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Surely the rest of Scottish football will wake up to the fact that the SFA & SPFL are being run by one club, for the benefit of only one club, eventually?? Still, this move can’t have been much of a shock to the board. If it was unexpected, there should be a statement soon.

DJ has obviously been accused of running Rangers down in the past. He is certainly over-compensating for that now! Truth is though, more punters are backing Rangers simply because the other mob are such short odds they are unbackable. Of course, if we do win this title then DJ will have been proved right. But we had a real good squad in 2011. Davis, Naismith, McGregor, Wallace, Edu, Jelavic, Lafferty could have dominated Scottish football for a decade. It was a tragedy that we lost those guys, in footballing terms, as well as a crime.

Amazing that we have sold that many tickets for a friendly at home to an English 4th division team who don’t even kick off their league campaign for another 6 weeks! Can’t help but think that this Macedonian mob will be much harder opposition next week though..

Interesting theory, but most of the tims in my work all talk more about Rangers than their own team, & I’m fairly sure they don’t get paid. The illegal streams might have more tims because they won’t want to pay money to watch us. 50,000 of us are usually at the game. I only watch their games in the champions league, but I certainly wouldn’t pay any extra money than I already do

UEFA are unlikely to replay the entire 2011/12 Champions League, so I guess the SFA are trying to get more money out of us. I can’t see any legal way they could, however one thing the SFA are good at is coming up with inventive new ways to screw us over, so who knows

What puzzles me is why so many Rangers fans retweet and post links to his stuff. Nobody takes this guy seriously any more, yet he still gets plenty of hits, it’s pure click bait but somehow I keep seeing his articles on Gers social media..

Tavernier is our best player. I really dislike this mentality a lot of Gers fans have, that we should be getting rid of all our players for peanuts just because they haven’t won the league yet. If Celtic got £7million for Armstrong, we should be demanding that for Tav as he is a better player. As for Flanagan, certainly a good enough player to be back up for both full backs. But it is a gamble by Gerrard, because the moment he even looks at a woman the wrong way then he will be hounded out of Glasgow. Still, top managers make their name by these sort of decisions. Some work out, eg Sir Alex sticking with Cantona or Sir Walter signing Gazza. Some are spectacular failures, eg when Brendan Rogers signed Balotelli for Liverpool..

Can someone explain to me why the sheep are whinging about drawing Burnley? They would get beat by any of the teams in that round (as would us & Hibs) at least they get a glamour tie & an accessible venue for the away leg. Hibs got the easy draw. We have a nightmare trip in the first round. Aberdeen might even have an advantage as their opponents will still regard it as a pre-season game. But the fact is it will be a major shock if any of the 3 Scottish teams make the 3rd qualifying round, let alone the group stage. Indeed, I can see Celtic getting beat by that Armenian mob as well. And if they do, who do they get in Europa round 2??

Reasonably happy so far. Think the priority should be a forward now, and yes I would take Cummings back. We are still a few players short but it’s difficult to know in what positions, as it depends on which signings turn out well & which don’t. Confident we can finish above Aberdeen, indeed more so last season as we already knew Caixinha was a dud. Gerrard might not be!

None of those teams look that easy tbh. What happened to all the Welsh & Irish teams? Why isn’t the draw regionalised any more..?

I’m pretty sure gate receipts are split 50/50 no matter who the home team is, from Round 1. That’s why you don’t get Cup games on the season ticket since about the 1990s. At least that was the reason given at the time.

It made business sense to sign the likes of Ian Black at the time. With the new company taking over, fans wanted to feel the same way as we always did, and that meant buying the top Scottish players (as Black, Templeton, Sandaza were seen at the time). Same as keeping McCoist as manager. We would not have sold 40k season tickets in Division 3 if we had cut costs. Many fans might never have returned, or so the fear was. Also, we were actually expecting to win the Cups, even in 2013 the bookies had us as second favourites behind Celtic, so we needed a squad who could (in theory) have given them a game if we drew them in the Cups. It never happened, but the main reason we never built up our cash reserves is as Pete says, less to do with overpaid players, more to do with Ashley’s tipping us off & Green’s tea leafing. Allegedly.

The problem with ‘living within our means’ is that it means we will never catch Celtic. They keep getting Champions League cash while we keep getting nothing. Unless there is up front investment, it will never be an even playing field - something which is happening in more and more European leagues (one team dominance). However there is one way we could make up the gap, by buying cheap and selling big. Imagine we had taken that alleged £12million for Morelos? That probably equates to a full seasons ticket money & half of a retail deal. However, signing any players from England is not going to achieve this, because their sell on value immediately goes down by playing in the SPFL. We seemed to be doing this last year by signing Cardoso & Morelos, maybe even Pena & Herrera, however we shouldn’t abandon the model just because Caixinha was rubbish! Yet look at one he did sign for about 1millon - Candeias. Arguably the best player in the league last season. But if he had been playing down south, he’d cost about 10million (maybe 5 in the championship) we should be signing players from Serbia & Sweden. 11 players of Candeias standard & we wouldn’t be far behind, or too skint. But we just won’t get that value in the English leagues. Yet that seems to be the market Gerrard knows..

Let’s hope this guy Goldson is world class, because we could get a genuine top international for that money, just not in the English league which offers zero value for money. Yes, 3.5 million is a lot for an unproven defender with a heart defect, but let’s hope he is the first of several multi million pound signings. Otherwise the appointment of Gerrard might become an act of folly, as Jock Brown used to say..

It goes without saying, but a lot will depend on the standard of player he brings in, or is allowed to. He needs to build the spine of a team, not bring in more of the same. He might be able to get under Brendan Rogers’ skin, but more reasonably, more consistency should be possible. Another 15 points on last season & Celtic will be under pressure like at no time since 2011.

The time Motherwell left their stand empty in the play offs, they wouldn’t have got any of the cash anyway as the SPFL had invented a new rule so that they creamed off all the money from Rangers play off games. So Motherwell & Hibs weren’t missing out as they wouldn’t have saw any of the blue pounds on that occasion anyway.

The guy has a dozen caps for Mexico and showed at times last season he could play (or at least finish). However it was like watching a player at one of those legends games. He was nowhere near fit enough for us, and I can’t really see that changing. However, his wages are so high & no other club will sign him, so I think we have to give him a chance. Same with Herrera, although he actually was fit enough but never looked skilful enough. How either player got capped by Mexico is a mystery, but they couldn’t have always been that bad & aren’t that old to be considered over the hill.

Foderingham might raise his game when McGregor turns up, or rather he’ll have to. Sometimes a bit of competition improves a player, eg when we signed Duncan Ferguson, suddenly Mark Hateley found another level & kept him out the team. Indeed in his last spell at the club, Neil Alexander & McGregor both raised their games considerably. I hope we get something like this next season. I think Foderingham might have another level in him, so no guarantee that McGregor gets the gloves. Another big early decision for Stevie G

Cheers so it was! Had totally forgot that. I think that was the Simpson tackle game, forgot anything else about it.

Growing balls is one thing, but you have to know what to do with them. As expected, the SPFL have scoffed at this statement. What is King’s next move? Let’s hope he has one, or else this is pointless ranting.

Sad to hear of the passing of Neale Cooper. Mainly remember him from his Aberdeen days. Probably a classic example of a player who peaked too early. Can’t believe he was only 24 when he signed for the Gers! He was only 20 when he won the ECWC (and the Super Cup), the last Scottish team to win a European trophy. People forget how lucky Sir Alex was to inherit so many outstanding youngsters who went on to become top players. I vaguely remember Neale Cooper playing for us under Souness, he was instantly recognisable. Stats say he played 17 league games in 1988/89, yet according to Wiki he never got a medal. Anybody know why? Also, he scored one goal for us, but I can’t find anywhere on the internet who it was against. Does anyone on here remember it??

Well I hope it all goes to plan. One thing is for sure - Liverpool won’t be replacing Klopp with Gerrard if he finishes second!!

Brings a tear to the eye. That was the one season I have ever watched Rangers truly compete on the world stage. No Scottish team has ever come close since. Leeds had Cantona, McAllister & Strachan as their 3 foreigners, but the rest of their team weren’t up to much. Milan had van Basten, Gullit and Rijkaard, but also top Italian players like Baresi & Maldini. But in truth Marseille did have the best team. Their foreigners were German World Cup winner Rudi Voller, Abedi Pele and Croatian star Allen Boksic, but they also had the core of the team who won the World Cup with France 6 years later - Deschamps, Desailly and Fabian Barthez, with hair.. Add the scrapping of the 3 foreigners rule to the list of what’s wrong with modern football. We had 8 Scots, and it felt like a handicap having to go in with the likes of Steven Pressley. But in fact it enabled a level playing field. Finally, that second goal against Leeds at Elland Road. Ferguson’s tackle. Durrant’s through ball. Hateley’s cross. And that diving header back across the goal from McCoist.. quite simply one of the best goals in the history of world football. Coisty was genuinely world class, which sometimes people forget. Even the late Brian Moore & Ron Atkinson were impressed!

I don’t think it is any better or wore to be honest. Main difference is that, due to the early kick offs, trouble doesn’t happen inside the ground. But it is worse now at pubs later in the day/night, when everyone is drunk. It was always a ‘political football’ anyway, don’t be surprised if there is another push against us from the likes of James Dornan, probably linked into the fact there will only be 900 of their fans at the next game at Ibrox.

Slightly off topic, but is anybody else viewing this on a mobile, & constantly getting redirected to some amazon survey site??