Expectations this season

[Moody Blue Legend 61,571]

3 league games in and we're 5 points worse off than my expectations already.  Buckle up........

[cushynumber 25,178]

I think our defense has improved from last year as has our midfield - particularly the centre/right. However, If we are going to do anything this year, we have to sign a quality striker because goals win games. Thats going to cost money - but it will be the difference between a good season and a season of numbing mediocrity imho. A quality striker in this league would make a huge difference to us.

Giving Miller another contract was a big mistake so I would also release Krancjar and Miller if possible, in order to free up some more wages and bring in Moult and 1 other player - a creative midfielder - as cover/replacement. 

 

My expectations for this year if we do that would be reasonably high - push for the league and a cup would be reasonable asks with some luck. However, if we dont do that, then I literally have no real expectation of us doing anything. Teams will follow Hearts model when they come and sit in and we will drop points. We have made some progress in areas , but now we need to go the extra yard and augment the team with a quality main striker

[Don54 25,548]

I was expecting 2nd place, a lot closer to the scum than last season and at least 1 cup win, my expectations were reduced to zero around 16:50 yesterday. If the board don't admit they have fucked up big time appointing Pedro as manager I honestly don't know what to expect, a record home defeat to the scum, losing to the sheep at Ibrox for the first time in 26 years, dropped 10 points from 30 after he took over last season, fucked out of Europe by a team of part-timers and the poor start to this seasons league campaign dropping 5 points at home and scraping a win at Motherwell . His Managerial record to date ( all clubs ) Played 248  Won 104  Drawn 64  Lost 80. As I said my expectations are non existent now, but there is always hope no matter what the odds are. If you do nothing else in life Pedro, prove me wrong. 

[Blue Avenger 22,567]

18 minutes ago, K.A.I said:

Mate I like you but I think you need a wee break for your own sanity.

You know I can't stand this board the same as yourself and the buck ultimately stops with them, but why can't you just come into a thread and debate the merits of the football and management side of things for what it is rather than sounding like a broken record with the board being mentioned or implied in almost every single line? ... go into the boardroom and say all that and you'd have fair points but you are conflating things, taking the heat off Pedro with half-truth narrative like Pedro's tactics, training sessions, subs, signings, press conferences, style of play is the fault of the board.

There's faults all round from top to bottom in our club but we need a change of manager. You know this deep down and I think you got in way too deep defending Pedro in previous weeks you need to shout moon howlers and board this and that to remove yourself from vocally backing the wrong horse.

Because another manager will not sort this within the current financial constraints.

It would just be another manager, raised hopes, followed by disappointment, weeping and wailing like the broken record and repeat.

I still want Pedro to succeed, but success for this club under this board equals second and if he achieves that he is a success. That's the big picture under this board and I have accepted that. Just a pity we continue to for scapegoats, whilst ignoring the elephant in the room.

I have no problem with PC's tactics. I do have an issue with selections as in Fod, Tav, Wallace, and Miller. The first two I always have had the problem with and now Wallace and Miller have shown they no longer have it. That's my only issue. Sort that, everything else takes care of itself IMHO, asides from beating the scum, which we have very little chance of doing for the foreseeable, but it will not be as a consequence of a poor manager. They have much better quality, end of.

My sanity is fine, but no apologies to the moon howlers, they can can remain malcontent they refuse to do big picture, because we are never going to take this title now or in the near future.

As for loyalty as a fan base, forget it. Ronny bhoy had much better to the bitter end and he was the worst I have ever witnessed. We just don't know who the fuck we are anymore, surrounded with more knee jerkers than a thousand prosseys

[Reformation Bear 6,453]

It's a long post so skip over to the next post if you'd prefer to.    

For affordability reasons I don't expect King and the Directors to replace Pedro and his management team this year unless we find ourselves in the bottom six around Nov / Dec time where, if that happens, it would be clear to even King and the Directors that a crisis was upon them which could not be ignored. The Support would be likely to be in the most vocal uproar possible if that sort of league position were becoming a reality.   Money would just have to be found to implement an urgent managerial fix. 

Assuming that will not be the case I expect King to give Pedro until the end of the first half of the season and after the 2nd OF game to show that he has a team that is delivering what he said it would do - be much better and much more competitive than last season and still in close enough contention for the title and if that proves too much this season to be getting results that indicate that a strong second is likely.   

If first half of the season results show that Pedro is not in that territory then my expectation is King will be putting some very pointed questions to him to establish what he is going to be doing to reach the objectives by the end of the season.  If King is not convinced then my expectation is, like the Warburton situation, machinery will be put in motion to start to replace Pedro in time for next season.   My expectation if King loses confidence in Pedro is that Pedro will then do a Warburton and engineer his departure. 

On the pitch we are already playing catch up, and not just with the other lot.   I don't see enough from Pedro's teams to indicate we can go on decent winning runs to close those gaps..  Like the Warburton teams of last season we just do not get enough goals and do not have enough quality in the team to get enough goals.   For that reason it seems to me we will repeat last season and ship points and fail to get enough wins.   Mid table is the prospect that then awaits us this season.    That surely is not going to be good enough for King.   The only question would then be at what point does he pull the plug on Pedro because the likely furore from the Support would not be something even King would be prepared to bear.  Either that or the self-pride in Pedro makes him realise he could not do what he said he'd be doing and leaves of his own accord.  

If Pedro fails to produce a much better and more competitive team than last season then no excuses would - or should - be acceptable.    King and the directors are bound to be drawn far more into the firing line even though they are bound to try to distance themselves from Pedro's failings.    I'd expect a central question to start to be put to King and his directors that after 2 efforts to get a competent managerial team in place that can produce a proper competitive title-challenging Rangers side.  Have they then proved to everyone that this is as far as they can take Rangers and its time to see if there are others out there who can provide more and better investment and better leadership of the Club?

Then again, the reality could well be that Board heads are kept down and voices kept silent, and team / manager performance issues skated over as just a season-adjustment blip at the AGM with the vague promise that next year will be better.   With the outcome being that this time next season Pedro will still be at Ibrox selecting the team and fielding press conferences with more talk of moments and transitions and training well and overloads and so on.   The Board having learned to tolerate the results, resist calls for change and be settled into a belief that its a number of seasons before a properly competitive Rangers side emerges.......with the additional hope that they are still directors when that happens.      I expect the Board to be prepared to wait for some future season before we emerge as properly competitive whereas a fair bit of the Support want that a great deal sooner.   Something will have to give. 

[1872Rangers1872 32]

i want more time to judge this manager

in warburtons first ten league games we won four drew four and lost two.

i believe we will improve on this

[billscott 2,463]

2 hours ago, ScotBear said:

Agreed, unfortunate as it is.

 

Thats why I don't understand the severity of the reaction in these early league games. 

the writing was on the wall with the manager last season while it is still early  i have not been impressed with his foreign players maybe with exception of alves  what i am not impressed with is his tactical nous  which i think is nil  we will not go forward under the present manAGER sorry to say that  but i believe that is the reality

[Smile 26,610]

5 minutes ago, seville calculators said:

i want more time to judge this manager

in warburtons first ten league games we won four drew four and lost two.

i believe we will improve on this

We won eleven league games on the Trot.

[theclothmonster 1,709]

4 minutes ago, Blue Avenger said:

Because another manager will not sort this within the current financial constraints.

It would just be another manager, raised hopes, followed by disappointment, weeping and wailing like the broken record and repeat.

I still want Pedro to succeed, but success for this club under this board equals second and if he achieves that he is a success. That's the big picture under this board and I have accepted that. Just a pity we continue to for scapegoats, whilst ignoring the elephant in the room.

I have no problem with PC's tactics. I do have an issue with selections as in Fod, Tav, Wallace, and Miller. The first two I always have had the problem with and now Wallace and Miller have shown they no longer have it. That's my only issue. Sort that, everything else takes care of itself IMHO, asides from beating the scum, which we have very little chance of doing for the foreseeable, but it will not be as a consequence of a poor manager. They have much better quality, end of.

My sanity is fine, but no apologies to the moon howlers, they can can remain malcontent they refuse to do big picture, because we are never going to take this title now or in the near future.

As for loyalty as a fan base, forget it. Ronny bhoy had much better to the bitter end and he was the worst I have ever witnessed. We just don't know who the fuck we are anymore, surrounded with more knee jerkers than a thousand prosseys

Stick with the current manager and the likelihood is we wont compete with the sheep let alone the scum. Just because there is a lot wrong at the top of the club doesn't mean you don't try and fix the stuff further down. Completely disagree with you about Pedro tactically, he has proven himself to be slow at reacting to what's going on the pitch and actually impeding the performance with his baffling subs and selections. Yes the scum are miles ahead financially and a competent manager doesn't change that but a competent manager would put us out of the sheeps reach given the budget differences between us, Pedro isn't going to do that. Just don't see people wanting to come in with investment and rid us of this board while we are bumbling from embarrassment to embarrassment.

[Brian Fantana 28,894]

The reality under Pedro is that we finish third and battle Aberdeen and Hibs all the way. 

 

In all honesty I would not be surprised if Pedro's ousted and McCoist comes back, this board are fucking clueless. 

[The Specky Forum Organiser 65,025]

52 minutes ago, Blue Avenger said:

Expectations at the start of last season, this season and every other season whilst this board remain in power and underfund a challenge to the scum, then it's second at best.

We fund managers and players of mediocrity. Journeymen who will never take us to a title.

The scum manager and his team are miles ahead of us and another cool 26mil in the piggy bank after the 5-0 drubbing of Astana.

10iar beckons and they will do it in a canter unless we provide funds to match the fans ambitions.

Anyone who thinks otherwise, is either a king rimmer or sorely deluded.

Bad fucking day when we are all arguing about being second and missing the big picture, as we should be demanding first from this and any other board. However, that being the case, the board have us where we want us, second and jam tomorrow and then hope they have cashed in and done a runner before the 10iar season.

We are mugs, but we brought this on ourselves and I have never seen so many weep and wail like fucking wanes as they deny the reality and deflect to another manager of mediocrity, but no worries, McInnes will sort it. Maybe even big Eck. Aye, if yer oan the glue!

Why do you find this situation funny?

Every post you make about us struggling has some sort of laughing emoticon. You're a fucking embarrassment.

[Bigsasasfloppyhair 13,310]

Realistically second place but on current form it'll be a shift.

[1872Rangers1872 32]

38 minutes ago, Smile said:

We won eleven league games on the Trot.

if you had taken the time to look at warburtons premier league record  for his first ten games last year then it is as stated in my post four wins four draws and two defeats

make sure and do you're research when you are attempting to take the piss

[Smile 26,610]

26 minutes ago, seville calculators said:

if you had taken the time to look at warburtons premier league record  for his first ten games last year then it is as stated in my post four wins four draws and two defeats

make sure and do you're research when you are attempting to take the piss

That's not what you said though.

1 hour ago, seville calculators said:

i want more time to judge this manager

in warburtons first ten league games we won four drew four and lost two.

i believe we will improve on this

3

This is what you said above, so my post was 100% accurate.

[Number5 2,122]

A realistic aim for this season was to get a grip on this league. To actually be smashing teams each week, 2 or 3 goals.

Must have watched nearly every game last season and very rarely were we by far the better.

Need to get back to being totally dominant in at least 8/10 games we play. 

The gap between us and the fenians needs to be smaller than us and the sheep etc. 

[Blue Avenger 22,567]

1 hour ago, Reformation Bear said:

It's a long post so skip over to the next post if you'd prefer to.    

For affordability reasons I don't expect King and the Directors to replace Pedro and his management team this year unless we find ourselves in the bottom six around Nov / Dec time where, if that happens, it would be clear to even King and the Directors that a crisis was upon them which could not be ignored. The Support would be likely to be in the most vocal uproar possible if that sort of league position were becoming a reality.   Money would just have to be found to implement an urgent managerial fix. 

Assuming that will not be the case I expect King to give Pedro until the end of the first half of the season and after the 2nd OF game to show that he has a team that is delivering what he said it would do - be much better and much more competitive than last season and still in close enough contention for the title and if that proves too much this season to be getting results that indicate that a strong second is likely.   

If first half of the season results show that Pedro is not in that territory then my expectation is King will be putting some very pointed questions to him to establish what he is going to be doing to reach the objectives by the end of the season.  If King is not convinced then my expectation is, like the Warburton situation, machinery will be put in motion to start to replace Pedro in time for next season.   My expectation if King loses confidence in Pedro is that Pedro will then do a Warburton and engineer his departure. 

On the pitch we are already playing catch up, and not just with the other lot.   I don't see enough from Pedro's teams to indicate we can go on decent winning runs to close those gaps..  Like the Warburton teams of last season we just do not get enough goals and do not have enough quality in the team to get enough goals.   For that reason it seems to me we will repeat last season and ship points and fail to get enough wins.   Mid table is the prospect that then awaits us this season.    That surely is not going to be good enough for King.   The only question would then be at what point does he pull the plug on Pedro because the likely furore from the Support would not be something even King would be prepared to bear.  Either that or the self-pride in Pedro makes him realise he could not do what he said he'd be doing and leaves of his own accord.  

If Pedro fails to produce a much better and more competitive team than last season then no excuses would - or should - be acceptable.    King and the directors are bound to be drawn far more into the firing line even though they are bound to try to distance themselves from Pedro's failings.    I'd expect a central question to start to be put to King and his directors that after 2 efforts to get a competent managerial team in place that can produce a proper competitive title-challenging Rangers side.  Have they then proved to everyone that this is as far as they can take Rangers and its time to see if there are others out there who can provide more and better investment and better leadership of the Club?

Then again, the reality could well be that Board heads are kept down and voices kept silent, and team / manager performance issues skated over as just a season-adjustment blip at the AGM with the vague promise that next year will be better.   With the outcome being that this time next season Pedro will still be at Ibrox selecting the team and fielding press conferences with more talk of moments and transitions and training well and overloads and so on.   The Board having learned to tolerate the results, resist calls for change and be settled into a belief that its a number of seasons before a properly competitive Rangers side emerges.......with the additional hope that they are still directors when that happens.      I expect the Board to be prepared to wait for some future season before we emerge as properly competitive whereas a fair bit of the Support want that a great deal sooner.   Something will have to give. 

I get all that you say, but it is all based on coming in second, which I believe is wrong and should be all about coming in first. Coming in second puts little pressure on this board to change anything, particularly when we witness 10iar looming for the scum and 55 being achieved by them before us.

This board get an easy ride and we truly have forgotten who we are and what we should be all about.

 

[Bad Robot 21,279]

I would usually expect us to win every season but to be perfectly honest I'm fucking gutted and I expect we won't this league for years never mind this season.

its tragic beyond words 

[gazza27 15,283]

1 hour ago, seville calculators said:

if you had taken the time to look at warburtons premier league record  for his first ten games last year then it is as stated in my post four wins four draws and two defeats

make sure and do you're research when you are attempting to take the piss

Hardly taking the piss he was stating a fact

[BlueMexican 204]

I hope not but the reality is we will be lucky to beat Aberdeen to 2nd.

Tims will win the league by 25 points plus again and won't lose more than 1 game in my opinion. They are strong and it's the biggest gap I have seen between us and them.

I remember thinking when Ecks team was up against MON's was worrying but we held our own in moments.

I really can see us getting pumped in all 4 league games. We don't know what to do if we lose the first goal.

People may say the tims aren't great and point to some games this season but remember just like us they will raise their game on the day. We need to bring in 4 more players. They get Roberts and dembele will return. I fear the worst. Sad times.

The no surrender boys will no doubt have something to say about this but it is how it will end up. Happy to be proved wrong.

[Bluepeter9 5,167]

4 hours ago, ScotBear said:

I'd like to get a firmer idea as to what your expectations are this season as it would make it easier to understand some of the early reaction on here.

 

Obviously we want to win the league. But if we don't, is that curtains for Pedro ?

 

Or is 2nd place the acceptable minimum, perhaps combined with being a lot closer to Celtic ?

 

In our 04/05 season we dropped points in 3 of out first 5 league games and finished 1st.

 

In 09/10 we drew league games 4,5 and 6 0-0.....and finished 1st.

 

So history shows dropping points in the early league games need not be terminal to success. And that was in seasons when the expectation to win was surely greater. 

 

So if we are hoping for 1st but realistically looking for at least a strong showing in second.....why are we panicking after just 3 league games ? To the point of asking for the managers head.

 

I understand if you didn't want Pedro in the first place. I get if you wanted him to go at the end of last season. But we didn't get rid, we kept him and backed him to bring in the right players....and so far I'd suggest the majority look to have improved our squad with more work hopefully to be done before the window closes.

 

The results might not be what we hoped so far this season but it's too early to pass final judgements on Pedro and his newly assembled squad. 

Good post and the point about why panic well made 

[Ger_onimo 20,488]

4 minutes ago, BlueMexican said:

I hope not but the reality is we will be lucky to beat Aberdeen to 2nd.

Tims will win the league by 25 points plus again and won't lose more than 1 game in my opinion. They are strong and it's the biggest gap I have seen between us and them.

I remember thinking when Ecks team was up against MON's was worrying but we held our own in moments.

I really can see us getting pumped in all 4 league games. We don't know what to do if we lose the first goal.

People may say the tims aren't great and point to some games this season but remember just like us they will raise their game on the day. We need to bring in 4 more players. They get Roberts and dembele will return. I fear the worst. Sad times.

The no surrender boys will no doubt have something to say about this but it is how it will end up. Happy to be proved wrong.

How are you still here?

[Gazza2258 478]

I can understand every Rangers supporters' heart wanting to win the league, and nothing less.

Then, once you allow yourself to be realistic, I think 2nd should have been and still should be our aim for this season.  We were shite last year and got 3rd, we have a stronger squad this year so it has to be 2nd.  Personally, I think Aberdeen are stronger this year than last, so it was always going to be a battle. 

Although far from happy with the start, its only 3 games in.  I am still realistically hoping we can get 2nd, but a few wee doubts creeping in and if we don't sort our goal scoring out soon, ie, next game ideally, we are going to be too far behind and leave ourselves with too much to do post Xmas.  

[BlueMexican 204]

Just now, Ger_onimo said:

How are you still here?

It's called being honest.

You want me to say it's all good we will win the league or pump the tims in a few weeks time? We have been pumped out of Europe by postmen and can't beat hearts or hivs at home. Motherwell was ok first half but we got away with 3 points.

It's called being realistic. Too many of our fans have blue specs on and don't realise where we are.

[Ger_onimo 20,488]

5 minutes ago, BlueMexican said:

It's called being honest.

You want me to say it's all good we will win the league or pump the tims in a few weeks time? We have been pumped out of Europe by postmen and can't beat hearts or hivs at home. Motherwell was ok first half but we got away with 3 points.

It's called being realistic. Too many of our fans have blue specs on and don't realise where we are.

Obvious taig is obvious.

[1872Rangers1872 32]

1 hour ago, Smile said:

That's not what you said though.

This is what you said above, so my post was 100% accurate.

no if you had looked at the premier league record of warburton in season 2016/2017 you would have found that he had two defeats four wins and four draws in his first ten games

you were just trying to take the piss and failed,

do you're research

this is my last word on this bye now