are we beyond critisism due to our current standings?

[gisabeer 409]

Its great that were top of the league, league cup winners, in the quarters of the Uefa cup and still in the Scottish cup. In fact you would have bitten your own hand off for that lot at the start of the season. all so soon after the disasterous moonbeam era of Paul leguen.

 

But i have to ask, Should we be taking a bit more pride in the quality of our game play? To watch Rangers at the moment you need a skin like a rhino to see the game through, in fact if walter & co turned up to play in your back garden you would try and sell your house!

 

We are terrible to watch. There is very little flair or immagination in our game play. Our performances in the Ufea cup alone have left a lot to be desired as it seems we are tring not to lose rather than win. As for the League Cup final, it was every bit as embarrasing as our away performance against Bremen. No will to win what so ever. defend for your lives and hope to get a lucky break, which we did on a few occasions throughout the match.

 

Now im not ungrateful for where we are at the moment but I will say that i am being bored to death with every game that goes by. Our standard and Quality of play is well below what i would call Rangers class. We have the personell to play more attractive football but we choose not to. We have the ability to be better an i certainly hope walter changes his ways fast. You can only grind out so many results in one season and i think weve had our fill already.

 

we can and really should be a lot better.

[Wija 0]

In short, No.... and never should get so big headed that we think we are.

[calscot 0]

After being rubbish to watch as well as easy to beat in the last couple of years, I'll gladly take rubbish to watch and hard to beat.

 

The standard of play may not be up there with Barcalona, but I'm not going to pretend we have anywhere near their resources and think of Rangers as the Catalans' peers.

 

There are actually few teams in the world that play wonderful football while winning everything going and Barcelona's long list of managers is testament to that fact.

 

I defy any Rangers fan to show me a season where we played fantastic football in every game, as I don't remember even coming close. We have played excellent football in many games, but every season has had many boring, ugly games.

 

Even in latter years of 9IAR, the footballing plaudits went to Celtic under Burns - but would you have swapped places? Do you want Burns as Scotland manager so we can play fancy football and get gubbed every game?

 

I think I know the answers to those questions.

 

People criticise our tactics in Europe but Smiths last spell showed us that nobody likes attacking football when you lose all the time. He's learned from that and I think it's time some of our fans did too.

 

I could understand more if we were on another 9IAR run and Smith had 8 years to get his team and tactics sorted. But does a starving man complain about tastiness of wholesome food when it suddenly comes in abundance?

 

For me winning is the most important thing and I realise that these days (and pretty much always), a club like Rangers are going to have to be pragmatic.

 

The only thing I ask is that most of the time, that we win deterministically ie we play in a way that makes winning look inevitable rather than the fraught, nail biting and often lucky seeming wins we had under Eck when he won the league on Helicopter Sunday and qualified for the last 16 of the CL.

 

With today's finances, if you really want beautiful football, I really think you must be supporting the wrong team.

 

Most of us don't get to marry Milla Jovovich lookalikes, so we can't complain when our wives or girlfriends are less good looking than movie stars or models.

And when you love them you have to put up with the times when they look a bit rough.

 

However, when your wife or GF is considered the best catch in town, what is there to complain about, really?

 

I'm sure that Rangers will improve in the next few years under WS - unless there are unknown negative factors, but there is a chance that we may have to accept that this is as good as it gets...

 

Enjoy it before the next inevitable trophy drought comes before we know it.

[scooter657 0]

I agree that we should be playing better but wouldnt you rather play boring and get results or play like Arsenal and get hee-ho?

[calscot 0]

As another point, I feel I watched hell of a lot of enjoyable games this season - maybe more for looking like we're inevitably going to win as I mentioned earlier. It's been the most enjoyable since the treble about five years ago. #

 

There have also been some fantastic games - like Lyon away and Celtic and Bremen at home.

 

There's been some very poor games, but not really that many. Maybe too many for our liking, but are Celtic any better? Not from what I've seen - the opposite in fact. And Celtic have been like that for a good few years.

 

Basically, I don't think it's as bad as some people are making out. We're in short, bad spell, but just before we had a short good spell.

 

Is it not just the ups and downs of football?

[stewarty 1,876]

Its great that were top of the league, league cup winners, in the quarters of the Uefa cup and still in the Scottish cup. In fact you would have bitten your own hand off for that lot at the start of the season. all so soon after the disasterous moonbeam era of Paul leguen.

 

But i have to ask, Should we be taking a bit more pride in the quality of our game play? To watch Rangers at the moment you need a skin like a rhino to see the game through, in fact if walter & co turned up to play in your back garden you would try and sell your house!

 

We are terrible to watch. There is very little flair or immagination in our game play. Our performances in the Ufea cup alone have left a lot to be desired as it seems we are tring not to lose rather than win. As for the League Cup final, it was every bit as embarrasing as our away performance against Bremen. No will to win what so ever. defend for your lives and hope to get a lucky break, which we did on a few occasions throughout the match.

 

Now im not ungrateful for where we are at the moment but I will say that i am being bored to death with every game that goes by. Our standard and Quality of play is well below what i would call Rangers class. We have the personell to play more attractive football but we choose not to. We have the ability to be better an i certainly hope walter changes his ways fast. You can only grind out so many results in one season and i think weve had our fill already.

 

we can and really should be a lot better.

 

I have personally tried to be less critical of our playing style given the number of games we have played, and still have to play for that matter.

 

It wont stop me from criticising when necessary but I accept that substance is better than style at this time of the season.

[craig 5,195]

It is easy to say "I will take being boring to watch but hard to beat" but when someone has forked out 400 quid to sit through that I can see why they dont renew their season tickets.

 

I couldnt understand Gav not renewing his ticket this season but.... having only been able to get to 2 matches this season (Gretna at home - played very poorly but won 4-0 and last night) I can see why people are so disgruntled.

 

For me being at 2 games a season (which is lucky for me) negates the quality - but for someone having to watch that abject pish for 90 minutes at least 20 times a season ???? They deserve medals to go through it.

 

Yes, maybe we are hard to beat but boring to watch - should that lessen the demands of the fans that the players put on more of a show ? Rangers have such little imagination on the field of play that it is beyond frustrating to watch.

 

Calscot, there have been plenty of poor games. I think you would be hard pushed for the good games to outweigh the bad ones. Fans arent asking for us to be world beaters but we are creating very little.

 

On the way home last night we were talking about it and as a neutral, if you didnt know which team was the SPL team, after the game you would have said the team in red and yellow. Thistle played with more tempo, more enthusiasm, played better football, better movement and created better chances.

 

Surely with the wealth of "talent" we have at our disposal we should be the ones pushing in that way.

 

There was very, very little by way of flair, creativity and imagination on display from us.

 

Now, to play devils advocate... yes, I still would take boring but hard to beat over full of flair but constantly struggling for results. But I also understand the frustration from fans being subjected to these awful performances and, make no mistake, last night was ABYSMAL.

[nokiss 0]

Agree with you 100% mate. Unfortunately gisabeer, there seems to be a general consensus of 'we're winning, what are you moaning about? amongst alot of Gers fans at the moment( which is their entitlement of course ).

 

Criticism of form, team selections, tactics and a heart felt plea for all round improvement, which is eminently achievable IMO, seems to be met with a level of derision that it almost leaves you feeling guilty about having that opinion in the first place.

 

Don't anybody get me wrong, i'm over the big red, white and blue moon about where we are at the moment, well, results wise anyway, but we've been riding our luck so much this season it's untrue.

 

This luck isn't going to last forever. Vast improvement is needed(IMO)by players and management alike. Getting by isn't enough for me. I want us to move forward with performances laden with pride and passion, not with questionable loyalty and caution.

 

NO SURRENDER........THE HIGH STANDARDS LOYAL!!!!!

[ian1964 10,390]

I am happy the way we are playing in general because WS is so early in his rebuilding.I am confident that we will keep improving with continual additions to the playing staff as i'm sure WS will keep looking to add quality to the team every season,as he doesn't need me to tell him that we are by no means the finished article.While I believe it is every fans right to be critical I do think a lot of it is OTT,especially when individual players get singled out,because for me it's a team game and the one thing that no-one can deny is that this squad has a special bond,now we all know it takes more than a special bond to be a great team,but it's a fantastic base to build on,and to be fair WS has hardly been back in hot seat 5 minutes.I happen to think the man has done a tremendous job so far.Remember when we start winning the expectations rise and along with that so does the pressure.I'll just finish by saying well done Walter and keep heading in the direction you are going.WATP.

[Wija 0]

All pi55 and wind. Answer the question ladies!