the players after DA. I think it shows that there is a fine line between disipline and draconianism. DA went too far, Eck went too far the other way, PLG could be the baby bear who is just right.

As was "Is it important to get to know your team-mates...???"

Would you care if we were rubbish though? Ideally we shouldn't even want to know what religion they are whether we win or lose. The only time I want to know what catholics play for Rangers is to disabuse ignorant people who think, for some strange reason, that we are a protestant team... If these kind of people weren't around I wouldn't be interested at all.