calscot
-
Posts
11,722 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Everything posted by calscot
-
Aren't these conflicting arguments here? If the fans are just punters who have no say in the running of the club, should they really care about the cashflow of the business? Surely it's not their problem? I can't see how you can have it both ways. I think you miss the point that customers do have power in the businesses they patronise, especially those that are not doing so well. If the majority want a say in how the business is run, the business better be listening, or find another load of customers. Starbucks are now paying tax that they are entitled not to pay, due to customer influence - although they have just had an above inflation price rise, so the customer is now paying for it. Normal customers who were pissed off with a company would just use another and the original one would fail - Costa seen a spike in sales during the Starbucks boycott. So the point is that fans do care about the club finances which is why they want a say and why they have the power to get it if they coordinate. The business is lucky to have their immense loyalty that you don't get elsewhere but they would do well not to test it too far. The cure is sometimes starving or even poisoning the patient and although it has great risks, doing nothing can often mean a slow, painful death.
-
In the opposition, yes. Do you refuse to pay more for the CL games with the same players in our team?
-
Are you saying an average League One game without Rangers is good to watch with good football on display? The thing is, all teams can string passes together and make good moves - and people seem to forget that Rangers do it in pretty much every game, and you just have to watch the highlights to see this. Killer instinct? Kind of like accusing Hannibal Lecter of not having this. Teams are put to the sword almost every week with an average of three goals. To assess our creativity you'd have to put another team in our position as every week they are up against a highly motivated team who sit back and spoil the game for most of the time. I'd say we're at least as creative as Barcelona in that situation - if you think of the games between them and us and Celtic. Dunfermline should also be ripping the sides apart in your theory as well as Celtic in the SPL. The fact is that it's 11 against 11 players who can play many aspects of football and your difference in class is shown by the league table, not a one off game. If that were the case there would be far more cricket type scores in football - and that is the first priority of our opposition to avoid. If they are instead focused on just not losing the game or even winning then they are dong a terrible job. Perhaps we need to watch more SPL teams against lower divisions in the cup and see how they rip them apart... But then we have results like: Aberdeen 1-0 Dumbarton Inverness Caledonian Thistle 2-0 Stranraer Hibernian 2-3 Raith Rovers Stranraer 2-2 Inverness Caledonian Thistle Partick Thistle 0-1 Aberdeen Albion Rovers 1-0 Motherwell Queen of the South 2-2 St Mirren St Johnstone 2-0 Livingston Greenock Morton 0-1 St Johnstone Livingston 1-2 Motherwell Celtic 0-1 Greenock Morton Dundee 0-1 Inverness Caledonian Thistle Dumbarton 2-3 Dundee United Stranraer 3-2 Ross County Aberdeen 0-0 Alloa Athletic Kilmarnock 0-1 Hamilton Academical Queen of the South 2-1 St Mirren Raith Rovers 1-1 Heart of Midlothian There are some thrashings but they seem to be the exception rather than the rule. I'm not saying that Rangers are playing anywhere attractive football, but we don't have top class players any more and I can't see how they can be expected to raise their game above the "dross" that everyone used to label the SPL clubs. Weird how they aren't considered dross now - maybe our hiatus in the lower divisions IS good for Scottish football as the reputation of the standard of play of the top division has risen meteorically here - and now even that of the 3rd tier.
-
And who are miles and miles behind us in the league. Statements like this make bring the question of what you personally mean by "better football" and whether it's at all valuable. Do you really want us to play like these teams? Would you find supporting one of these teams more enjoyable? Do you think that supporters of these teams would swap whatever football they're playing for ours and winning almost every game? Do you want their players and mangers? This is complete loser talk. But I think the obvious answer is that it's just not true. I've said many times that people should try supporting another team for a whle - in this case a League One team and see how enjoyable you find it. And like I said, if Ally is so bad, why is it that so much of the criticism is so absurd? Really, try talking to a fan of another club who have run away with the title and tell them the other teams play better football and see what reaction you get.
-
Do you really think this is a lot? As I said ONE Bayern player is on £10m a year, I'm sure there is higher in England. Trevor Steven used to be the highest paid player in the UK. We're now paying peanuts in comparison. Saying that, there are two separate points. People are going on about us having a lot more than the opposition. This is correct but then we won the league 3/4 of the way into the season after no losses and two draws. That's what having "more money than the opposition" gets you. Ally has delivered there and people are arguing like we struggled to win the league. The point is style. So while we're paying far more than the opposition we're still paying peanuts compared to the big clubs and we are seeing a comparable level of football. People keep continually repeating the same arguments without actually dealing with the rebuttals. You can't just go out with a plan to play nice football and firstly have it happen and secondly, win. Yogi Hughes is again an excellent example of this with ICT dropping down the table. How do people explain it? Where is the evidence that this works? There are 42 professional teams in Scotland, surely more than half of them MUST agree with this premise for it to have any validity whatsoever? Therefore we should be seeing more than half the teams playing excellent football. Just where is the evidence in Scotland? I asked several times at the beginning of the season for those going on about good football, to point out without the benefit of hindsight, which teams we should be playing like this season, and not one person took me up on it. I think that's because there's not one team in Scotland that plays good football and consistently wins - and it's far easier to criticise than to show you really know something. The talent is not here - as someone said, all the best Scottish players are in England, and even then not exactly the star players. There's only one team that have the money to buy anyone of quality and even they are having to lower their sights massively. Another point never dealt with is the fact we don't get value for money. First off as a club we're like a wedding - you go and buy a cake for any old party and it costs so much, let them know it's for a wedding and the price rockets. Then you have the premium to play in League One. What player is going to snub say Aberdeen in the SPL to play for a club in League One without financial inducement? Then there's the fact that we could only pick up players who happened to be on freedom of contract of which there are only a finite number who are of the minimum standard desired - so you're then desperate to get them. We had no leverage at all, and very little choice - that's why we picked up Foster and Smith, they just happened to be around at the right time. What you get in the end is an average SPL team for about three times the money but full of players who care more about money than footballing ambition. I never remember anyone praising the standard of play of SPL teams even when they had far better players than they do now, so why should it be different at Ibrox? So basically people are expecting average at best players to play BETTER football than most Rangers teams of the past which contained top players. The money we're paying gets you the League One title at a canter, it doesn't get you style. You don't have that guaranteed even with a £70m TV payment to spend.
-
I'm not sure if Ally is the man to take us to the top but I do think that if he's that bad a manager it shouldn't take totally ridiculous and absurd comparisons to criticise him. I will say he's a far more competent at managing than most here are at making a convincing argument that he's not. A juicy one is that he should be as good in the cups as Celtic - eh where are they this year? Given the difference in league and budget - never mind accounting for the extra premium you pay for SPL players to play in league one, their early exit in the League cup is far worse than us losing the Challenge Cup final. Our runs in the Scottish Cup are incomparable when you consider difference in budget. Another is bemoaning that Bayern don't play as bad football as us - really? You're comparing a team where the highest paid player is on £10m a year while our whole team are on £6.5m? Do you not think that pays for better quality? When we had Advocaat did we think that lower SPL teams were playing great football? No, we've being saying Scottish football is gash for pretty much ever - but now we have a team full of those standard of players, actually worse as the SPL weren't so relatively poor compared to the top of the game as we are now. There is also a lot of slagging off Ally's wage when Pep Guardiola's is on £14m. There's a well paid Limo driver. People are even talking about the SPL playing great football which is incredibly surprising news to me (I must admit I haven't watched it since they voted us out). However, it seems Yogi, renowned for his footballing philosophy, is doing a great job with ICT. Perhaps we should be contacting him or even Mowbray as a replacement. I really get the impression that people don't know the state of Scottish football at the moment. Many started supporting Rangers when we had one of the highest paid squads in Europe, but now we're like a top English League One side - or the old 3rd Division and that's the standard of football we should be expecting. Even Celtic are of the standing of old Division 2 side, at best near the top and that's where we hope to be in two years' time. For me, losing a cup final to a lesser side is bitterly disappointing but hardly abnormal for the OF - or any top side. The fact is your quality shows in the league but the cups are one off games and a bit of a lottery, and so with the league tied up as expected the season will now be defined by the Scottish cup. To not win this in our current state is no great omission when you consider the Advocaat side that failed and plenty of previous Rangers sides with a far more differential budget. However, we are Rangers and the loss of the Challenge Cup highlights the need to win something else. I think people also forget where our players come from - Hearts, Aberdeen, Dundee Utd, Kilmarnock, QotS etc and most of them were not even chosen, they just happened to be available for free. We're an average SPL side paying double the wages or more due to first, being Rangers, and second, having to compensate for the league we're in. SPL sides, apart from Celtic don't expect to win trophies every year and neither should we until we're back at the top. We SHOULD expect to win the league and have done so as easily and quickly as anyone could have expected. The trouble is we're spoiled and used to that expectation. So looking at Ally with a rational eye, you see a manager that has continually had one hand tied behind his back but still done a passable job. The problem is that he's not doing an exceptional job, especially in the cups. At Rangers we look for top class excellence in all departments and if Ally wants to stay he needs to show this potential, and the only way he can do that now is to win the cup. Otherwise, he's easily replaceable by all the other passable but nothing special managers that so many on here have a hard-on for. However, the caveat, is that they could make us worse.
-
Ah, but the fans will be much, much happier as they'll be playing "exciting" football on the deck... Actually, doesn't that automatically win you the league?
-
Rangers did have a no beard or moustache rule till the mid eighties when Souness came and there was no way he was shaving his off. Grieg actually had dispensation from the doctor as he had badly cut his chin open and shaving could re-open the wound. I don't think the rule was anything specifically to do with Waddell.
-
Not true:
-
Why pay that much for advertising when it will pretty much buy you the club? It would also prevent income from another company. I don't think King wants to just donate his money, he wants control in return. Rich people don't get rich by having a policy of giving money away.
-
I don't think you feel part of a fan group unless there is a reasonable amount of communication. I never felt part of the RST as they took my money and then I hardly heard from them - perhaps because I've never been a member of Follow Follow. I do feel part of Gersnet however.
-
King wants what's good for Rangers but he also has his own personal ideas about things and is playing his game to that end. It looks like he wants control of the club and the incumbents out. I think he feels the same way about the board as many on here do. They really have performed badly on the finance front while lining their own pockets. I don't think that propping up the current board with new revenue streams is on his agenda.
-
Gerry McCulloch -- ebt's undoubtedly gave sporting advantage
calscot replied to ian1964's topic in Rangers Chat
Next they'll be saying that Rangers 36k season ticket holder give a sporting advantage... The funny thing is that Celtic fans keeping saying Celtic are cheats... -
If Celtic and Aberdeen fans are buying tickets how is the segregation going to be implemented? Just shows how much they want to see the Rangers but I can imagine a huge fight between them all.
-
The Abroath guy sounds like he and his team need to "work hard" and play teams off the park in all their other games. I think it's probably more than luck that Rangers are an incredible 65 points ahead of them. Yeah, Arbroath are really the better side and just unlucky. I think it was Gary player who said of the same accusation, "Well, the harder I practice, the luckier I get."
-
I think NARSA were entitled to show their disapproval which highlights the lack of canvasing fan groups by the RFFF which could have avoided this. However, their demands are way over the top. The weirdest bit is asking for their money back - but what about all the money already spent? Maybe if they asked for a proportion of it back, but this bit made them sound petty and almost childish in my opinion. Some of these groups need to think a bit more before they put these statements out as the last couple have quite frankly been embarrassing as a Rangers fan.
-
The 120 day review will have a load of management speak that will sound like there's a fantastic plan in place that cannot fail... You will have to interpret it into plain English. I think it will be hard to find much that is tangible. It's what management are paid for. The very first thing we need to do is to increase income and not just by bumping up the ticket prices. Other clubs bring in far more than our total turnover in commercial income alone - and we're supposed to be a huge club who before TV money was related to population size, were consistently in the top 20 in Europe. We have at least a third of all Scottish football fans so what is the difference between us and other big European clubs besides the European exposure and small domestic population? The latter should be overcome by the lack of regional competition. All I can think of is that associating yourself with Rangers could alienate the other 2/3 of the country plus with the toxic image portrayed by our enemies and the media, it could also alienate the non-football following population.
-
I think we need to remember that the real problem for VS is not insulting bears, it's about having accurate and trustworthy information, whether this was deliberate, a mistake or something lacking in the system.
-
Wasn't the wage cut with Ally agreed before he arrived and then when he arrived he took ages to actually implement it, much to the bemusement of the manager? Stockbridge may have resigned but how much is Wallaces doing? Even if so, the problem also is that he received a huge payoff which was reportedly twice what was specified in his contract. We've saved nothing as yet due to this, and if the money was paid immediately, then it contributed to our £1m shortfall, as his wage would have been deferred to his monthly salary. Not much to shout about really. I don't think this is entirely true but to me it's a bit like Ally sitting halfway down the table after the first third of the season - who would not already be making their mind up? But ironically the manager gets flack for being at the top by 32 points and still in the latter stages of two cups. Wallace not only has had a terrible start, he's come across as completely out of touch with his "we have enough money" and "market rates" statements (You don't even need an impressive CV to understand about lending rates). The problem is that you don't know whether he's being plain stupid or taking us for mugs. I can't think of other scenarios that fit well other than being a patsy for the board.
-
As previously said, Ally's signings have been pretty much dumpster diving. When you remember that, his squad building hasn't been too bad, especially when looking at the results. The one game he has lost, he couldn't play his most recent signings which with the improved results from last year, suggests he's dramatically improved the squad despite no budget and a transfer embargo. His only costly signings in the current squad are Wallace and Templeton. The former is one of our best players and the latter has shown flashes but has had injuries and temperament problems. The signings this season have been Bell, Law, Daly, Clark, Peralta, Smith, Foster, Mohsni and Simonsen. Overall, with a couple of exceptions, I'd say they've been a reasonable success, especially when you take the difficult circumstances into account. BTW Pretty much everyone wanted us to sign Mohsni during the pre-season, he was a stand out then that has proven to be inconsistent now.
-
I can't really see what positives that Wallace has actually done since his appointment. He negatives are: Immediately asked for a 120 day review which while reasonably fair, has used to it repeatedly to cover up any inaction or poor performance. Blamed the previous board for leaving us in a mess while not seeming to change anything. Promising we had enough money to run the club in the medium term only to run out before his 120 day review matured. With simultaneously saying the above had an abortive attempt to cut the players' wages by 15%. Endorsed the high interest loan while saying it was market rates. At the helm at the time of a poor statement of accounts without making any attempt to explain it and in fact polishing the turd. In charge when our already abysmal commercial and TV income (from a first season since admin in the third tier) actually went down while operating expenses went up. Being a huge part of perception of communication and transparency with fans as at a terrible low. There's loads of other negative stuff going on while he's been around, like the sham of an AGM, employing Toxic Jack to attack the fans, board members suing fans, possible leaking of a fan's personal details to a board member, as well as a lack of dignified statements in defence of our club when attacked by other clubs and messed around by the SPFL and SFA. He might talk a good game but his results are poor in my eyes so far. Maybe people forgive him because he's playing a losing game in champagne style... Maybe he needs more time but he's already used what he had to blow any trust in him that I for one had. For me, he doesn't actually talk a good game at all, quite the opposite.
-
Better point out the exceptions of Jelavic, Wallace and Templeton who all commanded significant fees of over 1m. I think Goian is the only other player to cost above 0.5m since Ally took over.
-
We have players leaving at the end of contract and so if we keep the budget the same, we should have room from the savings to recruit a few players. I think we'll be mostly looking at freebies but a small fee could be feasible if it fits in the budget - for the right player. I think people forget that most of the players we've recruited in the last few years have been cheap or free and just happen to be available at the time - and they had to be players who were willing to drop the divisions which means we probably didn't really get value for money as they would need to be well compensated. We haven't really been able to pick the "right" players, it's more like bargain bin raking with whatever you can find. With no transfer ban we should really have been in a position to widen our scope, but the abysmal financial results don't look like they'll allow it. At least with only a possible one year away from the SPL, it will be easier to recruit players from that division or equivalent.
-
I feel we're in the very strange position where the board are an enemy we need to fight for the good of our club. It should never be that way. One of the reasons why King is so enthusiastically endorsed by the fans, is that he seems to be the only one, the last resort, who can possibly wrest control back into Rangers friendly hands. However, it looks like they are not going to give up easy and will lie, cheat and fight dirty against us in order to keep themselves at the helm. The problem for your average fan is that the only way to fight back is to threaten the health of the very club we want to save, but to do nothing means that after a prolonging a painful illness, where the club is continually leached, the club will be at death's door once again.
-
I think it's a Celtic fan trying to imply something...