bluedan

For me it boils down to this, When we first signed him i never thought he'd play his way into the side the way he did. He's been almost Papac esk in the way he's applied himself so for that i'm not going to count him out. However i King Carlos does return and Weir stays on and is prefered then Kirk may struggle to get in the side. But Weir can't go on forever, perhaps Kirk is due a run in his natural position?? He's rarely let us down out of position...

Goal from Obolo against Boca a few weeks back. I remember seeing this (with out realizing who Obolo was) and thinking it was a peach of a header.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mauro_%C3%93bolo Seems he's never really settled which is a concern is there is any truth we are after him.

Haven't seen much of Mauro Ivan Obolo. He's got 8 goals from 18 games so not a fantastic return. In saying that though i've seen clips of the other Arsenal Striker Lisandro Lopez who has 5 goals and he's looked good. That Columbian boy,Te�³filo Guti�©rrez who plays for Racing got another 2 goals the other night. I quite like the look of him. He's now on 11 for the season and top scorer with a game to go. I'm trying to find out about Obolo through the wires this end so will let everyone know if that story has surfaced over here. Interesting point on Gutierrez is that he had a spell in Turkey and did ok. Although i think he managed to engineer himself a move out of there due to not really settling. So alarms bells perhaps for him which is a shame as he has a good record.

LEGEND LEGEND LEGEND :wub:

Think it said they play either 5 or 6 25 min half games. I don't actually think 200 is that much, i'd pay it in a shot if only for the oppertunity and that'a all these guys want because the scouting system may not allow that for them. Albian could be showing the way forward with regards to signing players in the lower leagues. If a player doesn't make the grade for whatever reason then i'm sure he'd pick up some good advice on where to improve his game. Wasn't you that was coughing his guts up was it??

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/13669132.stm Excellent idea in my opinion. Albian can get some much needed cash and players that have fallen through the net have a chance to get a club. I think more lower clubs should adopt this policy, the game is hard enough to to get into as it is,why not hold open pre season trials?? The thing that hurt me most when i was young and trying to make it was that i could never get a club to give me a chance. Although Albian have been forced to adopt this strategy i think they can benifit from it. What do you all think?

I didn't like the black 3rd top from last season at first but it grew on me so i'll keep an open mind on this. I do prefer our away tops to be red rather than prodominantly white so thats a plus.

Great, thanks pal, clears up that little mystery

I'll look into that Velez lad u asked about. Yeh sure I can throw something together to go up. I'll get on the case soon. Just swamped with heaps of Spanish study at the moment. But I'm sure I can find the time;-)

Was talking to the cousin of my girlfriend last night and he plays for Boca's Futsal team. He was telling me they were in a tournament in Hong kong a few weeks back and the Gers we also in the tournament. Didn't see anything about it on the Gers website so just wondering if anyone know's anything about it?

Ally should look me up and i'll give him some tips seeing as i'm here. My list of players i think are good enough to play for us from currently playing in Argentina: Santiago Silva (Velez),easily the best striker in the league. Bit of a late developer and due to his age (30)we may get him at a fair price. Velez won't sell him to anyone else in the country. Stumbling block with Velez is the have a cracking side, i think they will win the Argentina Clusura so they will want to keep the group together. Silva is a big lad but with a bit of class and heaps of passion. He was on load at Banfield a couple of years ago and he scored 18 in 19 games to help them win thier first ever Argentine title. He's class. Velez have another lad called Juan Manuel Martinez, another striker and i really like the look of him. Here's a link to a goal he scored just the other night and another link for a goal by Silva. Silva: Martinez: Another i like is a guy called Erik Lamilla, plays just in behind the striker for River. He's a bit raw but i think he's got a good future ahead of him. Saw Olimpo vs River a few weeks ago and there was a centre midfielder called Martin Aguirre. Ran the show, stocky little guy but had it all. A Columbian lad called Guttierez had been good 9 goals in 15 games, making a name for himself here. Monzon, a defender for Boca is also young and pretty good however if i were Ally i wouldn't be shopping for defenders here. Watched Velez vs Penarol from Uruguay last week in the Libertadores semi final and a lad for Penarol was class. Alejandro Martinuccio was his name, he's actually Argentine and i think this is his first real break through season. Could do with working on his finishing but he is fucking RAPID and gave Argentina's best team the run around all night.

That is gold, PMSL.

Great stuff, nice to see us successfull at such a young level.

I{d be happy to see him stay but perhaps in a slightly different capacity. More like a pay as you play/coaching role? I think it's time to try and find his replacement. In saying that though if we couldn{t find someone this season then i wouldn't feel too worried.

Agree totally Zappa. Hopfully Wenger doesn't have the same opinions of that tit Pardew. Then we would have to put our hands in our pockets if we really wanted Bartley.

This is a pure cheap shot. You can never put a time limit on when youth players will turn good. There's a lot more involved to it other than just having a 1st class training facility. Surroundings, advice,peer pressure, lure of women (guilty) etc etc. Murray park no matter what people say or think has put us light years ahead even though it might not seem like it just yet. Remember that we are in a very small country in terms of say England. Also, i'm staying in Argentina at the moment and watch the games here all the time. I reckon i've seen about between 5 to 10 players that i rate as very good but NONE of them special and we are talking about a country whose capital city had almost 3 times the population of Scotland alone. Compaired with 6 years ago the Argentine league had guys the quality of Tevez, Mascherano,Lucho Gonzalez, Lislandro Lopez and others all of whom are better than what is currently in the Argentine league. The facts are this, things go in a cycle. No matter how good the facilites we will NEVER get a steady stream of 5 or 6 players coming through the ranks every season or 2. On the other hand like now we have Cole,Fleck,Ness,Wylde,Hutton and Hemmings coming in as a cluster which is pretty uncommon. We've also had Hutton,Wilson,McCormack,Shagger,Burke,S Smith and i'm sure others who have gone on to do a job for us and then been sold for good profit. Also, NOBODY can deny that MP wouldn't help improve skills of senior players right the way down to boys and girls. It also acts as a tool for signing players. It would be a dream to come to work at MP every day and train on surfaces better than some pitches we'll see. With every championship and cup we win, a little of it will be down to the work place. Of that there can be no doubt.

Interesting question but in this case i don't think it really matters. Rangers will know exactly what he gets and will offer him better wages plus first team football along with regular european football and the chance to win medals every year. Bartley would be nuts to knock that back knowing what he already now knows about Rangers, the institution. From the interviews i've seen of him he seems pretty level headed and won't be too swayed by the opinion of some agent that'll try and convince him to go to Wolves for an extra 5 or 6 grand per week, fight relegation when he could be winning championships and making a name for himself considering he's still got PLENTY of football in him. If Bartley is properly advised then he will be told to sign for us, grow into the player he could easily become and win some titles while doing so along with vital european experience. Not fighting relegation and getting pumped 3 and 4 nil most weeks.

I'd be entitled to agree with you about where Bartley would want to play if he was a free agent. However, he's already been at us, he's now a bluenose and i reckon he'd jump at the chance to come and play for us full time because he now knows that despite us being in a rank rotten league, being a Ger means so much more. To me he looked right at home and happy in his game. I hope we sign him,would make a great addition.

I would like to see some quality competition in our squad along with the right mix of youth given a chance. Also expect us to retain the league and one of the domestic cups. As far as Europe goes, i'm not holding out for too much however if it's in the Europa or CL i would really like to see a much improved home record. Make Ibrox a really difficult place to come again. We get too many draws at home and it's not really good enough. We always tend to pick up a point on the road so we should be looking to do a lot better at home. Finally i would hope that we play a more attacking brand away from home in derby games.

Had high hopes for Edu before his injury, though we had a real player. However i was wrong, can't tackle and his range of passing along with his touch is awful. Maybe he might go on to prove us wrong but if he's fit i'd much rather have Ness or Hutton in there.

Question is, is Forster good enough for a contract with us?? On evidence you'd have to say 'yes'. When called upon he did a job and a decent on too. But with Kirky Broadband back next season then maybe we are covered?? Food for thought for Ally.

I think many Rangers 'snipers' forget that we have a lot of good young talent coming through. The good thing for us is that they have proved they can handle playing in the first 11 so there's none of this 'Can he step up' mentality. We do need to strengthen in certain areas and need competition for places but i reckon we have a good group that can go on to be a massive part over the next few years. Look over a period, when was the last time we had 4 or 5 youngsters come into the side and impress?? And we also saw glimpses of Cole and there's big talk of Hemmings too. Exciting times ahead.

And another near the end of the game.

That's class, who else is playing in that? Try and get in with the Boca fans. I did the same when they came to Melbourne,there was about 4,000 of them and was still a class sing song.