Bill

We should have done that a long time ago.

I've no idea why we persist in the ridiculous correlation between singing and sincere belief. Personally, I sing like a frog with its throat cut and have long avoided any attempts at choral offerings. However, I don't believe for a minute that the majority of people who sing about ****** bastards are overtly bigoted, any more than singing TBB is genuine advocacy for gang culture. It would do a lot of people a lot of good to just grow up and be less precious about the whole football supporter thing. It's football, it's tribal, we goad our opponents, we go home and get on with our lives. Big deal.

There's almost no reaction to this on The Big Questions twitter account ... which a surprising. It could be carefully edited but there's very little elsewhere on twitter either.

We pilloried Souness for walking out on Rangers but he’d put up with five years of shit from the same Scottish media that will now try to pressure Gerard into quitting. Only Gerrard doesn’t have the comfort of the success Souness had. It’s going to be tough, I hope SG has the balls for it.

Could be. Need to watch Dr Strangelove again ?

This can focus on performance or results. I know which I prefer and it doesn't involve commas.

Maybe these numbers are bullshit.

No doubt this has come with full prior legal scrutiny but I still think we're playing the wrong game. This isn't about high diplomacy or coded statements. The club should simply come out and say in plain language that Rangers is being discriminated against and that blatant cheating is ongoing against us from both fellow member clubs and officials at all levels. We must force the SFA to defend itself, not just give them an easy excuse to sweep it under the carpet with glib denials. They urgently need a spotlight shone into their mess. If we restrict ourselves to DEFCON 3, the Scottish media will condemn us and rush to the SFA's aid. If we take it to DEFCON 5 it will be seen and heard all over the world - the one thing the haters are terrified of. The accusations should be so damning that only an independent enquiry will answer them.

Absolutely right.

I understand why you say this but I think the reality is that no one else is going to place a comforting arm around he Rangers shoulder. The apparent disinterest is an inherent and vital part of the disease. So if you accept that (and evidence tends to support it) then either the club plays a very high risk game or football is dead and Rangers with it.

I'd go a step further and say if Rangers as a club don't do something very soon to expose this corruption then there will be an awful lot fewer Rangers fans in ten years time.

I already have, except for Rangers. I never watch Scottish football, except Rangers, and that includes the national team, which I long ago abandoned as a sick joke. Football in Scotland is a sad farce and relentlessly corrupt - and perhaps the worst of it is almost no one cares.

It's downplaying it by descriptions such as "inept, or "incompetent" that allows the corruption to flourish. Worse still is the self-doubter reaction that prefers to blame the situation on our own lack of vigilance or our "laziness". Refusing to see the worst in people might be seen by some to be a positive characteristic but it's largely just a product of social engineering and in fact all it does is hand immunity to corrupt people. For so long as folks pretend the entire edifice isn't controlled and orchestrated by a (not so) narrow section of society, the shit will continue to happen and those who perpetrate it will continue to flourish. (And no, I don't mean those big bad corporations ?)

Honestly? I think Scottish football, like much else in Scottish life, is deeply corrupt and is sustained only by the naivety of people who rush to claim it is merely incompetence. Frankly, I trust very little in Scotland at face value and nothing is rushing forward to change my mind, whether in football, politics or whatever This certainly isn't the "best wee country in the world". It's cesspit of bigotry and division ... from Holyrood to Hampden ... and probably has been since the 19th century invasion split communities and started the cultural substitution that's been ongoing ever since. We're burdened by a truly awful neighbour and it's not England.

There are a lot of people in this world who are better educated than me and from whose advice I would certainly benefit. Somehow I don't think you're one of them.

How do you buy more shares when your pre-emption rights have been denied by the board?

How does anyone "maintain" their shareholding while being "diluted into insignificance"?

Strange to see by far our two best midfielders - Jack and Arfield - suddenly cast on the scrapheap while we argue about bringing back Jason Holt. Christ Almighty.

And me ... and you ... and every other independent shareholder. Marvellous.

You may well be right but on the other hand it would give King the opportunity to consolidate his grip on the club while ridding himself of an unwanted but substantial shareholder at a knock-down price. If the Easdales are so keen to liquidate their shareholding, it would also ensure a significant number of shares do not fall available to any third party of dubious intent. I'm sure he'll do what he thinks is best.

No

Why would that be better for him?

He’s got little choice but I won’t be surprised to hear in a few weeks that King has bought them for (say) 22p each.

The issue most certainly isn't the ability of our squad. While it could and I hope will be improved, these are the same players who played their hearts out in Europe and against Celtic a few weeks ago. They can do it but the attitude is far from right and the next week they will deliver the feckless display we saw today. It was obvious within five minutes which heads they had on today. Somehow, I can't imaging these same players turning in these half-hearted performances two weeks in a row under Walter Smith. It may be time to take the arm from around some shoulders and insert a size ten up some arses.

Was Defoe playing? Time after time we start with much too low a tempo and get more hesitant and cautious as the game goes on. Why is that? They seem utterly incapable of learning anything. Gerrard needs to realise (as I hope he does) that his primary function is to change players for the better but it's just not happening. Pass marks (grudgingly) for Lafferty, Worral, Kamara, Foderingham. The rest looked disinterested and feckless. Our fullbacks are a fucking nightmare. At least we're making progress. We've now come far enough to be confirmed second best.