Super_Ally

Rangers fan? Legend. Defo. 1 hr 53 mins and approx 20 secs in: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00lk3b3

Same figures Craig used plus being too lazy to add it properly. Approx �£4mil for the striker, �£2.5 for Mowbray and I thought approx �£0.5mil for the backroom staff. On paper, with the fact that they have a new management team and players may well need time to settle plus the loss of established players they have probably declined in quality at this momment in time (new signing may well prove good long term). But even if we are being kind and say they have improved marginally, is that improvement worth �£7mil??? Glad yourself and Craig seem to be somewhat in agreement. Was expecting to have to affix the helmet for the incoming. I think too many of us believe the PR stream that Celtic are going from strength to strength and spending great fortunes on improving their squad. That kind of behaviour isn't exclusive to football. I guess if every different source you consult is beating the same drum you are going to be conditioned into thinking that is the case. (I'm sure Barry will have some far more insightful views on that). However, when you investigate the facts for yourself it just isn't the case. I don't want to repeat myself too much more, but when you look at what they have lost and gained, on paper they look weaker. Again, as I have already stated, there is plenty still to happen this transfer window, but lets not pretend that Celtic are somehow streaking ahead after having been an inferior team and now having wasted a Fortune. :devil:

Sports Science is less about the injury side of things than the physio or sports medicince. Very strange article. Quite bare of actual details, just alluding to things. I thought his problem last year was a hamstring strain/pull, or is my memory playing tricks? If that is what it was the other problems he is referring to can be things like hurting your back. If you have an injury in parts of the legs and (perhaps unkowingly) you are changing your running pattern to take strain away from the injured mucle groups/joints or whatever it can cause problems elsewhere. The idea of homeopathic injections to fix that sort of problem is new to me, though that's why he's gone to see a pre-eminent sports medic. I'm sure there are plenty of rehabilitative methods I am not clued up on. I would have thought rehab would involve rest, ice packs, light work to exercise the affected muscle and injury so perhaps swimming or cycling taking weight off the injury. A lot of stretching and perhaps some resistance work both increasing in intensity gradually. The idea of injections throws me and perhaps it is not that original injury that was reported that caused the original problem. (Sports Science support is greatly imrpoved in that respect. Gone are the days of a physio or skills coach taking strength and conditioning training of a football team. There's often sports scientists and strength and conditioning coaches, physios, sports medics, sports psychologists, nutritionists. Experts performin only the role in which their expertise lie). As I say, it is difficult to have a great idea of what is going on as it is devoid of many details and only alludes to certain things. That will no doubt have made it hard for you or anyone else to deduce what is going on.

Looking at some transfer news today drew something to my attention: Rangers: In: Out: Hemdani - Freed Dailly - Freed Smith - St Johnstone Webster - Dundee Utd (loan) Ferguson - Birmingham �£1mil?? Assorted youths Celtic In: Zaluska - Free Fortune - �£3.8mil N'Guemo - Loan Out: Hartley - Bristol City Vennegoor of Hesselink - Free Nakamura - Espanyol Balde - Free Doumbe - Free Cuthbert - Swindon (undisclosed) __________________________________________________________________________ Of the transfers that really matter, i.e players leaving who were first team regulars or players joining Celtic have lost Hesselink, Nakamura and Hartley and replaced them with a goal shy striker in Fortune and an unknown loan signing in N'Guemo. Zaluska has joined the squad but they can't play all 4 or 5 keepers at once. Along with brining in a brand new management team who are perhaps not as clued up on the club, the squad and Scottish football as the previous manager, the fact that any transfer in has inherrent risk involved and right now the clever money would be on Celtic being slightly weaker in overall quality. Of course the recent changes on the field and in the dugout may prove to be excellent, or they may prove insufficient to cover what they are replacing. On current transfer activity, the latter looks more probable. Celtic have spent around �£7mil or so and received no fees for departing players. Rangers have lost a 3rd chocie keeper (no loss perhaps), utility man Dailly and invisible men Webster and Hemdani. In addition it looks like Fergie may leave. I would argue we will not notice the absence of Hemdani, Webster and Smith and indeed the lack of Dailly in the squad as a go to man for any position might force Walter to utilise a youth player who may prove to be of greater quality. It could be argued Dailly's departure weakens the squad, but I woudl argue any impact will be negligible (and may well allow us to fund a better quality replacement). Ferguson is a player of undoubted class who has seen his best days and was mostly absent from the squad as we took the league. With Mendes, Thommo, Edu and Davis for midfield berths with other squad players able to fill in in extreme circumstances, it could again be argued we have not hugely depleted our squad. Can any club afford more options for the middle of the park anyway? At this stage it is all hypothetical. We cannot know how it will turn out. However when you put it down on paper it appears the abundance of business being conducted at Parkhead is a bit of a myth: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rangers_F.C._season_2009-10#Transfers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celtic_F.C._season_2009%E2%80%9310 Celtic are arguably weaker in quality and quantity. Rangers are weaker in quantity, though the decrease in quality is up for debate. Celtic are around �£7mil out of pocket and only treading water in transfer terms. Rangers will bank an extra �£1mil so far from transfers. Saved a fortune on wages and are arguably not that affected. Whislt we all have to try and come to terms with the idea that we will not be conducting any great business (barring transfers out) the idea that we need only another centre back and perhaps a wide midfielder for the coming season looks a shrewd plan. Indeed if we could maintain the key players and fill these two positions we could be significantly stronger than last year on the field whilst making financial improvements. Of course there is a long way to go in the transfer window. I only post this because the accepted wisdom, doggedly championed by all media outlets, is that Celtic are going from strength to strength whilst we are standing still or going backwards. Based on last season's league table Rangers were the best squad in Scotland. On transfer business done so far it would be difficult to argue that has changed. Unless Celtic's signings settle in record quick time, you could argue we might even be marginally further ahead. Of course Celtic's declining quality is not enough of a reason for us to stand still feeling smug and counting next season's trophies. We know where we need to improve and I have identified that above. The fact that we have a reasonable squad coming off the back of a succesful season and not having changed our manager obviously necessitates there will be more incomings and outgoings across the city. The mere fact they are conducting (marginally more) business should not be reason to panic. Especially when a reasoned analysis shows that this much hyped transfer business at the very best appears to have them every so slightly improved. For �£7mil + I would expect a lot more than that.

Good man.

Motherwell at it again. Lost 1-0 away to some numpty mob. Falkirk on the other hand managed a 1-0 win over Lichenstein outfit Vaduz who play in the Swiss league, though were relegated last year.

Aye sorry did see your other post, cheers for that. I then read the comments from the link above and thought it confused the issue. 2 providers for one league's football. Surely if it worked the same way as Setanta and Sky you'd have to pay for both (well Setanta was free on Virgin's XL package and you tend to get sky sports as part of a package but I think you see what I mean). Say for examle you didn't have sky sport. Do you just pay the money to sky and get SPL football on sky sports and ESPN. Or do you need to subscribe to sky and pay for ESPN seperate? We already have sky sports. Will we automatically get their share of the SPL games. If not and they are part of a seperate broadcast, will they need to make room for a new channel? I guess all will be explained in time. Just trying to work out what it means for me. Especially as I don't live in Glasgow anymore.

In relation to my question on the other thread regarding what this means for customers. At the bottom of this link (above) it suggests ESPN will have a subscription channel. Will that be two seperate subscriptions for the full package of games???

Think he played mostly behind the striker, as a second striker or in midfield for the Youths. Hopefully someone who kept a closer eye on the yoths can confirm. However he's one of the youngest players to play in a Scottish Cup final is he not? At a very young age he's had a bit of experience playing first team football including a short run in the team before he proved that perhaps he is not quite ready for a first pick. He's also been training with the first team since he was about 15. With Walters penchant for playing players out of position, that might be a concern. However the argument that there is greater pressure for him if he comes on as a striker I don't think it's the worst idea to give him some game time. Many attacking players show an ability to play across the front and wide positions. However it would be good to identify his best position and get him to play there regular.

You might have a point BD, though there is no reason why people can't still post their own views on the OP and Walter seems to be very quick with the updates which might be useful for posters whose first port of call for Rangers news is right here. We might also find that this is just an initial PR blitz due to the new website launch and that hopefully they might tone it down a bit over the coming weeks.

Btw, any ideas what this means for fans? Will it be an additional subscription?

Hard to argue with that from past experience, but I think they're doing well with Fleck so far.

With my way with words and personality i'd then embark on a tv career. I'd be fine. Some fair points. I'm just not gonna pretend to feel sorry for someone for only getting �£70k rather than �£200k a week or other inumerable situations you could pick from football. With the obscene money they earn and the fact their careers are so long they should be investing for the future, not allowing clubs to continue to the take the pish out of fans.

Surely not, thought he was a stick on for Celtic? :devil:

I wasn't referring to Tevez with my post really, just a general comment the wages/short career argument. I think you;ve made a decent case for Tevez going to Man City in terms of the club's aspirations, even if I still think it's a crock of shit you could still reasonably make your argument. I don't have to try and see it from the footballers point of view. I'm not a multi-millionaire paid to do what I love with a cushy playboy lifestyle, so fuck them I don't need to "go easy on them". As a fan who as part of the collective of the games supporters pays their obscene wages I think it's fair enough to talk about this wages and the BS excuse they use for being money grabbing bastards and showing no loyalty. Short career my arse. 1 year at �£10,000 a week is �£520,000. A career of 10-15 years will earn them �£5-8 mil. And that's not to mention bonuses, sponsorship etc. Whats the average UK wage? Not even �£25k pa I guess but we'll use that: 25k at (65-18= 47) 47 years = �£1.175mil. I'm not saying their not well within their rights to get the best deal for them. But when your average man who supports their lifestyle earns less in a lifetime than many earn in a year we don't need to respect them for making their decisions based solely on money. Put it this way, I'd happily play at Rangers for �£2grand a week for my career. And yeh I know i'm not in their position and can't say, but I would value loyalty and opportunities to win silverware over money alone. As I have admitted I'm not in a position to have to make such a choice. But look at Kaka, didn't take the silly money at Man City. Took the slightly less (but still silly) money at Real because of the greater chance to win things and the prestige of playing for Real.

Repeat posts can be annoying and sometimes posters would have posted the story anyway. However the stories posted in footie chat about SPL football in general are good to have. They're not always higely relevant to Rangers (however neither are a lot of posts in other forums) but it's good to keep up with how our competition are doing. Look at the Motherwell thread today. Forgot they had European competition. Would anyone have posted that? Perhaps not. But it's a good idea to keep an eye on their score as their results affect the coefficient and hence us. As stated, my only real gripe is the repeitition. With the BBC I guess each time they update a story it triggers the RSS feed as if it is a new story to post and we sometimes end up with a double post (albeit minor changes) from Chick. I guess a similar thing occurs with Walter. A little annoying but it ensures there are more topics on here for people to read regarding Rangers and comment if they so choose or simply become better informed about the club, albeit sometimes they are "nothing stories".

Yeh, the old excuse about short careers is not really valid now that mediocre footballers earn more in a week than the national average yearly wage. (obviously does not apply so much to lower leagues or poorer countries).

Bit confused with the information here. How much worse off are we compared to the Setanta deal that was due to begin?

That's not really what he said at all is it Walter.

Guilty.

It's his age catching up with him. :devil:

Is there an arguement that perhaps violence does pay? It is pretty apparent you cannot engage these people in mature and civilised debate. There's too much of an agenda and the only things up for debate are the supposed ills of the Rangers/Protestant community. Any other topic is off the table as far as debate goes. When a certain action is so repugnant and ideas like free-speech and political correctness prevent the proper authorities from dealing with it, i'm all for them finding out just what the majority of society thinks of them. :box:

Pretty much sums it up. Bring in a centre back who can challenge or oust Weir from a starting berth. Bring in at least a left mid. Assuming we keep hold of Boogie etc and shift the dead wood I would be happy enough with that and being realistic about our financial situation that is about the best we can hope.

As long as his agent isn't our old pal Willie McKay!!!

I personally liked the video. Can't believe how lightly they got off. The condemnation and criticism of these cretins should have been more severe and you have to question why are media are so reticent to do so???