JFK-1

I see no reason we can't win it with some consistency. If Aberdeen can beat them twice which they did I see no reason the team we will be fielding can't do the same thing.

Only one of us and celtc will be allowed to be at home to unfurl the flag and we all know it won't be us.

Totally forgot about them. How ironic that they barely cross my mind while they obsess on us night and day.

Back when the title was clinched and promotion guaranteed I would have been content with a top 6 finish for the first season back but given the quality of player being targeted and brought in recently the stakes have been raised and top 3 to clinch a Euro spot is now a minimum expectation and that is in fact what Dave King himself stated when he took over. He said that the Europa league was a minimum expectation.

Aberdeen were second best in the SPL last season by a distance and there is no way they are going to be attracting the quality we are which presumably is one reason the bookies have Rangers at 3/1 for the title with Aberdeen 12/1

And though I may be looking at it with slightly blue tinted spectacles so to speak I don't think it's beyond us to win this league. I hope to hit the ground running like we did last year and again I don't think that's beyond the team. The shake up of the midfield has thrown a lot more creativity in there which i'm hoping can help break down those ten man defences we have to face to take advantage of all the possession in the final third we habitually have against any team we played last year.

Even against St Johnstone when we experienced the first stumbling block of the season we still had 66% of the possession and 12 shots at goal to their 6 and I don't see that changing much in the SPL but I do expect this team to be taking more advantage of that superiority. Dundee were totally blown away and in the first half of the cup semi final we were all over them with a weakened side. Nothing is beyond this team with Warburton at the helm and I fully expect we're going to see some even more fabulous football than we did last season.

Tighten it up at the back and I see only one out there who can stand in our way and it's not Aberdeen. As for Aberdeen I have seen them making spurious claims that Rangers will have to spend mega millions to compete even for the top 3 in the league. What a load of utter bollocks. They themselves claimed to be legitimate title challengers and when did they ever spend ANY millions far less mega?

I like it, it's indicative of the fact that sanity is a distant memory and maybe a never experienced state for some of them. It further marginalises them, they now even have a T shirt saying i'm a proud fringe nutcase obsessive.

All that matters to us is that we're getting a match fit player.

It's encouraging to see a number of centre backs being pursued as we are all aware that has been an issue. We have the midfield already signifcantly strengthened with the incomers plus the return of Forrester and hopefully a bedded in O'Halloran available in all competitions it's building up to be an impressive unit.

I don't recall being so excited about an upcoming season since Souness first arrived. I don't really care much about the league cup other than viewing it as useful warm up matches for the real thing when the league kicks off. Hoping for a home match on day one of the league.

I'm guessing since he will be in Glasgow for talks today the chances of him signing are good. You would imagine that whatever they are offering him would already have been offered over the phone or whatever and since he is coming the offer must be acceptable.

So presumably now it comes down to simply coming up to have a look around and that can hardly be anything but impressive . So says Joey Barton.

I think that his approach was based on bringing in players who were "experienced", who were "professional football men",

who "knew the Scottish game", who "knew what they were doing", and letting them get on with it. Ultimately, the kind of players who,

he assumed, did not need to be coached. The approach was probably a Walter Smith legacy.

 

As for the quality of the players, a no of his captures had been Players of the Year at their immediately previous

SPL clubs.

 

I admit to being pretty jaundiced as regards AMcC's time as manager, but no one honestly could say that it was a success,

either in results ( 4 years to get out of part time leagues), or in the style of play (where do you start?).

Well in regards to it taking 4 years to get back to the SPL that's just 1 year longer than the shortest possible time and it has to be viewed from the perspective that when he reached the Chmapionship what he found there was the two Edinburgh giants who are not part timers and who had just come down from the SPL.

This was an unusual situation and if not for their presence he would have won the Championship at the first attempt. As for the style of football no one would swap the Warburton style for it but he was more or less playing the style he himself had been coached in and what was suitable for the leagues he was in and the players he had at his disposal.

So effectively the greatest failure of Ally was not getting out of the Championship at the first attempt in a situation where he had the two Edinburgh teams in there with him and that's aside from all the background upheaval he was having to deal with. I wouldn't swap Waburton for him but Ally was dealing with a unique situation no other Rangers manager ever had to.

And as I mentioned in another post Ally was burdened with a lot of emotional baggage with all the trauma going on at the club which in the circumstances he had to wrestle with along with everything else. He was just as upet with everything that went down as we were and if his first management job had been at a club where he didn't have these emotional ties he may have been a different manager which is why I think he may be a different manager at another club.

I am going for the forecast Barton and broon same game same time

I will bet a fiver on Barton to win by KO.

I have fears he may become a target for opposition non entities aware of his reputation and looking to get some attention for taking a dig at and getting a rise out of such a high profile player which then propels them from non entity to headlner.

I never gamble but if I were forced to bet on somebody I expect it would have to Germany. They haven't exactly been on top form of late but they're always there or thereabouts when it matters. Dark horse England if they can keep it tight at the back plus Vardy and Rashford can reproduce their league form. England have a lot of strike options.

Nice to see some interest in a defender being reported even if it doesn't come off.

Arsenal are in talks with Leicester City in an attempt to try to sign striker Jamie Vardy.

 

The Gunners' bid for the 29-year-old England international is reported to be in the region of £20m and has triggered the release clause in his contract.

 

Vardy scored 24 goals in the Premier League for Leicester as the Foxes won the 2015-16 title.

 

The forward, who is currently preparing for Euro 2016, joined City for £1m from Fleetwood in 2012.

 

Vardy rose through non-league football after being released by Sheffield Wednesday at 16 for being too small, and was named the Football Writers' Association Footballer of the Year for 2015-16.

 

Since making his England debut in 2015, he has scored three times in eight internationals.

 

Arsenal, who finished second in the league, 10 points behind Leicester, have already signed Switzerland midfielder Granit Xhaka from Borussia Monchengladbach.

 

Vardy to Arsenal: The case for and against

 

Former QPR winger Trevor Sinclair on BBC Radio 5 live: "I am a big believer in karma. He has won the Premier League, he is happy and has a great group of brothers around him. He is settled, so why move?

 

"When you are a striker you can be in top form but then go to a club, not hit the ground running and then it can gobble you up. I would stay where he is."

 

Ex-Everton winger Kevin Kilbane on BBC Radio 5 live: "When the big clubs come calling, they might not come again. I think you go.

 

"You want to test yourself against the best and with better players. Technically, Arsenal are a better side than Leicester."

IRISH bookies Paddy Power have slashed their odds on Zlatan Ibrahimovic moving to CELTIC.

 

The 34-year-old Swedish superstar is a free agent having left Paris Saint-Germain at the end of the season and has been strongly linked with a move to join Jose Mourinho at Manchester United.

 

Following a series of bets over the last 24 hours the Irish betting giants have cut their price to as low as 7/4 from 80/1 on what would be an astonishing signing for Brendan Rodgers side.

 

Ibrahimovic's wage demands are believed to be way out of reach for the Hoops, but the veteran striker has spoken in the past about finishing his career with the Parkhead side.

 

A move to Manchester United remains the favourite at 4/9, with Celtic now second favourites, LA Galaxy at 6/1 and a return to AC Milan priced at 14/1.

 

Speaking back in 2013 the former teammate of Hoops legend Henrik Larsson said:

 

“Celtic is a club with a big tradition and a place any top player would want to end their career. How could I say I wouldn’t want to play for those fans every week?”

 

“Henrik was good enough to play for any team in Europe,”

 

“But after playing at Celtic Park it is easy to understand why he chose to stay there for so long.

 

“No player would ever want to leave playing in the stadium for those fans.”

Glad I got in the post that pushed it over the line then.

Think I prefer to leave ref conspiracies to others who have obsessed on such matters for years. This is the same as saying all it needs to swing a match is a referee giving dodgy penalties or denying blatant penalties etc.

I would be interested to see how he fared with another go at management. I feel part of his problem at Rangers was that he was still a player at heart trying to be the joker of the dressing room when that role can't be played by a manger who has difficult decisions to make. He may learn from his mistakes and be a different animal at another club.

There's no embarrassment unfortunately.

To me that's one of the most bizarre features of the entire obsession. I seriously look at it and see a band of complete weirdos so far gone in this weird obsession they don't grasp that they're looking like obsessive oddballs to anyone outside their fantasy reality.

I also feel this sevco new club obsession started as banter and somewhere along the way they forgot that and created an elaborate alternate reality they now think is real and can't get out of it as the rest of the world looks on bamboozled at the freakiness of it.

And I suspect it's actually becoming worse recently due to the fact that the team were on a high this season playing a brand of football everyone was impressed by while their season was basically a dud when they were humiliated in Europe and won nothing but a one horse race of a league and to top off the dud of a season were humiliated again in the Scottish cup semi final when they weren't just beaten they were made to look second rate for long periods.

And now an even darker terror beckons. Rangers come back into the league and win it in the first year back highlighting for one and all how much of a one horse race it really was and how irrelevant winning it was without us in it. If we hit the ground running next season and they stutter we're going to see levels of screaming about sevco approaching full meltdown.

And incidentally I and I expect everyone else but the obsessives have become so bored with the new club line that I don't even give a flying expletive about it anymore and why would I when every footballing authority maintains records saying otherwise. If they want to add to their alternate reality that a brand new team popped into existence like magic and instantly put an end to their one horse trot go for it. Now along with being whipped by the minnows of Europe they're being humiliated by startups.

THE first four are in, but there has to be several more where they came from. Mark Warburton will start putting his Rangers squad through their paces in just over a fortnight as they look to stride forward on the road towards the Premiership title.

 

The Ibrox boss is keen to have as many new recruits on board as possible by the time the Gers squad return to Murray Park and here SportTimes looks at where Warburton will need to strengthen as he looks to complete another handful of deals in the coming weeks.

 

GOALKEEPER

 

Wes Foderingham was handed the number one jersey last summer and never looked like relinquishing it during a solid first campaign at Ibrox. The 25-year-old is rated highly by Warburton and is the kind of keeper that fits into the style the Light Blues attempt to play.

 

While he did pull off some impressive stops at key times this term, there were also a few anxious moments for the Ibrox crowd when the ball was at his feet or launched into the area.

 

It would be a surprise if Foderingham didn’t retain the gloves for the new campaign but he is likely to have a fresh challenge for the jersey if Cammy Bell can clinch a move away.

 

The former Scotland shot-stopper didn’t play a minute of first team action last season and a summer switch seems to offer him the best chance of getting back on the park.

 

That will leave Warburton with a spot on the bench to fill and it is one that may well go to a more experienced deputy than youngsters Liam Kelly or Robby McCrorie.

 

DEFENCE

 

The back four has been the source of much debate this term and it is an area that certainly needs strengthening before the new campaign kicks-off.

 

Lee Wallace rightly collected the Ibrox Player of the Year prize after his most impressive season to date but fans remain wary of the defensive capabilities of fellow full-back James Tavernier.

 

There is no doubt the 24-year-old, who scored 15 goals in 50 appearances for the Gers, is a real threat in the final third but he will be tested more at the other end of the park next time out and will need to raise his game to be as effective as he was during a superb debut campaign.

 

With no obvious cover for either Wallace or Tavernier in the squad, Warburton was fortunate that neither were absent for a lengthy period and were able to play the number of games they did in all four competitions.

 

Dom Ball could have filled in, but Rangers need a more natural and reliable option at both left-back and right-back next term, even if a deal can be done to bring the 20-year-old back from Spurs for a second stint.

 

There is also an expectation from supporters that at least one new centre-back will be recruited. The pairing of Danny Wilson and Rob Kiernan proved good enough to win the Championship but Warburton has few options and needs to make a signing here.

 

Rangers lost too many soft goals through their centre last season and they will have to be more solid and resolute in the top flight. A more commanding and physical defender would certainly be welcomed by the Ibrox crowd.

 

MIDFIELD

 

Warburton has made significant changes in here already this summer as he has addressed one of the key areas of his side early in the window.

 

The arrival of Joey Barton will give the Gers experience and strength in the middle of the park and the 33-year-old will be an integral part of the Light Blues line-up in the holding role.

 

It is a position that could also be filled by Matt Crooks and Jordan Rossiter, but both could be utilised further forward and compete with Andy Halliday and Jason Holt for the more attacking berths after Nicky Law was released and Gedion Zelalem returned to Arsenal.

 

With Harry Forrester returning from injury, Rangers look strong in midfield, and the arrival of Niko Kranjcar would give Warburton another quality option next season.

 

It will be tough for the likes of Liam Burt and Jordan Thompson to break through but they are capable of providing adequate back-up if Warburton looks to dip into the Murray Park ranks.

 

FORWARDS

 

Goals were not in short supply for Rangers as they eased to the Championship title but another forward, if not two, will surely be on Warburton’s shopping list this summer.

 

There is nothing to suggest that Kenny Miller and Martyn Waghorn won’t be able to maintain their fine form in the top flight next term and both will have huge roles to play as Rangers set their sights on the silverware. But the Gers need another option through the middle.

 

It won’t be a tall, physical forward that will be better in the air than he is with the ball at his feet. Warburton has already made his feelings clear on a different type of striker when quizzed about the need for a Plan B, but he does need competition to provide back-up to the pair that scored 49 goals between them this term.

 

In the wider areas, Barrie McKay will look to prove he can shine on the Premiership stage after a terrific campaign in the second tier, while more is expected of Michael O’Halloran now that he has had time to settle into life at Ibrox.

 

Josh Windass is somewhat of an unknown quantity for Gers fans but he arrives in Glasgow highly-rated and high in confidence after shining for Accrington Stanley as they just missed out on promotion this term.

 

With David Templeton and Nicky Clark released and Billy King back at Hearts, there is scope for Warburton to bring in another forward minded player or two.

 

If there are more arrivals at both ends of the park, expectation levels will rightly be high both at Murray Park and in the stands at Ibrox ahead of Rangers’ Premiership return.

I hope he goes because I think they will struggle if they change horses so to speak at this stage and they deserve all the shit that can be piled on them for the point blank denial and whatboutery of the cup final scenes.

Call me mental but I'm getting far more excited about the prospect of buying these guys from the lower leagues with potential than the dubious transfer policies we have used in the past. ie. Nearly 4million for Lafferty...I really like the idea of a manger that can spot a player and can build something

 

It might also be something to do with getting old and cranky but football has changed for me. For example, I no longer watch the Champions League as it leaves me cold and bored. Every year it's the same teams and the same games.

Well in this instance at least if they didn't work out it's a nothing lost nothing gained scenario instead of millions lost. And you have to think that over the course of it a bunch of them will actually prove to be not just good players but worth millions after being acquired for a relative pittance. Jordan Rossiter in particular may prove to be in that category in 2 or 3 years time.

We appear to be crafting a formidable midfield and I have found myself wondering recently if the Manager thinks that solidifying the midfield will solve the defensive issues. Crooks in particular could act as a big central defender when required such as corners etc. then return to his midfield role when the danger is cleared.

I had the honour of meeting him in Chatelherault Country Park a few years back on Grandpa duties, all I said was 'Hi Arthur' he said 'Hi' back.

I came from Hamilton before moving to the US and saw him around the town centre area regularly. Don't know if he is still living in Hamilton but he was there for years after finishing as a player.

I think Jamie Vardy has made an ass of that type of statement. Agree 100% I trust MW so that's good enough for me

I agree, Vardy didn't really score many more goals in a season with Halifax town as an example than he has in the EPL this season. During the 2010/2011 season with Halifax he netted 26 times which is probaly similar to his tally for this season with Leicester. It's difficult to judge how effective Crooks and Windass will be when surrounded by a better standard of team mates but as you say if Mr Warburton thinks they can do it I will trust his judgement.

I'm Scottish and I don't understand why we tolerate and pay for what's basically the Irish segregating themselves in seperate schools and THAT'S where the tribalism begins. If we were forcing them to do that it would be called apartheid and it actually even goes beyond just bare segregation. A priest decides who is fit to be a teacher?

THE controversial requirement for teachers at Catholic schools to be vetted by a priest before they are given a job has come under fire from headteachers.