calscot

One goal is better than none and it makes you wonder why he didn't get more of a chance ahead of Jeffers and Nieto... We've got more promising strikers in Ashikodi and Carcary but good luck to the lad.

I remember at the time bemoaning that Celtic had signed him and not us as he had a good partnership with McCoist for Scotland. People told me I was stupid to even think about him signing for Rangers. I was pretty smug a few days later... He was a good signing for us as he was a very good player and gave us options up front. It also weakened our rivals and it was great pulling the rug from underneath them. But on hindsight, I think it was a fantastic signing for Rangers FC. It showed the world we would sign anyone if they were good enough, we could afford them and they wanted to come. We already had John Spencer but it put to bed the myth that we wouldn't sign a "proper catholic" - whatever that is... It blew the whole "Rangers FC are sectarian" reputation out of the water and paved the way for an equal opportunities policy at Ibrox with the blessing of most of the support. It's just a pity that 17 years on, a large section of the fans are still blind to Rangers' more recent traditions.

Pity the questions were absolute pants, you could see him struggle to think of a decent answer to a stupid yes/no question but Svensson was pretty good at giving intelligent, informative answers despite this... "Did you ask Bjoklund or Therne about Rangers before coming" "No, I don't know them..." Stupid question, fair answer.

I'll bet he's not bad on the pitch either as he was an accomplished player. Can you imagine Jimmy Calderwood doing the Marathon du Sables? At least he wouldn't need his fake tan... I also thought Barry looked fit and slim for someone who's been out after an operation. That bodes well.

There are some people in the OO that support Rangers and there are some Rangers supporters in the OO but that does not mean Rangers == OO. The OO may not be inherently bigoted (although from some of the stuff I've seen and heard I don't believe they are exactly squeaky clean) but the trouble is that it is the bigots who use the OO as a figure head to champion their hatred without their permission or blessing. I don't understand why half of Ibrox sing OO songs when only a small minority are members and most of the rest know little about their constitution. I also don't understand why the OO don't condemn these people who are just using the OO to their own nefarious ends. I have a theory that there is a difference between a protestant and a "prod". The former go to church on Sunday, worship God and Jesus Christ, live reasonably respectable lives, work hard, do stuff for charity etc etc. They sing hymns and say prayers. While the latter go to the pub on Sunday, hate Catholics, Fenians, the IRA and Celtic with much venom, find any excuse to be bigoted to others, and sing songs about the Boyne, Derry and sashes their father wore while also chanting about fornication with the pope. Rangers can be proud of some of the protestant association IN THE PAST but they should be and are ashamed of some of the proddy tradition that has blighted the club. Rangers are now proud to be inclusive, no matter the race, colour or religion of their employees and supporters. This is what Rangers now stand for and it's the die hard prods who don't have a clue what Rangers' traditions now are. These are the people who cause harm to our club and it's up to the non-prods which includes all real religions or even just secularism and atheism, to prevent these people bringing our club down.

With Rangers actively getting rid of the following: Ricksen, Bernard, Fanfan, Malcolm, McCormack That leaves our first team squad of 24 as something like: Letizi/Klos/MacGregor Hutton/Lowing Svensson/Ponroy Rodriguez/Andrews? Smith Burke/Sionko/Namouchi Ferguson/Rae Hemdani/Murray Clement/Adam Boyd/Prso Buffel/Novo/Stanger With the following youngsters waiting in the wings: Robinson Campbell Gilmour Davidson Furman N'Guessan Carcary Ashikodi I would say looking at the squad we need to prioritise the aquisition of a right back, a centre back, a left back and a striker. But at the moment it's not the most awe inspiring Rangers squad I've seen. However I fully expect every player to play at a much higher standard under PLG and I assume more money will be available in the January transfer window as well as the discarding of a few more players on stupid wages. I think we have enough to win the league against a weak looking Celtic and a good but nothing special Hearts, and for a good run in the UEFA but I don't think we'll really have a team to drool over until the 2007 season when the next round of transfers comes into effect. I think PLG will get about 5 or 6M every year to spend and it will take time to accumulate the standard of player throughout the team to really challenge in the champions' league.

The main trouble with those photos is that they are useless due to the logo splashed all over them. I understand that they want to keep their copyright but they've gone too far and thrown the baby out with the bathwater. They could easily have been more subtle and not completely ruined the pics... Big thumbs down from me.

The new subscription for Sentanta Sports is �£180 Getting a bit rich for my blood but I don't want to miss Le Revolution. There's more live SPL games and more from Europe but I can only watch so much football - and that's usually just the live Rangers games and the SPL highlights. I watch enough other sports on terrestrial. I'd rather just pay �£100 for that and forget the rest...

With all the stuff I've read of him he seems like a prospect but hasn't done anything that would make me think he's value for money at £3.5M. Toulouse might think so but I don't think they have got much of a bargain. I'd rather we kept to PLG's valuations rather than getting into auctions. There must be plenty of other good young strikers around for 2.5M.

I agree with Frankie, the main thing is to give a good account of ourselves, get some points in the bag and improve our coefficient for the next draw. And we should do that by bringing on all the promising young players we have and grooming them for the future. Of course we'll also have to keep some experience in the team for the young ones to learn from and keep the results coming in. I think the good thing is that with Smith as manager, if we don't punch abover our weight we should at least punch at it. Under Vogts, the players availlable weren't great but he seemed to make them worse than they already were...

Burke played on the left and played very well IMHO, putting in some good crosses with his less favoured left foot - far better than Lovenkrands. He also seemed to link up well with an impressive Stevie Smith who did a great job of overlapping and then tracking back. I keep getting more and more impressed by this guy. Unfortunately Burke has to come off due to what originally looked like an ankle injury and then worryingly the physios started treating his knee but the papers are reporting that it's a minor ankle injury and nothing to worry about. Hutton also seemed to do ok without doing anything outstanding. Letizi wasn't really tested but looked assured and sharp, coming out quickly to pick balls up or out of his box to header the ball away. Can't really judge him but he didn't put a foot wrong. Fanfan still looks a bit dodgy and doesn't keep close enough to his man but I think he only played as he's the only center back available after Rodriguez - with Andrews not back, Soti off and Malcolm not in even in the party. We definitely need to sign another one when Fanfan leaves and with not much money left we should probably keep Andrews as back up although Ponroy plays in that position and might be more in the immediate plans than we thought. Rodriguez was pretty solid and good at getting himself in front of shots and passes around the box. However he executed a woeful header in the Linfield box that I think went out for a throw. But hey, he's not a striker, and as long as he does a job at the back, I'll be happy with him. Ricksen seems ok compared to recently with a couple of good strikes but didn't do enough to really impress and neither did Rae for that matter. Hemdani didn't seem all that sharp and dwelled on the ball a bit long a couple of times to lose possession. Boyd and Buffel did ok but only scored when gifted their chances by a bit of slapstick defending. Buffel's stike was excellent after swivelling round the ball at about 14 yards and firing it into the corner. Pity he miss the ball with a promising volley attempt later. Boyd coolly slotted his home during a one on one with the keeper after picking up the slackest backpass you'll ever see. I recorded the game due to playing golf and fell asleep in the second half as it was around midnight and I was knackered... so I can't say anything about Murray, Adam, Ponroy and Stanger. Linfield as a team looked not too bad - their slapstick defending appart, and we found it hard to control the game although always seemed slightly on top and our attacks were sharper. Not the most convincing of performances but it's not really Le Guen's team yet and all he's had time to work on is fittness, but all in all a promising start.

I know most of us hate Celtic but if you were a very rich outsider, would you prefer to play probably the last two years of your career contesting trophies and playing in the CL for say 27 grand a week, or say 32 grand a week to be in mid table obscurity or even a relegation dogfight in the EPL? Remember the same applies to Rangers...

I actually thought Rae did not bad at the end of the season considering he had two years out. He was at least as good as an unfit Fergie and can only get better with a proper preseason behind him - and of course the Le Guen factor... I thought he was one of the one's to leave but I wouldn't mind him staying for a season to see what he can do. His wage can't be too bad and he'll up our Scottish quota. I'm not saying he's great, but he's shown enough for me to think he deserves a chance as a squad player for a while.

I just want to clarify a couple of things. 1. Saying someone is ignorant about something is not abuse in my opinion. I openly admit to be ignorant about most things in the universe. I was pointing out that most Scots know that Bertie played players who were nowhere near good enough for Scotland in a series of friendlies while giving them baffling tactics. It's not surprising we were given a few drubbings by better organised, lower tier teams on form. It would not happen under Smith. I thought that only people ignorant of this would use that result to compare Scotland's ability to Wales. My implication was basically that Cammy should know better. 2. Have I been any more abusive than these words from Cammy? Come on, fair's fair. 3. I admitted that my whole argument was conjecture and was tinted by the fact I'm Scottish, I thought Cammy needed reminding of that as he seemed to be sounding quite biased against Scotland and I thought unfairly so - which is something that will make a lot of Scotsmen disagree with him no matter how much sense he makes. 4. Calling someone a "highland lap dog" is straight out of Spiers country... in fact the reviled reporter uses a similar term to describe some of his peers who have a better relationship with DM. This seems the most abusive remark in this thread, but well done to Gribz for having a sense of humour about it. Perhaps Cammy could take a leaf... 5. I'll now refrain from answering Cammy's posts but I'd like him to stop attacking Scotland which I feel compelled to defend.

Cammy, yes Poland and Austria were much harder than Italy and Norway (whom we beat after getting in a proper manager). NI and Wales were so good they finished 4th and 5th. Yes Wales beat us a while ago but in my opinion only the ignorant would cite friendlies under Bertie Vogts as evidence... Despite being defeated in a playoff does not change the fact we finished second. I have no idea what your point is there and why that should make us a fourth seed. But defeating a great football nation like the Netherlands at home but being thrashed away, with probably our worst team and manager of all time, is not exactly a disgrace in my eyes. Scotland may not have achieved much, but we have beaten Sweden in the World cup... In 1974, Scotland put out the third favourites (Czechs) in qualification, Beat England in the Home Nations, and then went on to draw with the favourites, Brazil, draw with another good team, Yugoslavia and beat Zaire. We went out on goal difference. According to you we didn't achieve a thing and so were rubbish... I beg to differ. There's a load of stories like that for Scotland and you should know it. I already mentioned the fact that we don't get the luck and have a tendency to shoot ourselves in the foot. I believe that if it wasn't for those two factors plus a string of very poor managers and the consequence of our results that we get harder groups, we could easily have a comparable record to England in international football. And that's despite the fact they have 10 times our population. Maybe I'm a wee bit biased, but hey I'm Scottish...

I think Bronby are using Dortmund to up our price. Looks like they should accept 2.75M. How much will PLG have spent if that's the case? Around 4M? If we get rid of those who have been rumoured to leave: MacGregor Ricksen Fanfan Andrews Bernard Namouchi Rae Malcolm Novo McCormack I make it we need another 7 players to get the first team squad to 24, as ignoring the youth players PLG has brought in as well as the ones we already have, that leaves a first team of: Letizi/Klos Hutton/Lowing Svensson Rodriguez Smith Burke/Sioko Ferguson Hemdani Clement/Murray Elamander/Buffel Boyd/Prso Unless I've forgotten anyone... We could promote some from: Robinson N'Gessan Adam Ashikodi Carcary And maybe the three new youngsters are part of the full squad but it's looking pretty thin so it looks like we need to get rid of the deadwood for Le Guen to bring in the rest of his squad. How much do we have left to spend? 2 Mil???

While I agree with your point, I think: with a half decent manager - even WS, with England's easy draws and apparent luck, I think even the present Scotland team weren't totally incapable of England's form for this competition. Of course we'd have to get rid of our habit of shooting ourselves in the foot... PS I forgot about Equador but they're another case in point. We won't qualify for some time due to a combination of strange FIFA ranking system which takes friendlies into account and a crazy and incompetent manager who liked to try anyone and his dog in a string of friendly losses. How can a country which at worst finishes third in their qualifying groups and usually finishes second, possibly be a fourth pot seed? What WS needs to do is arrange a string of friendlies against minnows and put out a decent team to get our ranking back up. You don't get many points for beating a minnow but as Tesco says, every little helps, and multiply it by a load of games and you're back up there. Trouble is that the players wouldn't want to do it.

I this world cup, England beat: Austria Poland Wales Northern Ireland Azerbaijan Paraguay Trinidad & Tobago And didn't look convincing against any of them. Yes we Scots are really jealous of that kind of form... All England ever do is make heavy weather of easy draws...

He was always great in midfield but was not a good right back, was he Mr Advocaat...? The wee general preferred Barry, but I think it was an early sign that the dutchman wasn't the most consistant judge of players...

Mmmmmhmmm, sausage, :drool:

I think it's good news for two reasons, firstly we need a guy who can regularly put the ball in the back of the net and secondly, it means that Le Guen rates him highly too, which is a great seal of approval.

There are loads of very long Rangers songs which are sometimes sung in full and sometimes just a part of it is sung - mostly because not everyone knows all the words. Even GSTQ has six verses - although I can't see the sixth one going down too well...

Yes, but I doubt it'll be as ugly or have as much danger of caving in.

Nice one.

Don't think I've ever cried about football except when the ball hits me in the knackers... Even when I was 11, I was a bit gutted but not a complete wimp when I was at Hampden and watched Rangers be the better team but lose 1-0 to Aberdeen in the Scottish cup final. As an Englishman once wrote: "Ambition should be made of sterner stuff". I'll not laugh at England for losing but I'll laugh at them for being a bunch of jessies.