buster

Can�´t imagine it happening but it does sound reasonable from both club�´s viewpoints, whether the player would be up for it ???

600,000 up front plus add-ons plus Sebo loan 12 months (we pay wages).

Thinking about it, better to sell Sebo if anyone is prepared to pay 500,000 and put it toward a deal.

If you are prepared to write it my friend I�´ll take great pleasure in reading it.

Objectivite, accurate and well written pieces on Scottish football, especially when Rangers are involved are in short supply so you have a niche in the market.

Thank you for your time bmck :cheers:

Adam is at an important crossroads in his career.

He has the option to continue applying himself the way he has being with regard to professionalism (diet/taking care of his body/application to training).

He would be with a team like Motherwell within a year or two.

OR

Get his act together, dedicate himself totally to his profession and he could become an important player for both Rangers and Scotland.

Ultimately the choice is his.

IMHO I�´m not optimistic.

You´d expect the first choice to be Weir and Webster.

If Todd comes in he´d probably be first in line as back-up, followed by Broadfoot.

Papac would be further back-up for CH and LB.

We are stuck with Ugo unless we pay him off which may now happen and Svensson will probably be sold or loaned out.

As for the youngsters, my advice would be to look for another club, sad but true.

haha very true!

 

or TNS/Barry town if we're lucky.

 

think the chances are we'll get some estonian team named after a butter brand (Flora)

 

or some greek team like ianokios. (made that up but its probably a greek team.)

Could also be Hearts reserves from Lithuania.

It wouldn�´t be the first time and we got a fright in the first leg at Ibrox

we've got to qualify from the 2nd qualifying round though don't we?

 

 

Tricky trip away to eastern europe beckons - not always easy going over there . look at celtic and newcastle both being put out by balkan teams.

Could be Derry City !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I can honestly say thank goodness we're involved in this tournament again, the UEFA cup just doesn't have the same attraction. Look at those teams listed, mouth-watering !!

Mouth-watering,........ Yes !

But IF we get there we�´d better be a dammed sight better than of late or it will be embaressing.

Hemdani has been our most consistent performer this season.

He does the job he is asked to do and is tactically disciplined.

When he has ventured forward, it�´s been in games when we were getting beaten and were looking for a goal

Celtic, december 2006 and Osasuna (H)...last minute goals.

To say he is limited as a player and then watch the execution of his goal against Osasuna from the camera angle directly behind the play doesn�´t make sense, rarely do you see such a goal at Ibrox....why? Because the players that tend to play there haven�´t got the technical ability/poise to do it in a match situation.

When asked he played in central defence and did well moping up the play and getting the ball forwards to a blue shirt. Had he played with Weir I�´m sure they would have been a good partnership but Svensson wasn�´t dominate in the air which meant an obvious weakness. Saying that they had a lot of clean sheets.

His tackling isn�´t a strong point but staying on your feet, reading the game and being in the right place is often a preferred option to "getting inta them", the scottish way which has come back from european games so many times with it�´s tail between it�´s legs.

Hemdani is no Zidane, he lacks speed aswell but again that is shown up when the rest of the midfield is pedestrian, we should have some speed in their to compliment Hemdani.

IMHO Hemdani is the best example of a footballer we currently have at Rangers. It is true though that this shows a club our size up, why ?

Well for one thing we need a dynamic forward who has talent/speed to change the big games and secondly it shows up the scottish footballing culture.

Ferguson could and should be POTY given his ability but he�´s not making the most out of his career due to his professionalism being intermittent. He�´s done better than his brother and Charlie Miller but you can�´t help feeling he could have been better.

I love that site Buster. :cheers:

 

Rangers confirm we'll be seeded for the 2nd and 3rd qualifying rounds. Suprised to hear there's a possibility we wont even make the 3rd seeds for the group stages, is our co-efficient not improving year on year at the minute? Plus we're due to lose our worst year currently when Celtic lose their best, Seville year.

IF we qualify we will either be at the top of the 4th group of seeds or at the bottem of the 3rd.

We´d need a couple of the teams above us in above list to lose their 3rd round qualifier to make the 3rd group.

BTW I´ve spent far too long on Bert´s site !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Would rather talk of 2nd round draw but opposition info there is still sketchy and many won´t be known until 1st round is played.

lol - nice and early, but at least we are definitely in the qualifiers now

 

Any idea when the seville run in the uefa cup stops counting towards c*****'s co-efficient points? Thats been the major difference in recent years in that table...

next season it�´ll have gone for the on-going score that�´ll count towards seedings for 2008-09.

We�´ll be in front of them for 2008-09 unless they manage 4 points more than us during the coming season�´s european campaign.

http://www.xs4all.nl/~kassiesa/bert/uefa/data/method3/trank2008.html

Perhaps a little premature but

1 AC Milan Ita

2 FC Barcelona Esp

3 Liverpool Eng

4 Internazionale Ita

5 Arsenal Eng

6 Real Madrid Esp

7 Chelsea Eng

8 Manchester United Eng

9 Valencia Esp

10 Olympique Lyon Fra

13 FC Porto Por

14 Sevilla Esp

15 PSV Eindhoven Ned

16 AS Roma Ita

19 Benfica Por

20 Ajax Ned

22 Werder Bremen Ger

24 Celtic Sco

28 Schalke 04 Ger

30 VfB Stuttgart Ger

34 FC Basel Sui

36 CSKA Moscow Rus

37 Sporting CP Lisbon Por

38 Lazio Roma Ita

39 RC Lens Fra

40 Olympique Marseille Fra

42 Girondins Bordeaux Fra

45 Glasgow Rangers Sco

These are the teams above Rangers in the seedings that are likely to be involved in group stages. There are 27 teams although not all will get through qualifiers / a couple will not even qualify for CL, they�´ll end up in UEFA, eg. in France.

We would need to be in the top 24 to get into 3rd group of seeds.

There would seem to be a reasonable chance BUT we have to qualfy aswell.

Good work and well done Frankie !

Nothing wrong with playing a game in NI for our cousins over the water...

Nothing at all other than the politically correct "enemy" would be there "gathering material" for front page headlines just to make sure that the issue is up there in the lights prior to the spl�´s new rules coming in.

It�´s a sad oppressive state we play in

Was never going to happen with all what�´s going on ref. "secterianism" at the moment.

It would have given the enemy another stick with what to beat us.

I�´ve been a critic of Boyd�´s and will continue to be until I see a more professional attitude making more of the talent he has.

However credit where credit is due, well done KB !!

I thought Clement while showing promise, was lightweight and error prone. I prefer Hemdani in the role.

What I�´m getting at more than the pro�´s and cons of each player is the best kind of players to compliment each other.

BF and BH for me are too similar in style, especially so because BF nearly always drops back.

Made a winning on Kaka for first scorer, all I'm bothered about.

well done mate !

Milan were superb tonight and United just never got going.

Kaka is twice the player that Ronaldo is.

But Gattuso is every bit as important to Milan as Kaka, the man is a born winner whose attitude, consistency and ability are world class.

Rino is probably the world�´s most under-rated player.

I agree it looks good on paper Frankie, but 9 times out of 10, Fergie ends up playing deeper than anyone. This isn't meant to kick off in to another debate about Fergie, but we look very negative when the three of them play. Unless Fergie plays in a more advanced position and sticks to it, its kind of pointless.

 

Do we need 2 holding midfielders in the SPL? Was that not one of the main criticisms about PLG's team selection?

 

Would we not then miss a naturally left sided midfielder?

very well put

KT, BF and Hemdani in the same midfield isn�´t a good balance given BF�´s tendancy to drop back (that will increase as he gets older).

It is also pedestrian and we need some speed in the team.

Clement for me was a player who played well with BF, he covered alot of ground snapping at ankles, winning the ball and allowed BF to play.

 

I don't think WS takes any nonsense but he does allow the guys to have a laugh and drink in moderation at the right time. He keeps a happy camp and it seems to work for Rangers and Scotland with the same players.

 

 

Maybe but like I said I've not been impressed with Le Guen's so called "forward thinking". It doesn't agree with the worlds top experts on leadership and motivation as well as managing change.

 

I think we need to give Walter a decent but not bank breaking amount to spend. Say 8M. However my hopes are slim.

That my friend is the crux of the matter....

It worked for Walter "drink together win together/not this time it won´t" Smith before and it seems to be again, so far so good

But he didn´t cut it outwith Scotland, neither before or this season.

As for Scotland, he also has to contend with a stronger sellick this time round.

As for budget, Walter with Laudrup and Gazzer couldn´t make an impression on europe so let´s think how much he´d need in todays market,.....I´d hazard a guess at 25-30M and he might have a wee chance in europe

Calscot

We are never going to agree mate, are we ?

For me the unprofessionalism of some of our players if not treated in a "strict" manner won�´t change.

No change means, same old story....we didn�´t bring PLG in for same old.

You say it�´s debatable if the Scots have a "backward mentality", you won�´t find many lawyers wanting to defend that one.

Xmas party was sanctioned after BF promised that players wouldn�´t drink, however they did

As for your logic ref. league performence under WS, wait until next season as sellick won�´t play as badly as at present.

Yeah plus it benefits the team, there performance and extends there playing career.

 

Yet these guys just seem to want to take the money and live the hotshot lifestyle. That would be ok if they were winning football matches on the weekend but they have been rank rotten and left us trophyless for 2 seasons now

Even the famous "who drinks together wins together" 9IAR team couldn�´t cut it at European level.

Walter�´s previous in the CL

-qualifier OUT, Sparta

-Gp. Stage, 2 wins and 4 draws

(qualifier was Polish team and Leeds, WS best european moment "british"opposition)

-qualifier OUT Levski

-qualifier OUT AEK

-Gp. Stage 3 draws and 3 defeats (qualifier was against Alania)

-Gp. Stage 1 win and 5 defeats (qualifier was against Anorthosis)

-qualifier OUT Gothenburg

Thats 3 wins in 18 games (group stage)

the rest we�´ll forget.

They could beat other scottish teams including a sellick in dissaray, with Laudrup, Hately and Gazzer hardly surprising.

But in europe what happened ?

There's a few different topics going on here, no-one can deny what WS has achieved and how the results and performances under PLG were poor.

 

Couple of quick points though....

 

1. PLG was the boss. So what he said should have been law. No?

 

2. We're talking about professional athletes here. Surely they should have been welcoming a new, different, European approach with more emphasis on looking after yourself, diet, lifestyle and fitness.

 

3. The Gavin Rae quote is a really small and insignificant one, but it does worryingly, add a little bit more weight to all the rumours we've heard which suggest that there was friction in the dressing room, towards training or PLG or something/someone, which wasn't in the best interests of the club.

 

I bet we don't know the half of what went on behind the scenes under PLG. But then we said the same thing under AM.

 

I know DM gets a lot of stick, but I'm more convinced than ever that there's an element of player power in the dressing room which needs to be sorted out asap.

Player power seems to be prevlent in many dressing rooms these days.

Real Madrid, Barcelona are two big clubs who have suffered from this in recent times.

Then closer to home, there is Hibs.

The link/empathy between supporter and player is lessening and may possibly effect the popularity of football in the long-term.

Most supporters put the team first and hence unruly players become unpopular.

Rae's Interview says he wanted silence, how do you get 'he wouldnt have minded a laugh and a joke' from that?

Maybe after they were doing what they had to do, apparently stretching properly.

I don�´t see the problem in asking for silence, it�´s the only way to concentrate properly.

Hey, let�´s just laugh and joke, this stretching sh*** is for woofters BTW

Scottish football culture at it�´s best, no feckin coincidence that we�´ve had some glourious failures down the years.

I do find it baffling that the guys who still rue PLG's departure thought he could drag us even furtehr backwards before taking us forwards again.

 

As i'm sure Calscot has mentioned in other threads before, name one great manager who made a team a lot worse before making them better than when he took over? It just doesn't happen that way.

 

You do what WS did, initally you steady the ship, you plug the obvious gaps. Smith brought in some decent CB's fixed the defence. And with virtually the same team we're on one of our best runs of results in years.

 

I think PLG's time here and even his mediocre performance subsequently with PSG shows that he was capable of keeping a vastly superior Lyon side at the top of the pile, but is not very capable of turning around a struggling team. Perhpas his reputation was not merited.

IMHO you live in a dream world !

Walter Smith isn�´t the way forward

He�´s steadied the ship but that�´s as far as it goes

Come back in august after CL qualifiers

To me that paints PLG as an complete amateur as a manager. Perhaps he should take a course in motivation and team building.

 

You don't get the best out of anyone by driving the too hard or upsetting them. People are not robots.

 

Imagine your boss came in and started throwing his weight around, telling you you had to be in a 7am and leave at 7pm. You workload gets doubled and your deadlines halved. Talking, private emails and Internet are banned.

 

Would you all be more professional, would you do a better job? It might work for a couple of months but then you'd either try to get rid of the manager or look for another job.

 

I think the ones slagging the players off about professionalism should look themselves in the mirror and decide if you trully follow those incrdibly strict ideals yourself...

 

The fact you spend any time at all on here suggests that you are talking garbage. You may not be at work but I bet you could spend the time thinking about problems at work or learning something to improve your work.

 

I smell the stench of hypocrisy.

Calscot mate

I�´m not up for debate and nobody on here gives a F if I have a professional attitude at the workplace.

What we care about is Rangers and I think it reasonable to expect-

1. That every player has a responsible and professional attitude to their work.

This encompasses many things such as diet etc.

2. That they follow the instructions of the manager to the letter.

That includes being told to concentrate on stretching or what position to play in a match situation.

Now Rangers injury list over the years would have been smaller had the players been told to concentrate on small things like warm-ups, stretching etc.

When Wenger came in at Arsenal, the players thought "all this stretching was a waste of time", but they did it and it lengthened the careers of the likes of Adams, Keown, Dixon etc

Milan are thourgh aswell, Maldini and Costacurta could give some advice to their scottish collegues.

When a manager arrives and trys to change a backward mentality prevelent in the scottish game it�´s understandable that it�´ll take time.

Surely it was reasonable for the players to do what they were told.

They are well paid and haven�´t got the type of recent record to say "don�´t show us new tricks".

What I will say is PLG�´s man mgmt. skills might have been better but it was our own players, doctor etc. and ultimatly fans who didn�´t give the new regime a chance.

Now our club is going no-where, we may win the CIS next season, even the spl in 2/3 years but in the big picture Rangers have sent all the message they are to remain a wee club.