Transfer thread - OFFICIAL!! David Templeton signs 4 year deal

[Gribz 743]

Some narrow minded people! How about looking at it from the point...He will be part of the Rangers history that took the club through the journey of returning us to the summit. You cant ask for a bigger challenge!!! Yet the mindless media cant see this. They are starting off at the bottom and working our way to the top again.

[Cotter 0]

And everyone's pretty sure it'll be reconstruction next year anyway. The glamour of the SPL2 awaits!

[Waltersgotstyle 297]

Whether Tom English likes it or not we are still one og the biggest operations in the world. 50000 home fans do not lie. A club is only as big as the number of fans that bother to turn up and watch them.

[kuznetsov 0]

in short guys what did bitter english say?

[amms 0]

Okay, i'll bite, what has Tom English written that everyone disagrees with? I have to say I thought his piece was pretty fair and accurate.

 

He pays McCoist a compliment, surely we're all still undecided as to his management abilities, except those who have already decided he has none?

McCoist did deflect well after Berwick, he did say he needed 6 or so players and he hasn't got them, again I've seen that said on here.

As for Templeton it is a coup for us, most of us didn't think we'd be able to attract sign someone like him. But am I the only one surprised he came? Sheils, Kyle and Black are coming towards the end of their careers, at 27 (Sheils and Black) this will be the biggest contracts they'll sign and the SPL will likely be the highest level they'll ever play, joining Rangers for financial reasons when they've little left to prove in football makes sense. The foreign lads are here for the money, no shame in that or pretence that it's anything else. For some it might prove a way of kick-starting a stuttering career, but basically it's about money. That makes them no different from pretty much every other non-Rangers supporter we've ever signed.

 

But for me Templeton and to a lesser extent Wallace are puzzles. Frankly you do need to question their ambition a bit. Neither were Rangers supporters as boys as far as I can tell so the decision to join Rangers is a footballing and financial one only. Both good reasons but under the circumstances surprising.

 

English makes the point that perhaps Hearts gave Templeton no choice, that makes a bit of sense. But I'm still surprised a 23 year old boyhood Celtic supporter, who we're all agreed should be playing at a higher level than Division 3, chose to join us. I'm pleased he did though, he's a great signing.

Edited September 2, 2012 by amms

[ian1964 10,416]

Tom English: Templeton move is a sad state of affairs

 

By TOM ENGLISH

Published on Sunday 2 September 2012 01:19

 

THE jury is out on whether Ally McCoist is a good football manager or not, but, in the business of crisis management, he has shown an aptitude that would have had his mentor, Walter Smith, tipping the cap in admiration.

 

Last weekend, Rangers performed horrendously at Berwick, hanging on for grim death for a point that they scarcely deserved, Berwick having had a perfectly legitimate goal disallowed in the closing minutes. It was the third such struggle on the road following on from their travails at Brechin and Peterhead, three away games and three major disappointments.

 

At Berwick it was humiliation for the club, an abomination to those diehards who still believe – or at least pretend to believe – that they are one of the world’s biggest operations. McCoist cut loose in the aftermath, successfully switching the news agenda from a heavy criticism of his own capabilities to a lambasting of his own players. The media reaction was that here was a strong manager who was about to annihilate his players, a leader who had had enough. In short, he got away with it.

 

Some Rangers fans bought the Ally Gets Mean message and others didn’t. When McCoist outlined his desperate need to bring new players to the club it would have been understandable had the Ibrox fans reacted by saying: “How about properly coaching the ones you have first?” Of course it is early days at the new Rangers and only a madman would suggest that they will not win the Third Division title with plenty to spare, but these early away games have been an awakening. In the parlance of the street, you’d have to say that in their visits to the homes of their new-found rivals, Rangers didn’t like it up ’em.

 

McCoist hasn’t got the bodies he was looking for. Instead of the five or six he said he needed just last weekend he only has a couple. Chief executive Charles Green might want to explain why the transfer business has been so modest given that the club, he tells us, is swimming in cash at the moment. He had his chance to prove it in the transfer market and he didn’t do it.

 

The high-profile capture is, of course, David Templeton, formerly of Hearts and most recently seen holding his own at Anfield against a Liverpool team containing Steven Gerrard, Luis Suarez and Joe Allen. Templeton looked very much at home in such company, unfazed and up for the challenge. The fact that he is now a Rangers player represents an excellent move by McCoist, far more convincing than some of the foreign journeymen he has brought to the club. Templeton is a player of much potential. In the world they’re living in right now – and ludicrous though it may sound – you might even call his signing a coup.

 

It’s a grim saga, though. Templeton was going to be out of contract at Hearts next summer and didn’t appear ready to sign a new deal at Tynecastle. At 23, and with a burgeoning reputation, he might have fancied his chances of progressing his career in England, but nobody came for him. That’s a surprise in itself, particularly having played so well against Liverpool in both matches and especially because he wouldn’t cost a whole lot. Templeton has been bashed, understandably, for his lack of ambition in plummeting down the divisions – from whence he came in the first instance with his move from Stenhousemuir to Hearts – but we have to factor in the possibility that seeing out the season at Tynecastle may not have been an option for him even if he wanted it to be.

 

In the past, Vladimir Romanov hasn’t looked kindly on players who have refused a move from Hearts, thereby denying him money from transfer fees. Once Rangers made their offer, in the region of £800,000, it would have been fascinating to hear Romanov’s reaction to it and the words of advice he may have imparted to Templeton. “We need the money. Move now or rot in the reserves”. Perhaps. The first reaction to the move was to criticise Templeton for placing a greater value on salary than career development, but credence must be given to the notion that he was left with little option. With only one suitor and a Hearts owner maybe keen to cash in before it was too late, he may have had nowhere else to go but down.

 

Sure, Templeton will be buoyed by games at Ibrox and every second week in Glasgow he’ll be performing in front of crowds that he couldn’t dream about at Tynecastle and he’ll be getting paid more and will have more stability in his professional life. But it’s still the Third Division. It’s no place for a young player who has already shown himself capable of competing at a high level. If Rangers are made to work their way through the divisions to get back to the SPL, it will be 2015 at the earliest by the time they do it. Templeton will be 26 going on 27 by then. His bank balance will be healthy, but you have to wonder what his game will be like. Is it possible to play lower league football for three straight seasons and still maintain the standards he showed against Liverpool?

 

Rangers have signed an exciting player, of that there is no doubt. Good luck to them. That’s what they need to do. That’s why they exist, to try and better themselves. But the same goes for Templeton. His real reasons for joining Rangers remain unclear.

 

Maybe the idea of being a Rangers man turns him on, regardless of where they’re playing. But, whatever has happened behind the scenes, the likelihood is that Templeton has reduced his prospects of playing European football for the next four years (unless there’s a Scottish Cup victory). He has also virtually obliterated any chance of a Scotland cap and has, you’d have to think, taken himself out of the shop window for attractive clubs down in England for, regardless of how he does against the Elgins and the Annans and the East Stirlingshires, they’re still Elgin and Annan and East Stirlingshire.

 

His arrival is excellent news for Rangers. But in the greater scheme of things? In a word, sad.

 

http://www.scotsman.com/scotland-on-...airs-1-2502040

[Gribz 743]

But the same goes for Templeton. His real reasons for joining Rangers remain unclear.

 

I find this a bit bitter. You get so many people chasing the pound signs and glory like Man Citys signings then you get a guy who fancies making a real football story by being part of a club who is on a mission to go back up through the leagues.

[amms 0]

I find this a bit bitter. You get so many people chasing the pound signs and glory like Man Citys signings then you get a guy who fancies making a real football story by being part of a club who is on a mission to go back up through the leagues.

 

And do you think that's the reason a boyhood Celtic supporter, even bearing in mind his father's allegiance and his middle name, chose to join?

[Gribz 743]

And do you think that's the reason a boyhood Celtic supporter, even bearing in mind his father's allegiance and his middle name, chose to join?

 

Only Templeton himself can give us the reason but obviously some are annoyed at his choice.

 

I think we have the new Neil McCann and look forward to see him in action today (thats if I can view it from here today).

[amms 0]

Only Templeton himself can give us the reason but obviously some are annoyed at his choice.

 

I think we have the new Neil McCann and look forward to see him in action today (thats if I can view it from here today).

 

Indeed, only Templeton does know why. I don't think English is annoyed at his choice more puzzled, as am I, but certainly a lot are angry, this wasn't part of their grand plan.

For the record I think he's a great signing, history might judge him to have been truly pivotal in our attempt to return to the top.