McCoist tenders his resignation: but still in charge for tonight's game

[ian1964 10,409]

Are we allowed to call him a tool?

 

That kind of post is just antagonising,we're all hurting,no need

[chilledbear 16]

He says he will be in charge against Livingstone.

[ian1964 10,409]

He says he will be in charge against Livingstone.

 

of course he will, he has handed in his notice which is the end of the season!,unless the board,(S.P.I.V.S) decide otherwise

[der Berliner 3,231]

Ex-media chap Andrew Dickson has a few calm words to say about Ally ...

 

By Andrew Dickson

 

Former Rangers media man Andrew Dickson believes McCoist was the right man for the job of guiding the club through the worst period of their history.

 

With his key signings not always delivering and a knack of losing cup matches he shouldn’t, some Rangers fans will always have a problem with Ally McCoist the manager.

 

But having spent seven years working alongside the man, he was the perfect guy for the job of seeing the club through the darkest period of their history.

 

I was working for the club’s media department and was visiting Murray Park when I heard Craig Whyte had filed for administration. The look on Ally’s face then was a mix of despair and determination. It was clear he was up for the fight.

 

Ally provided real comfort for many staff members. He became a pillar for us all to lean on. When it seemed few were batting for us, we still had a big hitter on our team and he was the glue that held the place together.

 

I’m sure he would agree, though perhaps only privately, he has been hamstrung by his famous ‘We don’t do walking away’ statement. But would he have chosen to go before now if he had never said it? Honestly, I’m not so sure he would have.

 

Many Rangers supporters will argue an opportunity to bring a team bursting with youth players through the leagues has been missed by McCoist and of course they are right.

 

But with so much off-field trauma to deal with and a hard balance to strike, I’m not surprised Ally turned to the experienced players he knew best to get up the divisions.

 

He perhaps hasn’t got everything right but he has made sure an awful lot more hasn’t gone wrong – and that’s something Rangers followers should always be grateful to him for.

 

That last line should always be kept in mind when debating his stay as manager. As "poor" as many will deem his on-field stuff, Rangers the club would probably look rather different had he not been there off-field.

 

IMHO, even while the times were rather different, in five years' from now, you'd hope that most around here will remember McCoist for what he did for our club rather than where he failed, akin to John John Greig.

Edited December 14, 2014 by der Berliner

[ian1964 10,409]

Andrew Smith: Time’s up for Ally McCoist.

 

THERE must always be a dividing line in assessing the travails of Ally McCoist. There is no question that he has required to manage the club in extraordinary – and extraordinarily difficult – circumstances. The crass, constant calamities perpetrated by those charged with the governance of Rangers have made his management permanently of the crisis variety.

 

Yet, by failing to forge a team with any aesthetic value, and – as it stands – any wherewithal to cut a swathe through a whole collection of far lesser-financed Championship opponents, he has only succeeded in inflicting on the club on-field crises to exacerbate the off-field ones. What McCoist expected when he tendered his resignation on Thursday afternoon continues to baffle. Uncharitably, it could be read as no more than a diversionary tactic as his team have been found out in the second tier of Scottish football.

 

It is understood he is willing to accept a £400,000 pay-off to bring matters to a head. This sum represents the cut in his £850,000 salary he accepted a year ago. Essentially, then, it could be argued he is willing to walk away without the 12-month earnings to which his one-year rolling contract would ordinarily entitle him. Maybe that is his perception of a selfless gesture as the financially-ailing Ibrox club lays off members of staff and scrabbles around to find the £8 million required to prevent them going under. Certainly, whatever else might be said, it must always be acknowledged that he has been selfless with his time, and a delight to deal with, for we in the press.

 

Ultimately, though, judgments should always be made on McCoist’s three-and-a-half year tenure by restricting assessments to the footballing domain. When that exercise is performed, the question that requires to be asked is: would other managers have made more of the advantages a £6m first-team wage bill has afforded Rangers in the lower leagues? Or, to put in another way, would any other manager have done any less than McCoist has with the resources at his disposal since Rangers started out again in the fourth tier following liquidation in 2012?

 

It is a struggle to identify one of the 23 signings made in the past two-and-a-half years that could be deemed an unqualified success. It is a struggle to identify instances when alterations of tactics and personnel have materially changed games in which Rangers have toiled. It is a struggle to identify the basis on which McCoist could make a case for himself as a prospering football manager. Not least because of a horrendous trophy-free cup record that is underpinned by three failures in the Challenge Cup, a tournament contested mainly by part-time teams. In normal circumstances, McCoist would have already agreed his severance package and been thanked for his efforts. Of course, there is no such thing as “normal circumstances” down Ibrox way.

 

However, this point may still arrive, and as early as this week it has been suggested. That outcome would mean McCoist’s last game in charge would have proved to be the 2-0 filleting by Queen of the South on Friday night at Palmerston, a loss which left his team nine points behind a Hearts side who have a game in hand. The match in Dumfries was emblematic of all that has been wrong with Rangers under McCoist as the home side outpaced, out-thought and outplayed their more illustrious Championship counterparts.

 

Forget all else. Results over the past month alone have been enough to make his position at the club untenable. In that period the Ibrox men have been well beaten by the two teams closest to them in the Championship. Even more unforgivable was that they shipped three goals across 20 minutes away to Alloa to dash their hopes of a final appearance in the Petrofac Training Cup. It was a mortifying experience.

 

What McCoist did in the league encounter against Cowdenbeath that followed just days after the inept defensive display at Alloa only served to highlight the deep-seated issues over his stewardship. He put out the same back four at home to Cowdenbeath, which meant inexplicably retaining at centre-back Bilel Mohsni, pictured, and therefore Darren McGregor. The late withdrawal of Lee Wallace because of a bereavement did not help, but his unwillingness to drop players who have let him down, and his club, just makes no sense and further fuels fans’ frustrations.

 

The supporters who want to remember McCoist for his record goalscoring feats at their club, and will always respect him for the figurehead role he accepted as Rangers financially imploded, now no longer want him helming their team.

 

The notion that it is all too pally-wally with Ally at Murray Park is a charge often levelled against the manager. When he conducted his Sunday press conference on Thursday morning he was adamant that he has not been too close and too forgiving when it comes to his squad.

 

“Make no mistake about it, there is no way my loyalty is blinding my general outlook on selecting a team to win a game,” McCoist said. “I pick a team to win a game. That is my priority. If players deserve my loyalty then they will absolutely get it. Loyalty will not affect my decision. It goes out the window with anybody if you have to make some decisions to win the game.

 

“I don’t really accept that I am really friendly with the players. I would like to think there is a mutual respect between us. I am maybe in the dressing room once a fortnight if I am lucky. That is not my domain now. I am not sure friendly is the right word. I have utmost respect for my players and I hope they do for me.

 

“You can only make changes if you think they are going to better the team. Lee Wallace would have automatically been a change. If there is somebody better then make no mistake they will play. I can assure you if I had Terry Butcher or Richard Gough available then they would play.”

 

There is a simple riposte to that his detractors would offer up; were these titans available, would McCoist get the best from them?

 

http://www.scotsman.com/sport/football/spfl-lower-divisions/andrew-smith-time-s-up-for-ally-mccoist-1-3633808

[ian1964 10,409]

The football isn't great.. but McCoist isn't biggest problem at Ibrox

By Michael Gannon

 

RANGERS boss Ally McCoist has handed in his resignation notice but MICHAEL insists the Ibrox managerial position is the least of the club's worries right now.

 

 

 

Ally McCoist has fired in 
his notice. The big question 
is if the Rangers board took 
any notice.

 

That’s the point with this McCoist 
situation. It feels like a big deal.

 

Scottish football wobbled on its axis again on Friday. But you know what?

 

It. Doesn’t. Matter.

 

Seriously. The managerial position 
at Ibrox is not the biggest problem 
right now.

 

The club are on their knees and fighting for their survival again. In case anyone 
forgot, they need to find £8million and pronto, otherwise its another trip to 
Insolvency City.

 

That’s the big deal right now. That is 
why Mike Ashley’s pal Derek Llambias is running around Ibrox with a red marker pen and a dirty big axe.

 

Ally sticking in his 12 months’ notice? Aye, put it in the in-tray.

 

Stumping up serious dosh to get rid of the coaching staff will be way down the list of priorities round Edmiston House at the moment.

 

Rangers are in full-blown crisis mode. Llambias is doing more slashing that an 80s horror film. Elsewhere other lackeys are sitting in doorways in the City of London with a tin can, a scraggy dug and a sign saying ‘Pleez help’.

 

Meanwhile back on the home front 
Llambias has taken the shears to everything from the tearoom to the boardroom and anything that moves in between.

 

There are more savage cuts coming 
that will make the Tory party look like the 
Red Cross.

 

The managerial issue is a side show. Even getting out of the Championship isn’t the priority any more. Surviving beyond 
January will do for starters.

 

But McCoist’s clever move has made 
the gaffer’s job another headache for 
Ashley’s stormtroopers.

 

It’s like McCoist has told the missus she can get a divorce but he’s sleeping on the couch until the house gets sold.

 

But he simply can’t malinger on the sofa, or in the dugout for that matter, for much longer that’s for sure.

 

McCoist is a dead man walking in the dressing room and the rigour mortis has already started. It won’t be long before it stinks the place out.

 

There was already a reek 
on Friday night. Rangers 
resembled a side that had 
chucked it as Queen of the South ran them ragged.

 

Enough’s enough. McCoist knows it as well. Yes he’s been in charge during the most difficult period in the club’s history, but let’s be honest, the reign has been pretty abysmal.

 

Winning Leagues One and Two is nothing to boast about. Gretna, Livingston and Queen of the South have romped those 
divisions on an annual budget which is less than the Ibrox 
laundry bill.

 

The football on offer was borderline offensive. It’s like McCoist missed a few modern football seminars during his years out on the box and out of the game.

 

It’s been Flintstones football at Ibrox from a tactics book 
chiselled on to tablets in the stone age.

 

Not for much longer. The men with the hedge funds will stick the gaffer on 
gardening leave.

 

It will be left to both sides’ lawyers to fight out a settlement and it will rumble on until they figure out the lawyers are making more money than anyone.

 

Ashley will focus on gutting the place 
out. Streamlining a 
shambolic business.

 

What happens on the pitch is practically an irrelevance for him right now.

 

He’s already coughed up a lot of money to stop the club from 
hitting the buffers.

 

It’s like he gave the 
annoying kid his pocket money but he rattled it in a fruit machine and came back looking for more to buy an ice cream cone.

 

Ashley won’t be happy 
but he’ll know fine well he will 
eventually have to stump up sooner or later to deal with the irritating part of making money from football.

 

Actual football.

 

It stuck in his throat that he had to dish up £2m to get 
rid of Kevin Keegan at Newcastle in 2008. There was another club legend who couldn’t cut it, but it took a 
judge to force Ashley to eventually get out the cheque book.

 

McCoist will get a spell tending to his azaleas and it should be no surprise when Ashley brings in one of his pals to mind the fort for the next 12 months.

 

Dennis Wise? Joe f****** Kinnear? It could be Lilly Savage if the fancy 
takes him.

 

It’s strange. For a man so tuned in to 
making money, he certainly has a tin ear when it comes to football mangers.

 

It’s the most important role at any club and yet he’s happy to let unpopular 
figures stagger on beyond their sell by dates or make bizarre appointments on the basis that he quiet likes the cut of their jib.

 

If Rangers weren’t potless they would shake McCoist’s hand, stick a few quid in his bank and wish him all the best.

 

They would then go out and give Aberdeen half a million in compo for Derek McInnes and allow him to get to work on reshaping the squad in January, as well as overseeing a revamp of the youth set up.

 

That’s what should happen.

 

But that is an alternative reality to the dystopian nightmare Rangers are 
trapped in at the moment.

 

They can’t afford to pay for McCoist’s bus fare out of Govan let alone the cash for a brand new coach from the north.

 

It’s a farce but it’s also a fact. A lame duck manager isn’t the main threat to Rangers right now.

 

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/f...-great-4807887

[andy steel 0]

Massive amounts of shite being thrown around today.

[SteveC 150]

wtf is this tosh: "He’s already coughed up a lot of money "?

 

At least "rigour mortis" gave me a laugh. Tit.