[Reality Check]

We need defenders and players perhaps with the potential that Whittaker or Naismith had when they joined us, in order to add to our squad. I don't think this years the year to be looking for the Jelavic's of the world. Depth and quality for the future is more important. We do not have the money to bring in 2 or 3 big name players and have the squad to cope with the demands of playing a long season in europe/domestically.

There is a fine line between success and failure, but no amount of money spent will ever guarantee anything. (advocaat and smiths last years) We do need to invest, but on the terms and deals that suit us, we don't want panic buys, we want the right players here at the right price. We need to play hard ball in order to do that!

[Transfer Policy]

Got to remember too the players that come here shouldn't be coming here for the big bucks.. that's the good thing about signing players from the uk... they know what it means to be playing for us.

[Reality Check]

Ok we've been taken over... but there's still a load of criticism about our transfer dealings... I think people need to understand that craig whyte is not going to back us with billions in the transfer market, we have to be prudent and sign people who we can see making a massive impact or have a great re-sale value. Regardless of both of those things, we cannot offer ridiculous wages as if the player flops we're stuck with him on our wage bill.

I'm more than happy for us to be going after the lee wallace's of the world and leave the freddie ljungbergs and olivier kapo's to go over the road. If we weren't taken over we would have had to sell players and replace them with inferior ones. This takeover has allowed us to add to our squad and offer existing players new deals. Be happy! Some of our signings will work others won't lets just judge them when they arrive at the brox and leave super and co to get their targets.

Im delighted to see rangers playing hard ball in the transfer market its the first time we've done it and if it means we remain debt free lets keep it this way. To me breaking even is much more important than winning the league, I never want to see us in a mess of debt again. I have confidence that craig whytes strategy will allow us to do both in that we will make signings and both compete for the league (never any guarantees about winning it) & hopefully make a profit.

The attitude of lets throw money at wages and transfer fees will only get us in trouble. We need to offer the correct amount of money for each target and if they choose not to come here so be it... at least when one does accept our terms and join us... we'll know he really wants to play for the rangers!

[The Rangers Bid For Lee Wallace]

Can't believe the negativity i'm reading about him, he's played for his country, the year before last some would argue he was better than papac at spl level. Craig Levein who managed paul dixon at dundee utd... picked lee wallace over him for scotland. he's young and he's scottish and he's much better going forward than papac.

I think it would be great to have 2 quality left backs in our ranks. The only gamble for me is his injury other than that he's got just as much potential as the likes of whitts, naisy & thomson when we signed them... this is a great piece of business in my eyes, around a million quid would be ideal!

[Bursaspor]

I had a wee chuckle at bursaspor's team for next season haha! for about 15 million we might consider selling them :kerkar:

Other than that they can do one! Outside of Celtic, Aberdeen & Marseille.. Bursaspor are fast becoming my most hated team right now! They have a real fear of putting in a respectable bid for any of our players don't they!

I hear there next offer for Whitts is gonna be a tin of heinz beans, half a pack of jaffa cakes & a tin of strongbow! You heard it here first!

[Just me?]

I wrote an article saying I wasn't too fussed we'd missed out on them! Looks like we've probably missed out on vaughan too and as much as I rate him I think we'd end up chucking him out on the left anyway! I wrote that I didnt think Conway was much better than Wylde and Wylde will improve, glad we didn't sign him, I think we need to add to the squad but I think midfields one of our strongest areas, If we are to add width i think we can do better than craig conway.

That said a degree of realism is needed if we start with the same back 5, naismith, mcculloch, ness, davis, jela, laff. I wont be too bothered! I don't expect any jelavic type signings this year, we need to add a few player of decent quality to the squad, but we've been spoilt in years gone by, this is not the advocaat, walter smith (1st time round) era's where we'll bring in 8-10 players. 3-5 tops I reckon and its more important we get the right people in rather than rush transfers through!

[Transfer Policy]

A lot of complaints about it so far in that we've not made a signing and it appears that at least 3 targets have slipped through our hands. Vaughan, Conway & Hemed all seem to have turned us down but I for one am not too angry about how we've gone about these. Yes we've gone public, but that is no bad thing as for me.... these players were already attracting a lot of interest and would have had offers regardless, I don't think going public damaged our chances of getting any of them.

Out of the 3, Vaughans the one I feel would have offered the most quality & would have improved on what we have here already, bit worried that if we got him we'd have stuck him out on the left anyway and for me he's wasted there. Hemed looked decent and would have offered a good alternative to what we already have up front, but he's untested in scotland and has only really had 1 full season of success in israel, It was going to be a gamble anyway, I'm sure if you watch clips of Morten Rasmussen on youtube he probably looks alright and he hasn't set the heather alight across the road, So not fussed at all. Conway I was never bothered about to be honest, at first I thought free transfer would be a decent signing, but we already have Wylde do we really need Conway too, Is he that much greater in quality than Wylde? Plus Wylde will improve if he gets game time, signing Conway would have limited that. We need quality over quantity.

My feeling is davie weir is here for another year, otherwise Ally would have made a cb his first target. Either that or there's something already in the pipeline for someone else but to be honest I don't think we're close to signing Cuellar, Wilson or Bartley yet. (would love to be wrong on that) If Super brings in a player who hasn't played a while I think its important they get a full pre season under there belts with us.

Another hunch I have is that we might start the season with James Beattie in our squad.. you'll know how much I back all current rangers players when you read the next bit... his first year here was a disaster, he looked slow and sluggish but then so did Kris Boyd. If James Beattie remains a rangers player (i.e no one will take him) and I was Ally I'd have a word with James and say ok fresh start go out and show me what you can do. I'd then stick him on the bench and play Laff & Jela & bring him on for a few games n see what kind of impact he has with a full pre-season behind him. If it still doesn't work out I'd tear up his deal. If he does leave I won't shed any tears.

Hopefully John Brown & Neil Murray can unearth 1 or 2 gems from further afield but if there's one thing to be learned from Walter Smith it's all about getting the right players in, both McCleish and Le Guen dived into the transfer marked face first and bought a lot of duds where as Walter took his time and brought in the right players for us. Hopefully Ally can do the same and we can get 4IAR in the bag!

[Interesting(-ish) Boogie Interview]

I think Bougherras performances have paid us back If he dissolved his contract id have been annoyed. If he stays here and has another good season (I'm maybe the only one but for me bougherra was still good last season even thought it wasnt his best) and leaves us on a bosman to test himself in the epl, I wont be annoyed at him. For me the guys never hid his desire to play there from day 1 & we all know its the league to be in right now.

So if he doesn't sign a new deal, I think we should try and cash in on him, but if he doesn't go we have another season of boogie to look forward to. We paid a million for Beattie and nobody would be angry at him if he left and we never saw a penny! Boogie does himself no favours by speaking to the press as I think he's an honest guy who just says what he wants and sometimes the press add arms and legs to what he says.

The truth is he loves it here but he knows he needs to move to the premiership soon or it will never happen. As much as Carlos Cuellar was excellent for us (i'd honestly say world class) he did lie to us, bougherra has not done that and has given us 3 great years. I've now forgiven Cuellar because I understand why he left and for that reason i respect why Boogie wants to go. If he does go... all i'd say is thanks for the memories

[Our Fans]

Does anyone else read on here and just think some of our fans are ridiculous. An example i've picked is detailed below

Some fans commenting on Archie Campbell being released and saying its surprising and they think he could maybe have made the bench next year... yet these same fans moan that we haven't made any signings?

Do people not realise that its not possible for us to sign a load of players and keep a load of our senior youth team players? We have to get the balance correct. Also Ally McCoist and Craig Whyte have come out and said that there first priority was to tie down the core of existing squad on longer contracts, This is what they have been doing? Keeping the Nucleus of this squad together is vital. Getting Mcgregor, Whittaker & Davis tied to new deals should be our no1 priority.

Another example i look at is craig conway, some people saying we should sign him and still get another couple of quality wingers. 2 points on that, our moneys only going so far, no point buying players for the hell of it, we need to prioritise and bring in some quality in key areas. If we bring in 2 wingers and conway, that would virtually kill of gregg wylde's chances, which again seems to have been forgotten.

I also have an issue with how many judge our youth, John Fleck 19 years old and people writing him off already, remember Alan Hutton, he turned out alright, I hear that charlie adams done alright down south too! Young players generally take a few years of regular football to settle into a team, flecks no different! By the same token, we should suddenly judge someone by 10-15 games and think that's it they've made it! Im pretty sure Maurice Ross had 10-15 good games (maybe) for rangers and that didn't make him a good player. If we have a first team squad of about 18-20 players plus wylde, fleck, ness, hutton & then if we really require them mcmillan, perry, little & grant adam ( only because he's 3rd choice goalie) that would be ideal for me.

right now we have

gk- Mcgregor, Alexander

def- Bougherra, Whits, Papac, Broadfoot,

mid- Edu, Davis, Naismith, McCulloch,

fw- Jelavic, Lafferty, Beattie

with possibly healy & weir to add to that.

The only player you can see McCoist really not wanting is Beattie, everyone else id expect to be here next year. Beattie will only go if he gets a club, if not we've got to give him the benefit and give him a second chance. Id expect Weir to sign & Healy if Beattie leaves.

so that would leave us with 14 players meaning in my eyes we'd need 5 maybe 6 more.

So for me we'd need (i've mentioned players we've been linked with for the point below)

cb- Bartley (loan or permanent

cb- Wilson/cuellar (loan or permanent)

lb- Wallace

lw/rw- Conway (although Weiss would be ideal)

fw- Hemed

& if we were to add a 6th it would probably be someone like danns, but that would majorly have an impact on the development of hutton, ness, fleck & wylde.

This season will be all about building a squad to challenge not about big marquee signings! Thats how I see us spending our money and I don't think we'll spend 9-10 million, the only way we'll end up spending that is if we miss out on the free transfers of conway, hemed & danns.

Anyway... like it or lump it! That's how we're gonna go next season! Then what whyte has to do in the seasons to come after this one, is back McCoist by trying to try to add a few jelavic, davis style quality players to our squad!

[Ex-Rangers players, any you dislike ?]

A Lot of these surprise me! Gio showed ambition by going to arsenal and we got a great fee for him, no problems with that at all.

Kenny Miller to begin with I was annoyed because I thought going to Bursaspor was a greedy call and I still think that, but I think there was a fair amount of pressure on him to go.

There's no point in talking about the players that flopped here as obviously we don't like them.

so for me

Kris Boyd, scored some amount of goals, but was far too lazy and useless on the ball, the fact he claimed to be a rangers fan and never signed the contract annoyed me.

Jeremy Clement- Paul Le Guens boyfriend can do 1, as soon as le guen left he followed him like a love sick puppy! Had no respect for this club.

Marco Negri- Love those 6 months but everything there after was dismal

Fernando Ricksen- Don't think le guen handled it brilliantly, but ricksens behaviour was unacceptable

Basile Boli - He used to play for my 2nd least favourite team, he's french and he's useless

Sergio Porrini - Hated him, couldn't kick a ball properly and at the time i always thought he was our weak link!

Dave Mcpherson- I only saw the second spell and i just thought he was useless

Gordan Petric- another one i never rated

None of these i can fully hate though as they all had there good moments and i always look for the positives in rangers players.

[A rare memorable game from the PLG era]

There's a lot of nonsense in this thread about plg, blaming various factors which take away from the overall fact that, he wasn't up to the job, the facts are.

1. His results weren't good enough

2. His signing's weren't either, papac & maybe clement apart.

3. The team couldn't defend for love nor money, I'll always remember svensson and hemdani playing at the back & letting the ball bounce over the two of them, cant remember who it was against but it was in europe. Hemdani should never have played centre back.

4. He thought letizi was better than mcgregor

5. He thought sebo was better than boyd (im not even boys biggest fan... but come on!)

6. He fell out with various players (Boyd, Ferguson, Ricksen, Bardsley)

7. He nearly sold novo to coventry

8. He didn't grasp the Scottish culture

9. Didn't trust his Scottish staff

The positives from his spell

1. He gave charlie adam his chance and charlie flourished under plg

2. Some of our attacking football was excellent and at its best was better than what we played under walter

3. He brought Novo back in the team

4. He signed papac

5. He tried to drastically improve our approach to the game, with fitness levels, eating habits

6. he got rid of some deadwood (malcolm, fan-fan, namouchi, kyrgiakos, bernard etc)

That's all I can think of but even the positives i've picked are flawed. Le Guen was not cut out to manage us those are the facts!

[Is Bain Sacked ?]

A lot of these posts are pretty narrow minded, I don't think we'll ever know the full extent of what happens behind closed doors. There's clearly a problem n the Ibrox boardroom but I think the only people that will be leaving for sure, will be Johnston, the Lloyds guy and David Murray's representatives!

If i had to pick some to stay id expect Bain and John Mcclelland will due to the contacts they have and the fact they are highly involved with uefa!

As for the criticisms of both Greig and Jardine, that's not right for me. I would imagine that they are not allowed to discuss club matters publicly and that's why we don't hear too much from them, however their input in the boardroom would be to try and maintain the clubs traditions & to look out for the fans. Who else could come in and represent the club?

[UB & TBO section at Youth Cup Final (Wed 27th)]

To be fair when you consider the current level of youngsters who are in the first team or have been there or there about, we have fleck, little, Ness, Hutton, Cole & Wylde as well as Perry & Mcmillan (who are out on loan and may or may not have a chance). I've also heard a lot of good things about hemmings.

I think if the vast majority of these work out then we should look at finding youngsters that can come in and improve on them! I read that Celtic spent over 500k on there youth team, hardly surprising they won considering that level of investment! I also read that the turncoat McGeough is getting paid 3 grand a week when he re-joins Celtic, he's 17 and never played a first team game!

I'm still confident that we'll keep producing good young players, as if they want a chance to play at first team level, there's a better club in Scotland for the top young players to join!