Never go back?

[Super_Ally 0]

We're often told in football never to go back, it is never as good second time around. Advice Smith, a man whose place in Rangers history was already ensured, should have heeded?

 

Season 2006/07

Smith returned 17 points behind in the league at and with his side already dumped out of both cups. The old campaigner acted immediately to plug the gaps with Weir and Ehiogu brought in to shore up the backline. By the end of the season he had reduced the arrears in the league to ensure 2nd spot. If the league had begun when Smith came in we would have finished first.

 

Finishing up the season with 2 league defeats was disappointing, though the games were meaningless. He also won the two remaining Old Firm games, a sure indicator to the other half of the city that a real challenge would be extended from now on.

 

Smith also succesfully negotiated his opening UEFA cup tie with a thumping four nil home victory. The European run ended prematurely with defeat to Osasuna of Spain, whom whilst not a Barcelona or a Real Madrid were a superior outfit to ourselves at that time.

 

Walter's opening half season must go down as a relative success in as much as it could be having taken over a team and a club in complete disarray.

 

League Runners up

 

Season2007/08

Quite possibly Rangers most remarkable season since Smith's 92/93 team came within touching distance of a Champions League final. Having succesfully navigated tricky qualifying ties against Zeta and Red Star, we were drawn in the group of death with German Champions Stuttgart, French Champions Lyon and the superstars of Barcelona. In a group were many predicted we woudl struggle to get a point, the highlight must undoubtedly be destoying Lyon 3-0 in their own backyard. At the time one of only two teams to emerge from Stade Gerland with the 3 points (might need confirming).

 

We were desperately close to progressing from the group of death but had to make do with a place in the UEFA cup. European progression was to ultimately prove our downfall on the domestic front. Magnificent victories against Panathinaikos, Werder Bremen and Fiorentina culminated in that final in Manchester where we were undone by a terrific Zenit st Petersburg side who went on to defeat Man Utd in the super cup.

 

The exertions of Europe allied to an unwillingness from our own football association to accomodate such fixture chaos (as granted to Zenit) in addition to unscrupulous behaviour from our historic rivals earlier in the season, led to us having to complete 4 fixtures in just 8 days. An unprecedented fixture calendar ultimately contributed to losing the title on the final day of the season by just 3 points as the fatigue of fixture congestion told on our squad.

 

The heartbreak of the impressive UEFA cup run and the league campaign was somewhat attenuated by a Scottish Cup and leagu Cup double. Only the fatigue enducing assault on all four trophies, allied to the fixture problems caused by the Scottish weather, Celtic's underhand behaviour and an uncooperative SFA prevented a more succesful campaign.

 

The hurt felt at losing out on the league title in such difficult circumstances should not over rule the rest of the campaign. It woudl be churlish to describe a season in which we reached our first European final in decades, won both domestic cups and only lost out on the league due to exceptional circumstances as an unsuccesful season.

 

League Runners up

Scottish Cup Winners

League Cup Winners

Uefa Cup Runners up

 

Season 2008/9

Walter Smith would have a lot to do to win over his detractors after the debacle that was Kaunus. Despite making the CIS cup final, defeat to Celtic will not have made that task any easier.

 

However, last day title success as we romped to victory against our bogey side in Dundee United was the perfect response. In his first half season the league was already lost. Last year we through it away, although the hitherto unseen obstacles to being crowned top dogs in Scotland made it a nigh on impossible task, making the title success of Sunday all the sweeter.

 

A potential league and cup double that could be completed against Falkirk this Saturday must also see this year considered an overall success despite the implications of the early European exit.

 

League Winners

League Cup Runners Up

Scottish Cup Finalists (Potential Winners)

 

Summary

So, is the old adage true. Does going back never work out? Should Smith not have risked tarnishing his legendary status with the light blue legions?

 

1 league trophy, 1 league cup, potentially 2 Scottish cups, a European final and being in with a shout until the final 90 minutes of every other competition we have entered says no.

 

You can talk about dodgy tactics, a playing not to lose mentality and odd formations and line ups. You cannot however argue with the statistics.

 

Ask Smith himself, a Rangers fan, and i'll bet I can guess his answer. :spl:

Edited May 27, 2009 by Super_Ally
typo

[Jon 0]

Great read S_A. He has certainly turned us around.....

[Gazza_8 233]

Where did you steal that article from SA?

 

Turned our fortunes around no question. That aside, everyone knows my views on Smith re our style of play and team selection. If he can promise not to play 3 or 4 players out of position every week then I'd maybe be happy enough to see him stay on but having witnessed Smiths selections for about 10/11 seasons I just can't see it.

[craig 5,195]

Gav, the problem we have too is that even if WS wanted to get proper players for their positions our hands are tied unless we sell.

 

And if we sell.... chances are we will sell Boyd OR Mendes OR Ferguson OR Bougherra OR McGregor - and what is the common denominator in any of those players leaving ? They are some of the few who play in their natural positions.

 

Now in the case of Ferguson and/or Mendes leaving that should be fine as Davis could move in one and play his preferred position, leving some of the sales proceeds to get a natural RM. However, I suspect that WS now sees RM as Davis' natural position.

 

I think we will see more of Aaron next season now the monkey is off our back, but we shouldnt be expecting the lad to play 25+ games for us either though so a LM is needed - but we dont seem to have any natural LM's other than Beasley, and he has simply been unimpressive since returning from his injuries.

 

If you look at the probable team though the only positions where we are playing people out of position these days are the RM and LM positions.

 

Alexander (natural GK, obviously)

 

Whittaker (RB his natural position)

Weir (CB)

Bougherra (CB)

Papac (natural position now LB, wouldnt trust him at CB but very competent at LB)

 

Davis (playing RM, natural position CM)

Mendes (naturally CM)

Edu (naturally CM)

Lafferty (naturally a forward)

 

Boyd (naturally a forward)

Miller (naturally a forward)

 

Obviously there are others in our squad such as Thomson, Ferguson etc but they, for the most part play in their natural positions.

 

So we aren't playing that many people out of position. The issue is that when those playing out of position get injured or aren't playing well, they invariably are replaced with someone else who is playing out of position (McCulloch playing at CB being a perfect example).

 

Now, that said, we just won the league and McCulloch, for example, performed well enough when called upon.

 

But hoepfully we will be looking at the squad, realising we really need a new LM and possibly a new RM (although if we get a new RM where is Davis going to play if we still have Thomson, Mendes, Edu ?) and we should be letting players go who simply arent needed.

 

Guys like McCulloch should be moved on as they dont add much to the squad.

 

IMO we need a new CB (could Webster be Bougherra's partner) to take the work-load off Weir. All the other defensive positions are amply covered (assuming we keep Stevie Smith as Papac back-up). We need a proper LM who can get past his opponent. CM we are covered (although I would still like to see more flair - moving Davis inside could give that....). We should look for a proper RM. Up front we could probably do with someone else to take the onus of responsibility for goals from Boyd but if we dont get a striker I dont think it will be a big deal.

[Super_Ally 0]

Where did you steal that article from SA?

 

Turned our fortunes around no question. That aside, everyone knows my views on Smith re our style of play and team selection. If he can promise not to play 3 or 4 players out of position every week then I'd maybe be happy enough to see him stay on but having witnessed Smiths selections for about 10/11 seasons I just can't see it.

 

From the dark recesses of my own mind mind.

 

It might be far from perfect, we might not play like Xavi, Iniesta and Messi tonight. But it's pretty hard to argue with results.

 

Points win prizes. So on the football front we're doing well.

Prizes means money. Which will help satisfy the bank manager.

 

The only thing that's missing is the exciting style of play.

 

However that is made easier if you can sort out the first two points; winning football and money.

 

I'm not saying we shouldn't aspire to a more appealing style of play, just that a couple of years of SPL titles, CL football and �£�£�£�£�£�£ might make it more likely to be able to provide the sexy football.

[Gazza_8 233]

Points win prizes. So on the football front we're doing well.

Prizes means money. Which will help satisfy the bank manager.

 

The only thing that's missing is the exciting style of play.

 

Can WS bring the exciting style of play Advocaat brought us? Can he bring us even half of the excitement that Advocaat brought us? Even if he has a bottomless pit of money to spend on new players? I very much doubt that!

[Super_Ally 0]

Can WS bring the exciting style of play Advocaat brought us?

 

My honest answer. No.

 

Can he bring us even half of the excitement that Advocaat brought us?

 

In terms of style of play? Perhaps.

 

In terms of being a succesful football club? He's already more than done that even in his second term.

 

Even if he has a bottomless pit of money to spend on new players? I very much doubt that!

 

We all know we dont have that kind of money.

 

Walter's perhaps uninspiring, but often succesful football will likely increase the pot of gold for him or his predecessor to attempt to provide the slick passing football to marry with the all conquering, trophy winning football Smith does know how to provide. :spl:

 

Tin hat on, but for the next couple of seasons I'm happy if he can produce the "dull" title winning, champions league qualifying football he knows best as we re-establish our domestic supremacy, even if it means I have to suffer a few Werder Bremen's and Fiorentina's along the way.

[calscot 0]

Can WS bring the exciting style of play Advocaat brought us? Can he bring us even half of the excitement that Advocaat brought us? Even if he has a bottomless pit of money to spend on new players? I very much doubt that!

 

Advocaat's teams did sometimes play good football but I seen plenty of poor games, epecially in his latter days.

 

However, he did get us 70M in debt to product whatever standard you think he acheived. Could he do the same with our current budget?

 

Not only that, I don't think SPL teams have improved in style when they were also bankrupting themselves to sign foreigners, but they have lost some of their naivety that they could come and play decent football against us and now have more home-grown players who are coached to hassle and frustrate us. That makes it harder to play good football.

 

Some of the best football I've seen us play was under Walter in his first stint in charge, especially the early nineties - and that was before Laudrup and Gazza.

 

But unfortunately we can't afford the relative standard of player we had in the late 80's and the 90's and so our play will suffer accordingly.

 

Watching the CL final last night was a strange experience. Yes the football looked silky but there was no pressing play, few challenges and defenders seemed to stay well away from attacking players, giving them loads of space. I'm sure I could look silky in that kind of situation - in fact I always look less of a donkey when given loads of time on the ball and space to move.

 

I thought Man U actually looked a bit naive and I'm sure if they'd employed our recent tactics against Barcelona, they could have had a better result. I know as a certainty that Walter would have been slated for playing like Man U did in a Euro final - with cries about why we didn't "get in about them" and why we were playing like a training game at walking pace.

 

If we really think that is a better brand of football to watch perhaps we need a new rule of no tackling in Scotland, as they seemed to imposing such a rule voluntarily for most of last night - well except for one shocking one.

 

I think "good football" is just a byproduct of how good your players are combined with how other teams play against them and we're suffering on both counts at the moment.

 

Walter has shown previously that given the players and the right opposition, the team can play good football, but I think people completely forget about the massive downturn in our relative money situation due to the population of our small country.

 

We have to buy the best tools we can afford and then use them the way they work best for the type of tasks we have - and I think it's clear that Walter has achieved that.

 

Harking back to financial situations which will never arise again just brings false comparisons and perpetual misery.

[craig 5,195]

One thing to note though, regarding finances or lack thereof.

 

You dont need a ton of money to play better football. The game is somewhat basic. If you have fit players then all you need from them is pass and move when in possession and then, when not in possession, get behind the ball and pressure tha ball.

 

The game isnt that difficult and players can certainly be coached into passing and moving. It is a basic tenet, IMO, of football, regardless of which outfield position you are playing.

 

Those players also have to WANT to be coached and have to WANT to do their best.

[calscot 0]

So what went wrong at Falkirk?