Is Ally the Man for the job? - The McCoist Thread

[andy steel 0]

really? where have you been living since he took over? results and performances have been consistantly embarassing. from malmo, maribor and falkirk to berwick, stirling and qos.

 

Steelonia, formerly known as Johnstone. But calm yourself. You're getting far too wound up about other people having a different opinion. Not much of a plan for life, you know - it's going to happen a fair bit.

[pete 2,499]

Ally McCoist must be questioning if he's right man for Rangers

 

THE Ibrox boss, and his players, were left humiliated after losing at Stirling Albion and he must now pick up his troops and get back to winning ways.

Ally McCoist (centre) tries in vain to spur his Rangers players on Ally McCoist (centre) tries in vain to spur his Rangers players on

 

YEARS from now, when his legs are bowed and his shoulders stooped, Greig McDonald wonâ??t have any trouble remembering where he was the day Stirling Albion beat Rangers.

 

He should have been in the dugout managing his Forthbank side but he wasnâ??t.

 

McDonald was away getting hitched and missed his teamâ??s biggest day. When the ceremony reached the â??do you take this womanâ?? bit he probably responded with a big, loud, long â??Yesssssssssssss.â??

 

But even though he wasnâ??t there to celebrate a famous victory with his players he now has two very good reasons to remember Saturday, October 6, 2012.

 

Ally McCoist, on the other hand, will want to wipe that day from his memory banks. It was the day he reached his lowest point as Rangers manager.

 

And it might also have been the moment when, and for the first time, he questioned himself and his ability to rehabilitate this wretched team.

 

In the eyes of Rangers fans, McCoist has been an heroic, inspirational figure leading from the front in the clubâ??s struggle to survive. But they are torn.

 

They admire and laud McCoist and still regard him as a legend.

 

But they canâ??t stomach results and performances like those theyâ??ve had to endure so far this season from players who are doing their damndest to make Rangers fit right in at the pro gameâ??s lowest level.

 

Stirling Albion had lost five Third Division matches in a row and were the bottom club in the bottom league when Rangers arrived.

 

But even so, Saturday shouldnâ??t have registered with such a seismic jolt. This kind of humiliation has been tracking Rangers since the first day of the season.

 

It was always going to catch up and envelop them and a growing number of Rangers fans are now talking loudly about their doubts over McCoist when before they did no more than whisper their fears.

 

But as the manager himself said after the 1-0 defeat in Stirling, the questions and the criticisms â??come with the territoryâ??. He also said he can deal with it and that heâ??ll turn his ship around.

 

However, the very fact McCoist is having to answer questions about his teamâ??s lack of tempo, skill, intelligence and desire will be cutting deeply into his psyche.

 

He has always been his biggest believer and he never faltered when his skills as a player were called into question.

 

Even when Graeme Souness, who was Rangers manager in the late 1980s, benched him for a long period, McCoist took it in his stride and with customary humour. He sat in the dugout, one time on a cushion, and waited it out.

 

He got his place back and strode on into Rangersâ?? history books.

 

This time, however, it is different. McCoist is questioning McCoist and thatâ??s significant.

 

The one thing he isnâ??t is a fool and although he knows his players arenâ??t as good as they themselves think they are heâ??s also aware itâ??s his future, his reputation thatâ??s on the line.

 

Players always say they owe their managers but you never see them jumping in front of the bullets when they start flying.

 

Itâ??s the managers who take the shots and McCoistâ??s legendary status, his staunch defence of the club and his leadership in the fight to hold on to those titles which are under threat wonâ??t shield him for much longer.

 

More fans will turn if he doesnâ??t get deep inside the heads of his players and puncture egos.

 

They need to be put straight and somehow McCoist has to make them understand that in the rough and sweaty environment of the Third

Division, swollen wage packets count for nothing.

 

If anything they are likely to act as incentives to Rangersâ?? opponents, who will very often be inspired to perform way beyond their actual abilities.

 

Too many Rangers players, as well as the rest of us perhaps, have assumed that anyone on £4000 a week must be so much better than a plumber, painter, bricky or teacher who plays just for the love of the game and enough to buy a pint after the match.

 

It doesnâ??t work that way, as Stirlingâ??s hero Brian Allison, a labourer, who scored the goal on Saturday has just demonstrated.

 

Every Rangers player, Alexander, Argyriou, Perry, Cribari, Wallace, Faure, Black, Macleod, Aird, Shiels, and McCulloch, who all started on Saturday, should be ashamed. McCoist, though, should be alarmed.

 

He has already faced tests of his character since taking over from Walter Smith and you can argue he has won all of his battles off the pitch.

 

Now he has to prove his doubters wrong by knocking his side into shape so that they might start winning with a bit of style on the pitch.

 

Thatâ??s where the real test lies now for McCoist but ironically, it might just have been his willingness and determination to be keeper of the faith against both real and imagined enemies which has left him and his team looking defenceless.

 

Circumstances meant that McCoist was thrust into the unfamiliar role having to deal with the SFA, SPL and SFL while Rangers fought to get a playing licence granted and he may have taken his eye off the ball.

 

Inevitable perhaps given all the meetings and brinkmanship which surrounded that particular farce but McCoistâ??s job is with the team and players who need to be straightened out.

 

Getting Rangers back in business should have been the hardest shift and winning the Third Division a mere formality but too many players are taking too many liberties.

 

They arenâ??t great but they are better than theyâ??ve shown and itâ??s up to McCoist to impose his will on them all without worrying about feelings and emotions.

 

But there is a school of thought which insists heâ??ll find that very difficult if not impossible. They say he canâ??t change his nature and become something he isnâ??t, a hard-nosed, cold and calculating manager capable of commanding respect and silencing a dressing-room as soon as he enters.

 

Itâ??s widely assumed that McCoist is basically just too nice a bloke but he insists those who see him in that light are wrong.

 

Behind the laughing boy, he argues, lurks the steely man who can and will make the tough

decisions.

 

Heâ??ll tell you that person has always been there and that he could never have achieved everything he did as a player unless heâ??d been able to take care of himself on and off then pitch.

 

He can rhyme off the names of rugged, mean-spirited defenders who saw and felt his dark side but for his own sake now he has to let that character out of the basement. His highly-paid under-achievers need to see this other McCoist before they can cause any more embarrassment.

 

If he does exist itâ??s time for Rangers players and fans to see his Mr Hyde.

[DUDE 0]

Stirling Albion had lost five Third Division matches in a row and were the bottom club in the bottom league when Rangers arrived.

 

This very paragraph is unbelievably gutting.

[bluedan 93]

Ally really has to get his finger oot his arse because this is simply not good enough and far from being so. I love Ally but things aren't going for him and you just wonder if the players are playing for him?? Doesn't seem so. I don't know exactly but why was Hutton not in the squad? This is just sheer stupidity and bad management from Ally. We can all see that Hutton should probably be a starter if not in the match day squad.

Reminds me of that Australian lad Mckay who was never used by Ally. Total waste of a good player there.

 

Clearly the players need rockets up their arses as well. Jig and Alexander are doing everything they can but others are hiding. We've just got no fluidity or tempo away from home.

 

I'm not yet jumping on the 'Ally Out' bus but i probably will give him 2 more games (away games) to turn things around. We've had a defeat so only fair we give him a chance to put it right. I say 2 games because we could win our next away match and then go back to the same old pish we've seen away from home in the game after. At home it's practically assured we'll win.

 

My patience is wearing thin for Ally and his coaching staff but i hope they can turn it around.

[54andcounting 0]

Two away games seem fair enough, let's hope he manages to win his next game at home to leaders Queens Park who have the best away record in the division, 3 wins out of 4.

Another banana skin.

[Thinker 887]

The only way he can settle the ship is to achieve a run of comfortable wins from now until at least such a time as we're top of the league. Any more slips before then and he'll pretty much have to resign.

 

I desperately want him to succeed, but we're not in a position to replace the playing staff so replacing the manager is the only way to change things.

 

But then, there's no guarantee that that would work. The players that went out on the park on Saturday should have been able to win comfortably regardless of who was in the dug-out. They've got to carry a huge amount of the blame. They're prepared to lose - which is unacceptable. It would have been nice to see them declining their wages after that result.

[DUDE 0]

I don't know exactly but why was Hutton not in the squad? This is just sheer stupidity and bad management from Ally. We can all see that Hutton should probably be a starter if not in the match day squad.

 

I was wondering about the same thing. Hutton looked so good when he stepped in a few games ago. The only reason I see would be Black coming back from injury, but raises the question why some are guaranteed to play, even after breaks like injuries or incosistencies and others who had brialiant performances are left out in return.

[chilledbear 16]

I was wondering about the same thing. Hutton looked so good when he stepped in a few games ago. The only reason I see would be Black coming back from injury, but raises the question why some are guaranteed to play, even after breaks like injuries or incosistencies and others who had brialiant performances are left out in return.

 

Always the way at Rangers.

 

The players on the highest wages are first pick.

[3909 04 0]

Always the way at Rangers.

 

The players on the highest wages are first pick.

 

Exactly. The first names are on the team sheet every week will be Alexander and McCulloch. Alexander I'll give you but McCulloch is 34, has a career-threatening knee injury and has no pace. Despite all that, Ally regularly fields him in centre mid where he is literally a waste of a jersey and where we regularly see fitter, faster young players ghost past him as if he wasn't there.

 

McCulloch is a great guy, 100% Bear and is totally committed to the cause. But that doesn't make him a valuable playing asset. The very same goes for McCoist as a manager.

 

If we genuinely want a swift return to the top of the Scottish game, we have to stop making appointments based on sentiment and start making tough decisions based solely on what's best for the club.

[chilledbear 16]

Exactly. The first names are on the team sheet every week will be Alexander and McCulloch. Alexander I'll give you but McCulloch is 34, has a career-threatening knee injury and has no pace. Despite all that, Ally regularly fields him in centre mid where he is literally a waste of a jersey and where we regularly see fitter, faster young players ghost past him as if he wasn't there.

 

McCulloch is a great guy, 100% Bear and is totally committed to the cause. But that doesn't make him a valuable playing asset. The very same goes for McCoist as a manager.

 

If we genuinely want a swift return to the top of the Scottish game, we have to stop making appointments based on sentiment and start making tough decisions based solely on what's best for the club.

 

Can't see much wrong with your post.

 

If we are going to progress, we need someone who is ruthless and single minded.

 

The time for laughing and joking with players is past for Ally, if he will not change, then Rangers need to look somewhere else.