calscot
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Everything posted by calscot
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I think that was a joke about using Canada bluegrass which is still pretty much green...
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I haven't seen one poster on here who writes like they think he can do no wrong. It's seems to be a delusional view that Ally bashers use to avoid listening to those disagree with them. There's just plenty of people who think stuff like winning 21 out of 22 league games doesn't give much credence to the "clueless" manager opinion. Nobody thinks he's a managerial genius but plenty think he's passable for now - especially taking circumstances into account. There is only one side of the debate that goes to extremes.
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Check the part where it says you judge a manager over the season. Advocaat systematically pissed an excellent squad of players off and they lost games as a result and won nothing. That's not happening at all this season.
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It easy to guess why the money for second place was reduced - it's to to try to hit us in the pocket in our first couple of seasons back... with them presuming we won't be able to win to start with and so trying to financially handicap us for as long as possible. It would be the cherry on the pie to have a load of investment which allows us to let them reap what they sow.
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One minute some people are going on about us playing postmen and butchers, the next they're saying the players are unable to play better than that level due to the manager? Just what is the manager doing to them? Keeping them up all night or starving them? Surely if the opposition is so bad and the players so good, they should be able to easily play well in any position, in any formation, with any tactics? I've always said that as a manager doesn't kick the ball, you can't blame him for a single performance or a single player's form. You judge him over a season of results by the whole squad. As is oft repeated we've won 21 and drawn 1 in the league, are 23 points ahead, yet we're we're supposed to believe that the opposition are usually better teams due to our crap manager. It doesn't even make the slightest sense. Ally must have been a brilliant manager at the weekend as it looked like Templeton played well - at least for a minute. But I don't think that kind of logic works.
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The trouble is that with all the lies, propaganda, spin and facts made out of speculation in the press, this may be true but we have very little reason to believe it. As there is little we can do about it right now, I'd say we shouldn't worry until there is concrete facts on the matter. You can worry about pretty much anything but if you've no facts and no control, then worrying is pretty counter productive.
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I don't quite get the criticism of King as it's one of those "yet" complaints. If we're in the top league, had a share issue and he still hasn't invested then fair enough. But it seems to me that we will need big investment in a year and a half and you don't get that from someone spending their money buying up shares - especially when there are plenty who are not selling. The board and major shareholders don't seem to want to welcome him and so he'll need to be more aggressive to take over the club. Meanwhile the share price is dropping and so the proportion of stake of the current share holders compared to new shares issued is diminishing. The lower the share price, the larger stake holding King will have in any share issue for the same value of investment, without Rangers losing out financially.
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The Manager and the team this season - an objective view.
calscot replied to a topic in Rangers Chat
There's just one part of the post I find strange and that is we're not playing well enough for the price of the ticket. But aren't we paying pretty much the same as the rest of the teams in the league, and less than the two leagues above? If we're not getting value for money, how about the rest of Scottish football? Are they all more entertaining despite not winning all the time like us? Would we be happy watching an Arsenal type team (who have won nothing for about a decade) but have to pay £62 - 123.50 + membership fee? Except without the TV (£70m+?) and sponsorship money, we would still only have a fraction of their income to spend on the squad. -
Seen a few Dons games in League 1. They've even been in the playoffs a few times. I think our current team is a bit better than them and could see us getting promoted but being relegation candidates the next without a change in personnel. However, the Championship would bring us in more money than the SPL and we'd be able to outspend most of the league, bar the parachute payment mob.
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I can imagine you'd start slagging off Chris Froome for not training enough... Or maybe going back in time there's a better example in Graeme Obree who kept getting banned for not being aesthetically pleasing.
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Depends what you mean by full time. I work a 37 hour week but there are 168 hours in the week. Subtract about 45-50 for sleeping and there are still over 80 left. Subtract 10 hours of exercise and you've still got over 70 left for everything else. I also play guitar for about an hour a day, watch a few hours of telly and go out a few times a week. I cook everything from scratch, do half the house work and still find time for other leisure stuff. I cycle to and from work, a bit at lunch time, and to the gym a few times a week. I then try and get in two longer cycles in at the weekend. I plan to increase this by joining a cycling club which will mean a 3.5 hour cycle on a Sunday and still back for lunch. I always find it strange that people think an average of hour an a half out of 24 in a day for exercise is a lot, and say things like, "I don't have time". Putting aside a reasonable amount of time in the day to exercise is about the most basic thing in fitness training. If people on here can't get that right, how can they criticise the professionals? We're all pretty much the professional manager of our own health but who gives themselves the sack? So part time is 2 training sessions and full time is 4. Sounds about right. But the biggest thing people forget is that resting is as important - you can't do that so well with a full time job. But in the end it seems to be working. We're winning almost every game. How much of that is down to the training? Surely some of it? How do you know? If it was me, I'd be taking a half day at least. There seems to be a lot of postmen playing in the lower leagues, although I can't find any info on it. But as I said before, many of the them are pretty fit and slim as they do a ton of walking. Maybe it's the best job for a part time footballer. It's actually incredibly easy: just look at the league table. The schedule doesn't say how long they spend at MP but is there any evidence that this would improve our game? Do you really think being forced to spend all day with your team-mates will make you get on better? I'm not so sure.
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You've probably observed more than me as I can't get to games and don't see many except on a computer screen; however, I can read reports and whats on here and the weird thing is that everyone is saying how much fitter the team is this season. I also think the results are conclusive proof that the team has improved from last season albeit with new additions. Obvious improvements have come from Wallace, Faure, Aird, Black, McLeod, Law and Daly. There are other clubs which have taken promising players we know and then rejected them, like Liverpool with Danny Wilson and Charlie Adam. Did they improve there? The problem is that we are in a very unique position and it's hard to compare with any other management team as they just haven't had the problems we've had and aren't in a position where being top of the league is not enough, not even close. There's also the point that if you're winning every game bar the odd late equaliser, just how much better can you expect to be? There is just no precedent for it. It seems I must be seeing more games than you as the overall game seems to have improved from last season every time I see a game. And I also ALWAYS see more than hit and hope. Even the goal videos show you that while also showing that the long ball can work. Sometimes we do it too often but it can be difficult to play through a team when they park the bus as Barcelona found out against us. I've never seen the long ball played by the team as much as people say on here. BTW Didn't we just score from a corner? As I've said before, I seen the MK Dons play Wimbledon AFC and the former seem to have been told to keep the ball on the ground and not use the high ball. AFC sat back and the Dons struggled hard to make any head way and the game was incredibly dull and lacked goal mouth stuff and excitement despite the obvious edge to it among the fans. I don't think MK were used to dealing with a team that sits in defence, but we get it every week. My point about the training thing is that we don't really know what their training is like and how it compares to top class teams. The guys involved have been in football a long time and McCoist and Durrant have played at the very top. They've done their coaching badges and bring in qualified and experienced sports scientists to add an academic and best practice string to the bow. It doesn't mean they are great coaches by any means but I think it's incredibly presumptuous to think that they are clueless about the basics from just seeing a outline schedule on the internet. Before going in feet first we could do with an expert view, or even a well researched fan view would be something. It's the usual knee jerk reaction when it comes to Rangers: the best practice in the top of the profession seems to be to take as much stress as possible out of travelling to an away game and when they attempt get THAT right, there's another knee jerk tidal wave of criticism. I think we need to be far better informed before we assert we know better. If the team were in second place and struggling you'd have some real evidence of a crap management team, but while we're doing alright, then you've got to dig up a bit more than this to damn them with.
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Fitness will be done as high intensity, interval training. One you've done enough of that, what you need is rest or active rest at low intensity. Golf will provide the latter. I also often think that footballers could bring some of the aspects of golf into their game, especially for set pieces. Good Golfers have a pre-shot routing to get them in a repeatable position, use techniques to relax and then visualise their shot. They seem to have incorporated this into rugby but not football. Anecdotally, that doesn't ring true and I don't really know how we compare with other clubs in that sense. It seems a bit of a butter side down type of theory. You'd need to give a lot of evidence to make that argument convincing. Could you give a list of exemplar sides and their training schedules? Do you actually know what the full training schedule that Rangers perform or are you basing your intense criticism on a sparsely detailed piece of A4 circulating on the internet? It sounds like Rangers players are exercising a minimum of 13 hours a week (and probably a few more with gym work etc) and people think this isn't enough, and then pretend to somehow know how much the players play golf, which is also exercise, and then complain that it is too much. There are some very fit people who do a lot less exercise than that and who sit in a chair at work all day. I cycle about 8 hours a week at the moment and spend about 1.5 hours in the gym. I plan to increase the cycling by an hour or two but I don't think I can cope with much more than that. How much does everyone else do, to suggest the players aren't doing very much? Basically, we need a lot more info and knowledge before slagging off the training regime. But then if they published how the players take their tea, I could see it being criticised on here.
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Well you'd be lucky to squeeze two rounds in that time so if there's any keen golfers, I'd expect so in the warmer weather. Plenty of people get that much in a week. However, I doubt there will be that much golf played at this time of year. It's better than an inactive hobby, and teaches you a lot about focus, concentration, avoiding mistakes and putting them out of your mind when you make them.
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We don't know if all "training" is scheduled on that A4 piece of paper. Some afternoons could be gym time as I would expect that's not part of the "first team training" slot in the morning. There's also things like massages and ice baths etc to account for. I do think that group analysis of videos of the next team we play would be useful if they don't do it. That would also be the time to explain the whys and wherefores of the tactics. However, you'd expect someone to put together a highlights package that shows the main points and so it shouldn't need hours and hours of mind numbing watching of full games. There's nothing to say that the players don't watch a lot of football and when interviewed on the telly it usually sounds like they do - especially the Premiership. Ally was pretty knowledgeable about a load of other sports on Question of Sport as well as top of the class on football and he can't just have picked it up without a lot of viewing.
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How much did we earn from commercial income? A few million? Dortmund bring in something like £72m - they may have 78k fans at every game but that's not 25 times more than us. We're missing a trick. Their shirt sponsor pays about £8m and the stadium naming is almost £4m. No matter what league we're in, or our turnover, or who is on the board, we are still in a relatively rich country with a huge following and so must have up to half the commercial potential. You could compare the size of our countries but even then you have to wonder what the commercial attraction would be in the rest of Germany considering that they have 20 other large clubs with sellout stadia. Or is it just to do with repeated exposure throughout Germany and in Europe? If we could increase our commercial income by a measly £6m, then it would be equivalent to reducing the players wages to almost zero. We're heading straight back to the top tier in a year and a half, what is the point in saving a few million now when it could compromise our progress and cause us to have to spend more when we get to the top? I remember I had a PHD student friend who wouldn't go out much and scrimped and scraped to save for the future. What he put away was a lot for him at the time but I pointed out that it would be buttons compared to his first wage after graduating and make all the parsimony seem like a waste of three years of his young life. He got the message and started to enjoy himself, even becoming the chair of the post grad social committee. He went on to earn megabucks which made the amount he could have saved while having a boring life, totally insignificant. I think we're in a similar position here.
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Isn't the point that if they were competent they should have had an affordable budget and stuck with it to start with? And you wonder why they can't win?
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With reference to another thread it seems the board have tried to play a card I didn't expect and go for an across the board pay-cut. It's an extreme one though and not surprising it didn't work, people don't work that way these days and have had no leading by example from the board. The worrying thing is that it smacks of desperation...
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I don't know for certain and personally find it very hard to believe, but it's what repeatedly gets reported (which is why I used "reputedly"). I really hope not.
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Youngsters can't afford a 15% cut? What will they be deprived of - the latest iPad or smartphone? I would understand if they have mortgages and kids.
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Of course they are, but are they wise and are they unselfish? I agree it's a big ask but lots of fans have had 10% pay cuts in the last year to stave off redundancies and cuts. I'm not sure if this is a good example, but sometimes it's wiser to think of the bigger picture. It's all very well to stick to your contract but if it's ample and your employers can't pay all their bills then you have to give it some thought. The players not taking a cut could means it has to come from elsewhere and far lower paid staff on casual or part-time contracts, could lose their jobs, promising youngsters could find themselves looking for another club, and the worst case scenario is the company goes into administration and players contracts are cancelled. They are entitled to refuse but they'd be better to do so after some proper thought. The likes of Jig should have no problem with it. But in the end it's an exposé of Stockbridge's ineptitude.
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People should hold fire on King. When we are promoted to the Premiership we will need a cash injection. Wouldn't it be a shame if King had already shot his load on buying up a load of shares (if someone would sell them to him)? I don't expect him to come with any dosh till the next share issue - whenever that is. If he passes on that, then maybe it's time to give him criticism for tarting about.
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I better point out that SC's post has clouded the main thrust of my point, which is that while cutting the cost of the squad may be desirable but does not seem very practicable, which means while we should do what can be done, and improve recruitment policy for the future, the main focus of cost cutting should be elsewhere, and a parallel emphasis made on endeavours to increase revenue. We have to prioritise what will give us the biggest gains, instead of lustily taking a meat cleaver to what brings in the money in the first place and which already offers very slim pickings.
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Why not? What is the universally correct age? Players are considered rookies right up until about 23 which is why you still get U23 sides. There is an U21 league so no matter what your opinion is, it disagrees with pretty much the whole of the profession. But the point that you have completely missed is that if you compare past squads you'll find far more over 21s. YOU want to discount this as it doesn't suit you. You like to count all players above about 17 as part of the first team squad so you can say it's huge, but it's comparing apples with oranges. Says who? You? Why then do we have U21 leagues? If that is then why don't we release all 20 year olds who are not yet in the first team? Why are there no big clubs full of 18 year olds? Again your using your very unique view compared to most of top professional football to completely miss the point. That is that when we counted the previous squads in the past, we didn't count the youngsters. IIRC We used to have over 30 experienced professionals, and some people like to call our current squad, "huge" and other hyperbole. Your final comment just says you are totally unable to make a convincing argument. Let me ask you something, if I'm blind, how come I can include so much breadth of scope? If I'm biased how come I can compare both sides and also change my mind if the facts or my understanding changes? If I'm talking nonsense, how come I can explain it in much detail, in many ways? Then see if you can apply the same attributes to yourself.
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I think there are two massive myths that people are buying in to, one is that we have a huge squad and secondly our player wage bill is huge. Both may be larger than we need and larger than is healthy for our income but they are a fraction of what we have been used to throughout the history of the club. The wage bill is at about 20% of what it once was and you'd struggle to make two sides out of our squad that were made up of over 21 year old players. That group used to be around 30 with far less home grown. People seem to be panicking about the players wages when to me it seems to be a problem but only a small part and more of a symptom than a cause. It's easy to look back on hindsight and say a lot of stuff about where the money goes but it ignores the fact that we've been "rescued" by self interested people who seen the club as a short term cash cow. They were never going to run the club with proper fiscal prudence as the profligacy was convenient to mask their own massive drain on the club's finances. It's all a bit like complaining how an embezzler ran a company, it's kind of an oxymoron. The money is gone but so are most of the beneficiaries and we're at stage 2 where money can no longer haemorrhage from the club as it has already been bled dry. It's a different game now and we can't go back. It's time to be realistic about what we can afford, what we need to compete and what we can do to optimise our situation. Our wage bill needs to be trimmed but while we're struggling to buy the groceries, it's already a bit lean, there is not much fat to lose, and the flabbiest bits are not easy to remove. We have to be careful not to lose the muscle or health and fitness which we need to thrive. We need a decent base for our assault on the Championship, and at least a main skeleton we can flesh out without too much expense to compete at the top of the Premiership. There are other areas we need to turn our gaze to. The halving of the wages for the management team is a start, and the removal of stupid bonuses for the board are a no-brainer. But there are plenty of other areas where we're not getting value for money or where it is being completely squandered for no gain to the club - like our PR and legal bills. Stadium and training ground costs also need to be brought under control as they seem massive compared to our income which makes you wonder how English Championship sides with large stadiums survive. Where the board have been completely incompetent up to now (among other things) is the low level of income beyond ticket sales. We seem to have little coming in from merchandising and catering, where we used to bring in several millions. We still have a similar number of people attending the games and the number following us has not dwindled so where is that income now? The same could be said of sponsorship when our fan-base is as strong as every - and motivated. Selling the naming rights to the stadium may be contentious but when you have no credit and facing a loss, those principles are just unaffordable. We cannot rely on a share issue every couple of years - although I predict one once we look like a shoe-in for Premiership promotion. It will need to be the last one for a while and you have to hope it will be subscribed and underwritten by Dave King - although that is really taking him and his money for granted. To get back to the subject of squad trimming, I can't see us saving more than a million or so but when actually applying the cuts it's going to be difficult as loads of people are making list of the deadwood the perennial problem for Rangers is that rejects are almost impossible to shed without pay-offs. If you believe the press these pay-offs seem to be the whole value of the contract which seems stupid and lacking in a win-win scenario. It seems you may as well keep the players and not play them while they stagnate their career and future prospects. Surely you'd think there was a compromise where we let them go and pay them the difference between their Rangers basic and their expected wages for whichever new team they find? Surely that is better for us and better for them? The problem is that we reputedly pay them off the whole amount and then they double up on a new wage elsewhere. When you do that, where is their need to compromise? Seems to me we need to let them rot in the reserves until they are desperate to leave. That won't work with those in their twilight years who have lost ambition and are happy to build up a pension before retiring. That is the only real argument I can see against recruiting older players. So in conclusion, I can't see what we can really do to significantly reduce our playing costs apart from outside offers from other clubs and natural wastage. We can only pro-actively look forward and tighten up our recruitment strategy while learning from our many past mistakes.