What is a sackable offence for a Rangers manager?

[calscot 0]

Finishing 5th is a obviously sackable offense.

 

I would say finishing 18pts behind Celtic in third place is a sackable offence.

 

I'd also say being 17 points behind in the league, halfway through the season, out of a cup to a lower division team, and the manager completely losing the dressing room is a sackable offence.

 

Now finishing 3pts behind, winning both cups and getting to the UEFA cup final - is that really in the same ballpark?

 

Five points behind with plenty to play for and still in both cups, is that a sackable offence?

 

Out of Europe at the first attempt is pretty bad but when it's a couple of months after a European final, surely it shouldn't bring the sack?

 

Now I think Walter completely buggered up in the summer, and I don't think he's a brilliant manager who will take us to great heights; but surely he's demonstrated he's a reasonably good manager?

 

He's 3pts in total behind Strachan in his second spell here which isn't the best but not exactly shite. He's won both cups he's entered got to the final of another which is the first time we've done that since 72.

 

You may not agree with his tactics, teamsheets or how we're playing but personal taste for these things by fans are surely irrelevant - a manager just cannot take that into account when he's trying to deliver trophies. He must be judged by results and while Walter hasn't quite delivered what we want - and I would say that's more to do with bad luck than anything else, I can't see how his report card can be an F with so many.

 

B- seems more appropriate. I really think no-one really has earned the right to say he should be sacked until we see what the table looks like at the end of the season.

 

He may not be the best manager around be he looks no worse than Strachan and far better than Le Guen and McLeish. It's no wonder he doesn't take his criticism seriously, would you if you were in his shoes?

 

I don't think the current crisis has to do with Walter's record bar the fact he spent strangely in the summer and that a poor result means the lack of CL football (which is not unusual for RFC) will lead to less cash in the bank.

 

I think the crisis now is about the way the club is being run, where we go from overspending on fringe players to selling off our first team which has a significant chance of negatively affecting our chances in the league and subsequently automatic qualification for the CL. It's financial suicide and incredibly bad running of the club.

 

If we want SDM to listen us we have to stop acting like headless chickens and yeah, get real.

[Gribz 743]

Agree with your post.

 

But id say not winning the title in 2.5 years is a sackable offence for Rangers. If he doesnt win the title this year then under the circumstances he should leave. That is where the tactics and selection argument can come into play. If he wins the league then with baffling selections then so be it - he has still achieved what he has set out to do.

 

Instead of taking us forward from an almost historic season which didnt happen due to hinderences plus a bit of bad management, he has taking strides backwards - that is a crime!!! But he still has 4 months to turn it round.

 

It will be interesting to see what happens if he wins both cups again and only loses out on the league by a tiny margin. But the title was top priority this season.

 

But we arent just talking about the manager. If we dont win the title this season then there is a chance of only 2 titles in a decade which is beyond unacceptable for Rangers IMO considering its a 2 team league - and we have had 4 managers in that time so the buck stops with the Chairman also.

[calscot 0]

I agree he's gone backwards and he really has to pull it out of the bag now. But he can't be judged till the league is won or lost. However, I don't think he's getting the right atmosphere from the fans to help him do it. He's playing with 11 men compared to Celtic's 12.

 

I think our fans have also gone backwards, and we're a pretty crap support at the moment. Our report card is worse than Walter's but not as bad as SDM - the one with the D-.

 

But suppose Walter loses again by a couple of points and wins both cups again? Is being shaded twice really sackable or could he be capable of improving and winning the next 4? After all he would be one point in total ahead of Celtic.

 

I've no idea, but I think his critics are blaming him for the 2 two titles in ten years when it's not actually his fault - and as PLG has shown us, even the best managers around are huge risk.

 

Is competing but losing out by a few points in your first two years while bringing other success demonstrating you can't win next year?

 

Walter certainly has the harshest critics about his job than anyone on this forum has ever had.

 

Like I've said, he's not the best manager around but he's definitely way above average - and I can't think of a better manager right now that would take the job.

[Gribz 743]

 

But suppose Walter loses again by a couple of points and wins both cups again? Is being shaded twice really sackable or could he be capable of improving and winning the next 4? After all he would be one point in total ahead of Celtic.

 

I've no idea, but I think his critics are blaming him for the 2 two titles in ten years when it's not actually his fault - and as PLG has shown us, even the best managers around are huge risk.

 

 

I think it might be a sackable offence considering Celtic are no great side either, in fact they dont impress me 1 bit other than they dont know when to give up in games and play until the 95th minute. Whilst we take the foot off the gas if we go 1 up.

 

The critics should overall lie with the chairman and board. The 4 managers can take blame for individual season. Its by no means WS fault at the turn of the century when Celtic had 1 of the best managers in the Britain - Martin O Neill. You only have to look what he is doing at Villa to see how good he is.

[UCF2008 0]

Celtic are no great side either, in fact they dont impress me 1 bit other than they dont know when to give up in games and play until the 95th minute.

 

That can make all the difference when it comes to winning titles though.

Also, while I don't think we have any reason to respect that mhob never mind fear them, they surely can't be as poor as some fans make them out to be ('The worst Sel'ic side in years etc.') You don't get to the last 16 of the CL two years in a row if you're that bad. Martin O'Neil didn't manage it once. Neither did Advocaat and look at what he's done with a side who IMO are nowhere near as good as the Rangers side he built.

 

TBH I think O'Neil gets too much praise for what he did with Celtic. If it wasn't for that Laarsen bawbag we'd probably have got 15-in-a-row ...at least.

[maineflyer 0]

I don't think the current crisis has to do with Walter's record bar the fact he spent strangely in the summer and that a poor result means the lack of CL football (which is not unusual for RFC) will lead to less cash in the bank.

 

I love the way you spin the truth. I take it "spent strangely" is a euphemism for made a complete arse of it and blew �£10m that we didn't have. Or perhaps you're thinking of the strangeness of getting knocked out of Europe by a bunch of tradesmen and losing our only financial lifeline - BEFORE buying the new players he later said he badly needed - and then announcing in public that "he saw it coming".

 

I think you might be the one who needs to get real when assessing Smith.

[ascender 352]

Its that thing though, only in the SPL is finishing second considered failure.

 

As to being close to Celtic, I find that very disappointing because Celtic have a very poor team at the moment and have had for the last few years. So the fact we still can't catch them reflects very poorly on the job our players & management are doing. Also, look at the SPL over the last while, the other clubs out with Glasgow have closed the gap on us on the park despite having a fraction of the financial resources available to them. Teams are no longer afraid to come to Ibrox and we are there for the taking at the moment imo.

 

Of course WS isn't a bad manager. But he does seem to be making strange decisions as regards his team selection, tactics and transfer spending. Some of these were mistakes he made during his first tenure here.

 

The problem I do have with the current setup is that SDM & WS seem to think they're above questioning or criticism. I posted on this last year when WS got very arrogant during some press conferences when journos asked him some tough questions which we were all debating at the time. He got very annoyed and basically said the fans had no right to question him. When you combine this with SDM's close relationship & friendship with WS, I just think sometimes that's not healthy when it comes to being objective about how things are going.

[maineflyer 0]

Its that thing though, only in the SPL is finishing second considered failure.

 

As to being close to Celtic, I find that very disappointing because Celtic have a very poor team at the moment and have had for the last few years. So the fact we still can't catch them reflects very poorly on the job our players & management are doing. Also, look at the SPL over the last while, the other clubs out with Glasgow have closed the gap on us on the park despite having a fraction of the financial resources available to them. Teams are no longer afraid to come to Ibrox and we are there for the taking at the moment imo.

 

Of course WS isn't a bad manager. But he does seem to be making strange decisions as regards his team selection, tactics and transfer spending. Some of these were mistakes he made during his first tenure here.

 

The problem I do have with the current setup is that SDM & WS seem to think they're above questioning or criticism. I posted on this last year when WS got very arrogant during some press conferences when journos asked him some tough questions which we were all debating at the time. He got very annoyed and basically said the fans had no right to question him. When you combine this with SDM's close relationship & friendship with WS, I just think sometimes that's not healthy when it comes to being objective about how things are going.

Where does the "of course" come from? The evidence seems to suggest that WS isn't a good manager at all.

[ascender 352]

Where does the "of course" come from? The evidence seems to suggest that WS isn't a good manager at all.

 

Because as a manager with us first time round he won a hell of a lot of trophies. He also showed during his tenure with Scotland that he had matured as a manager and was still capable of motivating a group of players and having them all pull in one direction towards a common goal. Last season, he still got us to 3 cup finals and 2nd in the league during a season which was largely hailed as a step in the right direction for the club.

 

You can't just write all that off can you?

[maineflyer 0]

Because as a manager with us first time round he won a hell of a lot of trophies. He also showed during his tenure with Scotland that he had matured as a manager and was still capable of motivating a group of players and having them all pull in one direction towards a common goal. Last season, he still got us to 3 cup finals and 2nd in the league during a season which was largely hailed as a step in the right direction for the club.

 

You can't just write all that off can you?

 

Walter inherited a position of tremendous strength in 1991 and, critically, three or four regulars who did as much to run things on the field as Walter did. He was also blessed with large sums of money to spend on matchwinners who, despite a large number of spectacular failures (Boli, Salenko, Guivarche, Prodan, etc, etc) were of sufficient influence to bail out his lack of tactical ability. When Walter left the club in 1998, it was in disarray. The players who had seen him through his six titles more or less all left and no succession had been put in place to secure the future.

 

But unless I've completely lost my memory, and I haven't, then Walter showed the same inability to develop young talent then as now. The same willingness to play people out of position and no tactical awareness or preparation whatsoever - a fact so eloquently described by Basile Boli who couldn't believe we could approach important European matches with absolutely no discussion of the opposition or tactics to be deployed. And of course you'll all remember Walters wonderful European achievements first time around - no, thought not. The only credit came was when the team that Souness built achieved that run in 1992-93.

 

I wouldn't cite those struggles against Dundee Utd and lowly QoS as evidence of Walter's genius, it would be just too embarrassing. As for Scotland, well nuff said, his legacy strides before him.

 

But in the end it comes down to this. If he's so fukking good, why is he making such an arse of it now. And 50,000 people can see that he is every second week.