calscot

Maybe instead of me with my head in the sand, you are just wearing blinkers. You seem to think you're a fitness expert than can tell fitness merely by "watching". So do you really know the difference between actual fitness and the amount of effort someone is putting in, and the motivation they have? I would say we're seeing the latter two - and I would be confident in saying not all of it is down to Warburton - although he's doing a fantastic job. However, it has to be remembered he doesn't have the same job as McCoist, it's a different ballgame behind the scenes. If you have objective evidence that the players are far fitter now than a couple of months ago then please show it. I really don't think the likes of Wallace has gone from the perceived, very unfit, under three different managers, to top fitness in a couple of months. I do believe his attitude has changed, he's buying into the new management and atmosphere at the club. I believe he's putting in more effort in training and busting a gut on the field - and enjoying it all. I believe his fitness will have improved a bit, but I think it will be more down to his attitude and motivation than the actual training regime - the latter is a part of the job where I don't think Warburton can bring too much that is revolutionary. I think it's how he sees how the players should play the game as a team, while allowing players to express their individuality, where he is being revolutionary. Coupled with great man management which, with the enjoyable and successful way we play, is creating a feel good factor, where players respect what he's doing and will "run through walls" for him - and us. As I said in my previous post, giving Warburton credit for more trivial aspects as relative to preconceived failings of a previous manager in previously horrendous circumstances, does him a great disservice. I think he is far better than every manager in Scotland, not just McCoist, and I really don't it's just because all managers (and coaches and sports scientist) in Scotland are crap at fitness training. You may think my head is in the sand, but I think you have to ask yourself, are you, yourself are seeing the bigger picture? I think it's time to drop the petty Ally bashing stuff and give MW some proper respect for what he's achieving.

So you're slagging a manager off for a meal you "imagine" one of the players had? Also, don't you have a cheat day? The point is that the criticism is erroneous, and you don't know what the current players are eating on their day off and Nando's seems a good choice to me compared to many other places. Indeed we are, but do you really think that Warburton is an excellent manager because he bans the likes of Nando's, and that's what's making the difference? I personally think it's something far more substantial. You seem to be insulting the players, McCoist and most of all, Warburton all at once, without any real facts or considered analysis whatsoever. I think your prejudice is clouding your judgement - why are you not slagging off Warburton for giving the players 3 days off, but you slag McCoist for giving an afternoon? You slag McCoist off for hearing about Nando's but are ok about players in the pub under Warburton? (I'm fine with both) If your going to slag someone off, make it something real, something substantial and use some consistency, otherwise you're just slinging mud on one of our own. Warburton is not just a far better manager than McCoist, he's a far better than just about any manager we know we could hire. He's not good just because you think McCoist was bad, it's far more substantial than that and his success shouldn't be measured against perceived trivial failures of McCoist. Dick Advocaat, was the micromanaging, control freak that you seem to desire, and look what happened there. The thing is, Warburton wasn't even an obvious choice - otherwise he'd have gone to the EP, he's a diamond we discovered in a coal bunker. We're lucky to have discovered him and he can only be exceptional if he's doing stuff that is less than obvious to your average fan. I think stuff like "pitch geography" is more what he's concentrating on than Nando's, golf or taking the fun out of training.

You'd hope people who know about SD would choose not shop there for non-Rangers merchandise regardless of our onerous contract situation. Odious company run by an odious man.

Always nice seeing a form of WWWWW...

Not sure what you're trying to say...

Poor stuff on here again. You'd think we'd learned something from Warburton. I really can't imagine our current manager is very popular with you as he's guilty of so many of Ally crimes. "Having a laugh and having fun in training" vs "Really enjoying the training and looking forward to coming into work" "Ally only plays youngsters when he has to" vs "I'll dip into the academy if it's needed" "Ally plays players out of position" vs "a small hungry squad that can play in multiple positions" "How dare Ally give the players an afternoon off, or the day off after a game" vs "we had three days off and then smashed it in training" Then we have players miraculously becoming much, much fitter in a matter of a few weeks, and that's after Ally used fitness experts... Show the evidence... Nandos - yeah, players aren't allowed to eat, especially when it's low fat, low carb, high protein stuff like chicken... As I've said before, I'm no Ally lover, but I do dislike it when people use immaterial rubbish to put someone down, especially when the same things can apply to the guy they are lauding. Like I say, if you apply the same crap to Warburton, you're putting him in the same bracket as McCoist. He's guilty as charged of these "crimes". So maybe there's more to better management than non-stop fitness training, no days off, banning fun and laughter, banning chicken, playing a load of youths, and only playing in one position... And maybe not having a load of shit behind the scenes really helps.

Maybe Relentless Energy Drinks would have been a better sponsor... Shame the betting company aren't 54Blue.

I think I need to look at that as the video quality will be higher. The clip on another thread is pretty high quality. I'm thinking my main gripes are boiling down to inappropriate advertising, and the ill advised use of Flash.

We must have different expectations and experiences. I think you'll find most casual internet content is viewed on mobile devices these days - around 60%. To be good on PC and poor on mobile does not make good commercial sense. It's very old now in a computing context and hasn't been developed for about 3 or more years. Video quality depends on the codec, with the industry leader currently being H.264 (although H.265 is coming as well as VP9). Although later versions of Flash could use H.264, I don't think it's commonly used, and instead it's more likely to be VP6 or Sorenson which will either be lower quality or higher bandwidth. Flash might be even solid but the Rangers video player is not impressively implemented. Apart from the horrible adverts, there does not seem to be much buffering and so unless you have a constantly and consistently high bit-rate (which not all of us have), it will stutter instead of buffering and playing for a bit when ready. The latter is a bit annoying but the former is just unwatchable. It is not officially supported and if you look it up you'll find that it's the spat between Apple and Adobe that pretty much killed Flash. Youtube (and other services of quality) have moved to HTLM5 - not surprising due to the 60% mobile device figure. As said, it's not official, and what you have is people shoehorning old technology in there without much financial gain and so it's not going to be that great. Android also no longer officially supports it (not surprising as neither does Adobe, it's pretty much dead technology) and so it also suffers from a hacky conversion. That will be why the experience is not good on mobile devices. For you maybe, but for others it falls massively behind other premium services and even the RaithTV highlights shown in another thread trounces RangersTV in a manner which juxtaposes the match.

That's abysmal quality... It's actually a good bit better on the Rangers website (on a PC) but still not as clear and as well buffered as the RaithTV one.

Got to say that is great quality from RaithTV, in HTML5 and no adverts and decent buffering. Wish RangersTV was that good...

"Pitch geography" seems to be one of his favourite bits of coaching terminology...

It sounds totally in keeping with their whole mentality. What I don't understand is why with that kind of attitude, all the other clubs seem to cosy up to them while sticking the boot into us. Although clubs like Hibs seem to see their way as something to aspire to.

Don't actually have any apple stuff but didn't realise that you could do Flash. Funnily enough I use Puffin on Android for Flash - and it's free. It's not great though,especially compared to other, more seamless services. You probably also get a better quality service with your non uk live stream, but then you pay more.

I've reinstated my subscription Rangers TV this season and I've got to say I'm incredibly disappointed with the service - which isn't exactly cheap compared to similarly priced services such as Sky Sports Player, Europsport Player and even Netflix at £1 more per month. The first problem is that they use Flash, which is no longer supported and is poor for portable devices and doesn't work at all on iPhones and iPads. This is old technology now and is not of good enough quality for a premium service. It's buffering doesn't work well and its frame rate drops most of the time and then eventually it stutters along, instead of buffering for a while and then giving some uninterrupted playback. When it get's worse it crashes and you have to start at the beginning again and then try to fast forward to where you were. This really exacerbates one the single biggest gripes about it - we are forced to watch an advert before a video. Now this is highly insulting and irritating in a premium service which I'll get to but it adds insult to injury when you start again and you can't fast forward until you've watched the whole advert again! The advert, which is usually American based and irrelevant to me, is not only a complete waste of my time, it's a waste of my download allowance. I feel like I'm paying three times - once for the monthly fee, once for the advert and again for my extra download. This would be fine in a freemium business model where you get the adverts unless you pay, but it's unforgivable to me for a fee paying service. I don't get adverts on Netflix. Next, and related to the first is that although I seem to watch Netflix without interruption with my mobile broadband, how come I have trouble with the quality from RangersTV. It's as if my data service is fast enough but the servers are not. I also want to switch to full screen which isn't easy normally, but touching the video to bring up the controls when the advert is on means it opens a new page for the advertiser. Not only is this annoying it's more so in that the advertiser will think it's getting through clicks when it's all by accident. There is also an "on-video" advert which obscures the display that you have to be able to touch the small x to close it and not the rest of it for the same reason. I found the free streaming sites unusable for pretty much the same reasons and although this isn't quite as bad, it seems like dodgy-stream-lite, for a premium. At least Rangers are getting the money, but I'm really not happy with the service and would rather pay a bit more for an improved one with no adverts. They could really do with a modern app for Android and IOS, using either H.264 or even H.265 video coding - and NO adverts.

What is the justification for calling him a "nutter"?

A few days off? There will be a few upset people on here - let's just hope they didn't play any golf, or there will be demands for a new manager...

The absurd thing is that he's going for 450k and we could have paid 500k for the privilege of borrowing him for half a season...

I personally prefer a bigger squad, especially when you include U21s, but I've been impressed with how well we've played while also rotating the team a bit. The part of the team I'm most wary about is the defence, as while Tarernier and Wallace have been excellent, they could be big misses if injured - as has just happened to Wallace. There isn't much backup there, or for the central defence which has been the least impressive part of the team. I think I'm happy enough with the midfield and attack. Goalkeepers are not awe inspiring but probably adequate. So ultimately I think we could do with 2 or 3 more quality defenders. I'd also prefer we had more confidence that Eustice will be fit for a decent amount of the season. However, our management team have shown they know what they are doing and I trust in them. And at least it should keep the wage bill down for one more season in a division where our income is very limited. That could mean less money for paying off debts to go towards quality players, when we go up and also have a share issue. We'll definitely need a bigger squad than this in the SP, especially with teams thinking they can compete with us and then getting frustrated and over physical, if they find out they can't.

I agree, I think almost all papers have an agenda where they choose a demographic they can sell to then twist things and lie to pander to them - and sell more copies. I find the Guardian lies more but probably sexualises children less.

They didn't even win by a fair ballot box, they intimidated and threatened the other voters. A bit like an election in Zimbabwe...

I never think it looks that good for a club with far more resources than everyone else, if your goalkeeper gets in the team of the day...

I see other problems with the system though, the main one being the amount of time it took to come to tribunal. The tax system should not be so slow as to kill off companies due to the amount of time they take while having the threat of huge tax bills. Should there not also be some kind of system whereby they limit losses by judging just how winnable a case is and plee bargaining the ones they are less likely to win? Thirdly should there not be some consistency in how companies are treated, eg Vodaphone? And fourthly, there is a reason for the statute of limitations, should it not also apply to tax - at least where it's a bit grainy? When you add in the retrospecitveness, and other strange and unethical practices by HMRC (such as releasing information), they can have all the "entitlement" they like but it looks like that entitlement comes from a very fucked up and unfair system that makes our government look pretty tin-pot Surely, even negating this is Rangers, and our blue tinted specs, doesn't our country deserve better? I don't know about anyone else, but as a tax payer in the UK, I no longer have any trust in the tax man and his unethical rules.

I think how HMRC have gone about things at Rangers has shown the system to be highly flawed and easily abused. It's a massive miscarriage of injustice where a company was forced out of business and at the same time the treasury lost tens of millions. It's a shocking waste of time and resources that had an innocent party severely punished. They may have had the legal right to do what they did but they did not act ethically. The worst you could say of Rangers if they lose now, is that the rules were too complex to follow, so much so two tribunals must have got it wrong. That suggests that again at worst, HMRC should have cut a deal, then tightened up the rules. At best, HMRC are guilty of being so incompetent as to being unfit for purpose. Tax, if nothing else, should be seen to be fair. It's not exactly something that people see with affection.