Zappa 0 Posted May 22, 2012 Share Posted May 22, 2012 Anyone who saw us in Germany, Belfast and Blackpool pre-season couldn't have been shocked at our European exits. Absolutely woeful planning by McCoist. The pre season last year was a let-down for a number of reasons. Ally decided to experiment a lot with the youngsters and different formations, but he also had some 1st team players injured or supposedly returning from injury. He should really have bought a decent striker to replace Miller because Lafferty wasn't fit for the European games he ended up playing in. Neither was Jig and playing unfit players was a big mistake from Ally because I don't think that pair were much above 50 or 60 percent fit. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zappa 0 Posted May 22, 2012 Share Posted May 22, 2012 I cant disagree with that either but i dont hold him personally responsible mate, nor Bougherra. Neither do I, but my intention was just to point out that it wasn't all Ally and the management team's fault. Ally made some mistakes, but so did some of our players and they were serious mistakes. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
pete 2,499 Posted May 22, 2012 Share Posted May 22, 2012 Rangers run in Europe is 100% to blame on Ally McCoist. Starting training only a few weeks before such an important game was total mismanagement. Most teams I know of playing so early in Europe had already started training in June. That is when McCoist decided to go to Portugal on Holiday which is a decision I cannot understand to this day. I will also say I have watched Rangers a few times on their pre season tour of Germany\Holland and have been totally shocked at the effort they show. sauntering on to the park in bath slippers was one of the things that got me. Jock Wallace would have been spinning in his grave if he seen them. Jock Wallace's battle fever management would not survive the sneers It is difficult to imagine a manager with such tough methods lasting the distance in the cynical modern game It is an immutable law of pub talk that if you introduce the topic of Brian Clough, you will hear at least one of the following cliches within 60 seconds: He was the best manager England never had, he was the best manager of all time, and he could not have thrived in the modern game. . What you are less likely to hear is an exploration of the uncomfortable paradox, that Clough was exceptional then but would be unsuitable now, and to what extent that reflects poorly on modern football. Fans regularly lament the extinction of the hard man, yet just as striking is the disappearance of the hard manager. If Clough's instinctive idiosyncrasy was his major strength, then his regular demonstrations of the toughest love were also integral to his unparalleled success. He would regularly get his players to run through nettles, and once slugged Roy Keane to the floor as punishment for playing a backpass. Clough's mentor was Harry Storer, a man who proudly boasted: "I have a team of bastards, and I am the biggest bastard of them all." This was an era when masculinity was an extreme sport, when household items like tea cups, plates and hairdryers found an alternative use or an alternative meaning. It was not just a British trait. The legendary Internazionale coach Helenio Herrera once ordered two players to walk six miles back to the team base because they were 20 seconds late for the coach. Nobody encapsulated that school of management better than the late Jock Wallace, one of Rangers' greatest managers. Wallace was a chillingly hard man with a granite face, an even stronger will, and a voice that rarely softened from its default growl. His army background shaped so much of his management. Wallace was stationed in Northern Ireland and the Malay peninsula in the 1950s, engaged in jungle warfare and surviving by eating what he called "monkey steaks". Wallace's militarism was such that his dressing room might have been a scene from the film Full Metal Jacket. Gary Lineker recalls a reserve game at Leicester when, at half time, Wallace threw him against a wall. Leicester were 2-0 up. Lineker had scored them both. His most famous act at Leicester was to introduce a gloriously sadistic form of pre-season training. During his time at Rangers, while having a picnic with his wife, Wallace stumbled across the sand dunes of Gullane, jauntily entitled "Murder Hill". He made his players run up and down the hill until they could run no more â?? and then he made them do it again. When he got to Leicester, Wallace scouted a similar incline. There is a wonderful clip of the Leicester players panting their way through a session with Wallace barking "Hands off that bloody sand!" every two seconds. Pre-season training should have been called Wallace and Vomit: players were frequently sick as their bodies surrendered. Some will comfortably dismiss Wallace as an antiquated barbarian, yet it is difficult to reconcile that with the fact most of his players adored him. Ted McMinn, who Wallace took to Sevilla when he managed them in the 1980s, described him as "everything to me, a dad really". Wallace could inspire most players to run to the ends of the earth â?? or, worse still, up Murder Hill. "I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for Jock Wallace," said Manolo Jiménez, who played under Wallace at Sevilla and later managed them. "He was a great, great manager who instilled in me my belief and fighting spirit." He also instilled a winning mentality. At Rangers, Wallace ended Celtic's run of nine consecutive titles, and then won two trebles in three seasons. In a TV interview before the 1984 League Cup final against Celtic, Wallace announced: "I fancy us very strongly. We've got the battle fever on today." They won 3-2 and the phrase stuck, a mantra for Rangers fans. Wallace's focus on fitness made him something of a visionary, even if his methodology was emphatically of its time. He was the Arsène Wenger of his day, only armed with sand rather than pasta. John Greig, perhaps Rangers' greatest ever player, says Wallace's regime was the reason he was able to play until he was 35. Others felt the value of the training was as much psychological as physical. Wallace may have made some of his players vomit, but then there could be no battle fever without sickness. He also knew that hardship begot hardness. Wallace was obsessed with character-building, having built a deceptively complex character of his own. In many respects, Wallace was a gentle beast. On the day Rangers won their first title for 11 years, he sent on a palpably unfit Greig for the last two minutes so that he could drink in the moment and collect the trophy. Wallace also forged a friendship with Johan Cruyff and nearly persuaded him to join Leicester in 1981. "They don't come with giant character and personality like 'Big Man' Jock Wallace any more," wrote Sir Alex Ferguson â?? and that was in 1994, before the game really started to change. Wallace would have no chance with the whirligig of snidery that is modern football, particularly with player power rampant. But he is a perfect reminder of an age when football well and truly had the battle fever on. Maybe big Jock went over the top with his Gullane sands routine but surely we can expect players to be fully fit for a 10million pound CL battle. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
der Berliner 3,290 Posted May 22, 2012 Share Posted May 22, 2012 I cant disagree with that either but i dont hold him personally responsible mate, nor Bougherra. Whittaker? Sorry, but he made a total hash of a clearance he could have booted away half a dozen times, something that gave Malmö the lead. After that he (sic!) said we can turn it around ... and manages to get himself stupidly send off within 20odd minutes. That takes some beating. On a sidenote, a couple of the goals scored by Malmö as well as Maribor were quite sublime and I would wager that neither scorer has repeated such a feat again this season. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Danny 0 Posted May 22, 2012 Share Posted May 22, 2012 In Malmo's case they came very close to qualifying for the group stages against a team that had just won their sixth Croatian title in a row (7IAR now). I think we'd maybe have struggled against Zagreb ourselves tbh. Zagreb scored 0 points in the CL. We lost to a side who lost to a side who didn't manage a single point in the group stage - scored 3 times and conceded 22. That's worse than we have ever done at that level. This is not a thing to be proud of in any way Zaps. PS: Croatian football is another poor league. Only 6 players in the Croatian league actually exist at squad level in the national side, and outwith Simunic their caps total 14. But you know what's damning? Against such dross, we probably would have struggled, you're right. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Danny 0 Posted May 22, 2012 Share Posted May 22, 2012 I'm saying, Sounds to me like you're more or less absolving him of responsibility. End of the queue my arse! That miss made all the difference. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zappa 0 Posted May 22, 2012 Share Posted May 22, 2012 Zagreb scored 0 points in the CL. We lost to a side who lost to a side who didn't manage a single point in the group stage - scored 3 times and conceded 22. That's worse than we have ever done at that level. This is not a thing to be proud of in any way Zaps. You forgot to mention what Group they were put in..... Against Real Madrid, Lyon & Ajax I think we would have been screwed! Maybe not given that our squad would have had time to get prepared for the group games, but I certainly wouldn't have been confident. Not at all. I think we'd have been very lucky to beat Ajax to 3rd place in the group had we been drawn that group. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
kuznetsov 0 Posted May 23, 2012 Share Posted May 23, 2012 Whittaker? Sorry, but he made a total hash of a clearance he could have booted away half a dozen times, something that gave Malmö the lead. After that he (sic!) said we can turn it around ... and manages to get himself stupidly send off within 20odd minutes. That takes some beating. On a sidenote, a couple of the goals scored by Malmö as well as Maribor were quite sublime and I would wager that neither scorer has repeated such a feat again this season. Probably not dB. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bears 0 Posted May 23, 2012 Share Posted May 23, 2012 absolutely no idea hahahahah 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
der Berliner 3,290 Posted May 23, 2012 Share Posted May 23, 2012 Zagreb scored 0 points in the CL. We lost to a side who lost to a side who didn't manage a single point in the group stage - scored 3 times and conceded 22. That's worse than we have ever done at that level. This is not a thing to be proud of in any way Zaps. PS: Croatian football is another poor league. Only 6 players in the Croatian league actually exist at squad level in the national side, and outwith Simunic their caps total 14. But you know what's damning? Against such dross, we probably would have struggled, you're right. Danny, I will only point out one thing here: Zagreb's group included: REAL MADRID OLYMPIQUE LYON AJAX AMSTERDAM One could always say a side is crap and should do better, but leaving the opposition out of the equation ain't a good basis for an argument. In that group, we would have been mauled into oblivion ... 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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