Rangers players didn’t get poor Paul Le Guen the boot with an underhand revolt…

[pete 2,499]

I never used the word hate though.....

 

Smartass!

[JohnMc 2,473]

There are parallels between the new Hearts boss and PLG. Not so much in record, PLG's record was much better, but in terms of the media reaction and expectation compared to that of professional players. PLG was going to 'revolutionise' Scottish football, new diets, new training and new ideas. I read similar things about Cathro. The problem PLG faced and Cathro will face is the actual man-management side of it. To introduce anything new you need to be able to communicate and win the trust of professional players, a generally cynical, hard-bitten and conservative group.

 

Interestingly the only truly revolutionary moment on sport in recent years was the Moneyball episode in major league baseball. But the architect of Moneyball thinking, Paul Depodesta, was unable to implement his thinking, he'd never played the sport and was viewed with suspicion by players and managers. It needed Billy Beane, a highly regarded coach and former professional player, to introduce Depodesta's ideas.

 

When Southampton appointed Sir Clive Woodward as Sporting Director it should have heralded the beginning of a golden period for the club. Woodward is/was a progressive thinker, a hugely successful coach in rugby union he was tasked with modernising the sport's science and culture at the club. Instead he clashed with the existing coaches almost from day one. The head coach, Harry Redknapp, left before the year was out, Woodward's appointed Head of Sport's Science lasted two months and eventually Woodward himself realised he was unable to communicate and manage footballers successfully.

 

As a footnote Woodward was later appointed the head of coaching for the British Olympic team and oversaw the most successful period in British Olympic history.

[ian1964 10,416]

Rangers didn't have a player revolt under Paul Le Guen ... I just told him losing was unacceptable - Barry Ferguson

 

Our columnist and former Ibrox captain looks back on the events of 10 years ago when the under-fire Frenchman banished him from the first team.

 

I don't hold a single grudge against Paul Le Guen. If he had cost me my Rangers career – as it looked like doing 10 years ago this week – that might be different.

 

But believe me, there is no ill-will now and there wasn’t back then either.There was shock. And a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach because I simply couldn’t

understand why I’d been binned by the Frenchman – when my only crime was to insist that the number of defeats Rangers were suffering under him was unacceptable.

 

But despite what some folk tried to say at the time, I didn’t hate him. None of us did. But we didn’t understand him.

 

Le Guen was sacked a decade ago this week and the memories came flooding back.To be honest, they are never far away. It’s like it all happened 10 minutes ago, not 10 years ago.

 

I said it then and I say it again now – I didn’t plot his downfall. I didn’t mastermind some kind of revolution.

 

When Le Guen was sacked, I was too busy thinking my Rangers career was finished to be thinking about how to get the man sacked.

 

He left the club after Rangers beat Motherwell 1-0 at Fir Park on January 2, 2007.

 

I didn’t watch that match. It was 24 hours after I’d been told by Le Guen that I was finished at Rangers.

 

I was numb and still in shock. On the day of the game, I went for a run. I wasn’t in the right frame of mind to watch the game or even listen to it on the radio.

 

I had to let a bit of steam off and just spend some time on my own to process what just had happened to me. Exercise is a great way to do that, so I went for a run.

 

I heard later that Kris Boyd had scored the winner and had raised six fingers in his celebration as a message to me because I wore the No 6 shirt.

 

He says he did in the heat of the moment and it wasn’t pre-planned.

 

But it showed there was a togetherness in that dressing room and the next day the manager was gone.

 

The only thing I was guilty of was not accepting the position Rangers were in at that moment in time. I didn’t try to undermine him in any way.

 

It just got to the point where it all built up inside me and when we lost the Inverness game away from home just after Christmas, Le Guen said what he’d said after every defeat or draw – ‘we have to stick together.’

 

I couldn’t stop myself but all I said was: ‘It’s important we stick together but the most important thing is to start f***ing winning. This is not acceptable.’That’s all I said. There was no screaming or shouting from me, him or anyone else.

 

We played another game after Inverness and that wasn’t much better – a 1-1 draw with St Mirren at Ibrox.

 

I played in that one, but the day before the Motherwell game I came into Murray Park for training as usual, in my tracksuit with my bag packed for the overnight stay in the hotel.

 

I put my bag down in the dressing room and Yves Colleau, the assistant manager, told me the manager wanted to see me.

 

I knocked on his door and when I went into his office, I made to sit down in a chair across the desk from where he was sitting. He made a brushing sign with his finger, from side to side and said: ‘No, don’t sit down. You will no longer play with Rangers. You must go home.’

 

I looked at him. I was stunned and I was almost in a trance. I didn’t say anything.

 

I remember walking out the door, walking across the hallway into the dressing room and picking my bag up.

 

I just wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible without speaking to players or staff who would have been asking me where I was going. I didn’t want to cause any problems. I didn’t want a scene with the boys.

 

They were my team-mates and they had a game to play the very next day.

 

It was up to the manager to tell them why I wasn’t there. I just wanted to get into my car.I drove through the gates of Murray Park, turned right and there’s a lay-by about a quarter of a mile down the road.

 

I pulled in there and that’s when reality hit me.I phoned my wife to tell her I was on my way home and when I got through my door, that’s when it really began to sink in that my Rangers career was over.

 

But I was guilty of only one thing – being a winner. He was the boss.If he’d told me to play in goals, I’d have done that. I always respected that side of it but the one thing I couldn’t get my head around was his reaction when we lost – it was exactly the same as it was when we won.

 

He didn’t realise what Rangers was all about – that’s not criticism. It’s realism.I just couldn’t fathom the guy out. You couldn’t get to know him and I think it’s important that the players can have a chat with their manager. He was a guy who was so distant.

 

It was a really strange week or 10 days.

 

Ian Durrant took over for one game, a cup tie against Dunfermline and I was back in the team.We lost that game but the players didn’t know if we were coming or going at that stage. It was a difficult period. I didn’t know what was happening.

 

I was summoned through to Edinburgh by David Murray and told that we couldn’t change the past but that a new manager would be coming in and we would get back on an even keel.

 

I didn’t know at that stage that it would be Walter Smith but when he came in and spoke to me, it was so simple.All he said was: ‘You’re playing, you’re back, you’re captain. Go out and produce.”

That was it. No looking back, no holding onto the past.

 

Walter brought the club great success after that and I was so happy to be a part of it especially after what had happened over the New Year of 2007.

[pete 2,499]

The papers must be loving this. Every day another ex-player telling of our problems 10 years ago, while telling us how many 50 million pound players sellick have or are about to produce.

Edited January 6, 2017 by pete

[Norris Cole 0]

There are parallels between the new Hearts boss and PLG. Not so much in record, PLG's record was much better, but in terms of the media reaction and expectation compared to that of professional players. PLG was going to 'revolutionise' Scottish football, new diets, new training and new ideas. I read similar things about Cathro. The problem PLG faced and Cathro will face is the actual man-management side of it. To introduce anything new you need to be able to communicate and win the trust of professional players, a generally cynical, hard-bitten and conservative group.

 

Interestingly the only truly revolutionary moment on sport in recent years was the Moneyball episode in major league baseball. But the architect of Moneyball thinking, Paul Depodesta, was unable to implement his thinking, he'd never played the sport and was viewed with suspicion by players and managers. It needed Billy Beane, a highly regarded coach and former professional player, to introduce Depodesta's ideas.

 

When Southampton appointed Sir Clive Woodward as Sporting Director it should have heralded the beginning of a golden period for the club. Woodward is/was a progressive thinker, a hugely successful coach in rugby union he was tasked with modernising the sport's science and culture at the club. Instead he clashed with the existing coaches almost from day one. The head coach, Harry Redknapp, left before the year was out, Woodward's appointed Head of Sport's Science lasted two months and eventually Woodward himself realised he was unable to communicate and manage footballers successfully.

 

As a footnote Woodward was later appointed the head of coaching for the British Olympic team and oversaw the most successful period in British Olympic history.

 

I get the impression Cathro is up against a wee bit of ageism. Which I can sort of understand, even if ability should be the primary consideration. There are guys in that dressing room that are older than him, I just wonder how they're reacting to a manager not only younger than them, but with no experience as a footballer. Every boss I've had has been through the same work I do, so I don't have a problem taking their advice or criticism. Cathro on the other hand better do great things at Hearts or, rightly or wrongly, he'll get pilloried. I personally hope it works out for him, he could be a breath of fresh air. Time will tell.

[calscot 0]

I get the impression Cathro is up against a wee bit of ageism. Which I can sort of understand, even if ability should be the primary consideration. There are guys in that dressing room that are older than him, I just wonder how they're reacting to a manager not only younger than them, but with no experience as a footballer. Every boss I've had has been through the same work I do, so I don't have a problem taking their advice or criticism. Cathro on the other hand better do great things at Hearts or, rightly or wrongly, he'll get pilloried. I personally hope it works out for him, he could be a breath of fresh air. Time will tell.

 

Shouldn't the presence and backing of Craig Levein as DoF offset that somewhat?

 

He does seem to have had a terrible start - which is good for us. Although it could make our current gap with them a bit of a false one if he is able to bring it together, meaning they might be harder to pull away from next season.

[Norris Cole 0]

Shouldn't the presence and backing of Craig Levein as DoF offset that somewhat?

 

He does seem to have had a terrible start - which is good for us. Although it could make our current gap with them a bit of a false one if he is able to bring it together, meaning they might be harder to pull away from next season.

 

Levein has surprised me somewhat, post-retirement. My memory of him as a player was of a top class defender, captain of club and country, an intelligent guy, a thinker of the game. In management, I simply don't rate the guy whatsoever. It was criminal that he was handed charge of the national team, a decision which the SFA suits should have fallen on their swords for. On a personal level, he's been dead to me since his hissy fit and sinister comments after we beat his Utd side at Ibrox. You wonder if he will ever recover from Mark Kerr's backpass. I find him a rather unimpressive human being actually.

 

Re. this season, I have to say I rate Aberdeen higher than Hearts. Only Aberdeen can stop us getting second. If the Hearts board are serious about giving Cathro a chance, they need to give him about three years.

[calscot 0]

Levein has surprised me somewhat, post-retirement. My memory of him as a player was of a top class defender, captain of club and country, an intelligent guy, a thinker of the game. In management, I simply don't rate the guy whatsoever. It was criminal that he was handed charge of the national team, a decision which the SFA suits should have fallen on their swords for. On a personal level, he's been dead to me since his hissy fit and sinister comments after we beat his Utd side at Ibrox. You wonder if he will ever recover from Mark Kerr's backpass. I find him a rather unimpressive human being actually.

 

Yeah, after the Scotland job, I don't have any respect for him as a manager (or much as a person) - but he isn't in that role and I think he was a good player, so you would think the current players respect him for that.

 

Re. this season, I have to say I rate Aberdeen higher than Hearts. Only Aberdeen can stop us getting second. If the Hearts board are serious about giving Cathro a chance, they need to give him about three years.

 

I personally think if Hearts had kept Neilson, they would be in a similar position to Aberdeen. Without exactly being spectacular, he was doing a pretty competent job for Hearts. I think they will suffer with the new transition.

[pete 2,499]

Levein has surprised me somewhat, post-retirement. My memory of him as a player was of a top class defender, captain of club and country, an intelligent guy, a thinker of the game. In management, I simply don't rate the guy whatsoever. It was criminal that he was handed charge of the national team, a decision which the SFA suits should have fallen on their swords for. On a personal level, he's been dead to me since his hissy fit and sinister comments after we beat his Utd side at Ibrox. You wonder if he will ever recover from Mark Kerr's backpass. I find him a rather unimpressive human being actually.

 

Re. this season, I have to say I rate Aberdeen higher than Hearts. Only Aberdeen can stop us getting second. If the Hearts board are serious about giving Cathro a chance, they need to give him about three years.

 

Yeh that 4-6-0 was the height of dismal management.

[Norris Cole 0]

I personally think if Hearts had kept Neilson, they would be in a similar position to Aberdeen. Without exactly being spectacular, he was doing a pretty competent job for Hearts. I think they will suffer with the new transition.

 

That's perhaps a fair point. I was up in Aberdeen over Christmas and was talking to an Aberdeen fan, he said McInnes has taken them as far as they can go and that he'll probably look to leave soon. Laughably, the Aberdeen fans are starting to grumble over their most successful manager since Sir Alex.

 

I think in the cold light of day, to see off Hearts and Aberdeen in our first season back in the top flight would represent real progress. Next season has to be about getting close to Celtic.