Zappa 0 Posted March 3, 2011 Share Posted March 3, 2011 (edited) In the aftermath of another defeat to our greatest rivals last week, the tabloid headlines and talk of the sporting press haven't been about the football on display or lack of it either. Instead, it's all been about 'inflammatory incidents', 'shameful behaviour' and even more incredibly, how the various minor flashpoints in what is always one the feistiest events in Britain's non-fighting sports calendar have all of a sudden 'deeply embarrassed' the SFA. I'm not going to talk about the SFA, their embarrassing actions this season or their poor referees. I won't talk about cover-ups, their CEO, ref-gate, corruption or the sheer hypocrisy in the blazer-infested corridors of Scottish footballing power. Let's talk about something else... Win-win situations or what are more accurately called 'win-win games' in sporting and game events are relatively uncommon. A win-win game can be many things, but generally it's regarded as a game where a certain outcome is beneficial to both parties. A win-win game can however, be a game where one side will benefit whether they win or lose and in some (albeit infrequent) cases a loss can actually be more beneficial for one of the participating players or teams than a win would be. Therefore, in certain unusual circumstances both definitions of a 'win-win game' can actually apply. I never want Rangers to lose a game and especially not to Celtic, but if you're pragmatic about it, last weeks's Scottish Cup replay was a win-win game for us. I wanted us to win the game as always and that mostly comes from the heart, but I knew somewhere in my head that losing the game and going out of the Scottish Cup might be equally as beneficial to us. We have a threadbare squad stricken with injury problems and while winning last week would obviously have been cause for celebration, it would also have been very worrying because we already had a fixture pile-up which would have been worsened by progression in the competition. It's all fine and well for Walter Smith and Ally McCoist to try to give off an air of positivity by saying to the press/media when questioned about our mounting fixture list that we want to win everything we compete in and we should expect nothing less of our management. That doesn't mean that they aren't clever enough to understand the overall worrying situation that our team is in though and it certainly doesn't mean that they don't understand the concept of a win-win game. It's also fine for Ally McCoist to tell the press before the game last week after the team sheets had been released that they thought they had a team which could go out and win the game. Again, we should expect nothing less, but when I heard the team sheet, it didn't sound to me like a team that was designed to 'go out and win the game'. It seemed like a team designed to go out and not lose the game at best. We've become accustomed to Walter's tactics in Europe and many people even agree with them, including myself at times, but going to Parkhead and playing 5 at the back against Celtic is something for other teams to attempt, not Rangers. Not if we're going there to win. I couldn't believe it. The manager's options last week were definitely limited due to our injury headaches and having such a small squad, but even still, did we go there to win? I'm not so sure considering that we started the game without a real striker up front. Even after we went a goal down the only striker we had on the bench (Healy) surprisingly remained on the bench. Does that show any intent to win a game of football? Not to me it doesn't. Instead of telling Healy to get on there and score, one of our defenders was moved up front. Why not take the defender off and put on a striker? It might not have paid off, but it would at least have shown a level of intent to try to win. But no, a striker who would have burst a gut to try and score or create a scoring chance was left on the bench and we had one shot on target all night and zero attempts off target. Can you figure that out? So, where does that leave us? Well if you're being pedantic you might say it leaves us knocked out of the Scottish Cup, but in the spirit of the point I'm making, it leaves us with less fixtures to squeeze into an already clogged calendar and it leaves our challengers for the SPL title with additional fixtures. Was it a win-win game? Maybe it was... Edited March 7, 2011 by Zappa 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
maineflyer 0 Posted March 3, 2011 Share Posted March 3, 2011 Can't fault you for trying but you'd be as well trying to get blood out of a stone as looking for positives from yesterday. There aren't any ..... unless you want to assume we intentionally set out to lose, in which case we were entirely successful. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zappa 0 Posted March 3, 2011 Author Share Posted March 3, 2011 Can't fault you for trying but you'd be as well trying to get blood out of a stone as looking for positives from yesterday. There aren't any ..... unless you want to assume we intentionally set out to lose, in which case we were entirely successful. I didn't say we set out to lose! It's open to interpretation... As for positives - there are indeed positives to take from it unless you choose to ignore them... 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gazza_8 233 Posted March 3, 2011 Share Posted March 3, 2011 I didn't say we set out to lose! It's open to interpretation... As for positives - there are indeed positives to take from it unless you choose to ignore them... There are absolutely zero positives to take from that shambles last night. Infact, I'm wrong. The only positive is that we kept it to 1-0. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zappa 0 Posted March 3, 2011 Author Share Posted March 3, 2011 There are absolutely zero positives to take from that shambles last night. Infact, I'm wrong. The only positive is that we kept it to 1-0. There were definitely positives Gav, but if you ignore them, that's not a major problem. I took a good few positives from the game despite the loss, but I won't force them down anyone's throat. This was just an opinion piece raising a few questions..... 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
biggordy 0 Posted March 3, 2011 Share Posted March 3, 2011 Question is "will timmy's bottle crash when they next come to Ibrox on League business as a result of all the shenanigans of last night ?" We can only wait and see if it does. It seemed to me that hooper and commons didn't fancy it at all last night. I think they might be carrying an "injury" or two when that game comes around. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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