Zappa 0 Posted August 16, 2012 Share Posted August 16, 2012 (edited) The Most Important Twelve Days of Ally McCoist's Managerial Career So Far? It wasn't exactly a boast worthy eureka moment or even close to it, but something quite important dawned on me tonight while updating the forum's upcoming events calander: Starting from 3:00pm this Saturday at Ibrox against East Stirlingshire in what'll be our second SFL3 league match, we embark on an extremely important run of four games in twelve days. First up, we've obviously got the first home game of our SFL3 league campaign this Saturday and it's set to be a remarkable event with an almost full capacity Ibrox crowd expected. With a record-breaking attendance for our league due to be set, to say that the atmosphere at Ibrox will be electric would be a massive understatement and I think that to say the expectations of the fans will be running high would be an ever bigger understatement. Let's be honest here: This is a must win game because without being disrespectful to our opponents, we do have a vastly superior squad of players and that puts added pressure on the manager to not only deliver a win and 3 points, but to ensure that it's done convincingly by getting them playing some good football which entertains the fans. That's no easy task for a relatively inexperienced manager who's having to rebuild a squad after the mass exodus of first team players we witnessed recently, but I'm confident that Ally and our players can do the business. Next up in this run of four games is our away game to Falkirk in Round 2 of the Scottish Challenge Cup (aka - Ramsdens Cup) on Tuesday. This is another huge game for Ally, the team and the fans because we all want a win and progression to the next round of the Challenge Cup, but it most definitely will not be easy to achieve. Falkirk are the current holders of this Cup and have actually won it an impressive four times in the past two decades. They're a very good team who've competed extremely well in the SPL and more recently in the 1st Division. They also put us out of the League Cup last season when we had a stronger squad than we do now, so this will be a very tough fixture indeed and there isn't much time between Saturday afternoon and Tuesday evening. More about Falkirk later... Third up in this short run of important games is our trip away to Berwick on Sunday 26th, so a week on Sunday and thankfully the players will have had four full recovery, training and prep' days before this one. Kick off is at 12 noon, so many of the travelling Bears will have a very early rise that day! This will be our third SFL3 league game and our second away fixture, this time to the lovely history-laden east coast Northumberland town of Berwick-upon-Tweed in England. Thousands of Bears won't be decending on Berwick to check out it's historical sights though because it's all about the early kick-off football match at Berwick Rangers FC's Shielfield Park ground. Another SFL3 sellout promises to be a cracking fixture with an amazing atmosphere, but by far the most important thing that Sunday is that we come away with 3 points. Anything less will NOT be acceptable. If there were rumblings of discontent during and after the game at Peterhead last week, we can expect those rumblings to be amplified considerably if Ally and the team don't serve up 3 points in Berwick, that much is certain. The Wee Gers (as they're sometimes known as) aren't just going to lie down to The Rangers and take a lesson in football though. I'll be expecting us to win the game, hopefully very comfortably, but they're not going to step aside and let us put 10 goals past them. Playing against us in small grounds rammed with supporters is a massive motivator for these small clubs and they'll fight hard. Last, but certainly not least is the final game of the four and our last game of what can only be described as a slightly bizarre month for the club (all things considered) because not only have we been deprived our usual European exploits, but yet again we'll be playing Falkirk, this time at Ibrox in Round 2 of the League Cup and it will only be 9 days after playing them in the Scottish Challenge Cup this coming Tuesday. It's another massive game for us all and the game on Tuesday will undoubtedly show us what sort of Falkirk outfit we'll be up against on the night of the 30th at Ibrox. I know that fans in general regard every single game as massive and many (if not ALL) of them as "must win" games, but I think if we look at it retrospectively, this short run of four games is perhaps our most important short run of four games since the last four games of the 2010/11 season when we won the league at Rugby Park on the final day of the season. Ally and his team are charged with the duty of trying to win four games on the trot here and a lot of fans are going to be pretty much demanding that we win these four games to get six league points and knock Falkirk out of two cups, but it's not going to be easy and I just hope that most of us appreciate that it's not going to be easy. I'm very confident that Ally and the team can do it though, so get behind them 100% because it's the very least they deserve!! Edited August 16, 2012 by Zappa 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blue Moon 1,138 Posted August 16, 2012 Share Posted August 16, 2012 Thanks for this informative piece, Zappa. The Rangers support is not known for its patience and the 2 games against Falkirk worry me a bit. They have perhaps come too early for us with a side that has not had a proper pre season and with players that have not had time to gel. It is just a pity that we have come up against them so early in the Ramsdens cup as I fancy we will do better at Ibrox against them. We need to get the defence sorted out. If we do that we stand a very good chance. I would prefer us to play 4 at the back at the moment. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zappa 0 Posted August 16, 2012 Author Share Posted August 16, 2012 They have perhaps come too early for us with a side that has not had a proper pre season and with players that have not had time to gel. Spot on mate. Our lack of pre-season matches is a real concern and with us being in the middle of building a new squad it makes the situation even tougher. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
GovanAllan 0 Posted August 17, 2012 Share Posted August 17, 2012 The 2 League games should be comfortable wins, but the 2 Falkirk games will show if Ally has learned anything in the last 12 months. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daniel Amokachi 0 Posted August 17, 2012 Share Posted August 17, 2012 (edited) As usual we'll win more than not, play atrociously, and more excuses will be pedalled blaming the pitch/quality of opposition/lack of pre-season/Ally not getting the his right brand of cereal that morning. Most don't care about rank football as long as we score one more than the opposition, but don't you worry, when said rank football leads to us not scoring 1 more than the opposition, the gloves will eventually come off. Edited August 17, 2012 by Daniel Amokachi 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daniel Amokachi 0 Posted August 17, 2012 Share Posted August 17, 2012 The 2 League games should be comfortable wins, but the 2 Falkirk games will show if Ally has learned anything in the last 12 months. I can answer that for you. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
GovanAllan 0 Posted August 17, 2012 Share Posted August 17, 2012 I can answer that for you. Unfortunately I probably can as well. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
der Berliner 3,325 Posted August 17, 2012 Share Posted August 17, 2012 IMHO, the "most important days" of McCoist's managerial career "on the field" were passed up in July / August 2011, when his players managed to get themselves humped out of Europe. Off the field, it will hardly become ever worse or more important than what transpired before this season started. In general, I refrain from the lax use of certain vocabulary, like "most important" or even "dropped". It creates a attitude of extremes and you wonder what comes after that. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darthter 542 Posted August 17, 2012 Share Posted August 17, 2012 Most don't care about rank football as long as we score one more than the opposition, but don't you worry, when said rank football leads to us not scoring 1 more than the opposition, the gloves will eventually come off. Would you rather play lovely free flowing, crisp passing, but not win as much, or focus on the win and worry about how you did it later. Arsenal are a prime example of this.....they play some excellent football, yet what have they won recently. In saying that, playing attractive football & winning are not mutually exclusive, it's just not too easy to do. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daniel Amokachi 0 Posted August 17, 2012 Share Posted August 17, 2012 (edited) Would you rather play lovely free flowing, crisp passing, but not win as much, or focus on the win and worry about how you did it later. Arsenal are a prime example of this.....they play some excellent football, yet what have they won recently. In saying that, playing attractive football & winning are not mutually exclusive, it's just not too easy to do. The same Arsenal who consistently finish in the top 4, play in the Champions league and compete at the highest level on a very low net expenditure compared to other premiership clubs? Playing the long ball has never been a long term strategy to success. Playing football the correct way vastly increases your chance of success. One thing follows the other. If you look at the sides that were successful in all the big trophies, tournaments, leagues etc, you will find that they were generally sides that can keep possession and display sufficient technique to be successful. The teams that play negative, horrific football usually end up falling flat. Like us 9/10 in Europe and like the UK national sides. Maybe if we started playing better football we would have won more than something like 1 of our last 22 games in Europe. Edited August 17, 2012 by Daniel Amokachi 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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