johnnieboy

Here's hoping Athletico kick the shit out of them now

Season 1992/1993, me and my mate from Cumnock drove down to Marseille for the match in the Champion's league. The two of us and two French pals were in the Ultras end before the four of us got shifted by the police into the 'cage', where the rest of the Gers supporters were. Considering we were only going for 2 days, we ended up staying near Marseille for a week and I brought home 200 bottles of wine. Expensive match but probably my best ever football memory!!

Fair comments and a good summation of the situation. Hats off to Mr Whyte for declining the big offer(s) for Jelavic. That plus turning down the offers for Whitaker are pretty big statements regarding his intentions for the club. I am now a lot happier than I was concerned last night! WATP

Sorry about this thread because I've just read quite a similar rant on another thread. It just proves what folk are thinking.

I certainly do not want to be negative about Rangers but the financial thing keeps churning around in my head. I used to work for Merchant House Financial Services and I was not impressed with them one iota. So everytime I hear Mr Whyte going on about spending £15 million it gets me thinking again. OK lets put a positive spin on it, we’ve re-signed Whitaker, McGregor, Davis, Wylde on long term deals. We also turned down money for Whitaker. But we couldn’t really have replaced like for like for the same money, so turning that 2 million down was not entirely gracious. That aside, it has to be calculated that season tickets and gate money should be able to sustain the wages on a year to year basis. So if we ignore all of the above, we then look at what has been actually spent so far. He has bought the club for 1p and has taken on the £30 million pound debt. A small price to pay for a club with bricks and mortar like Ibrox and a training facility like Murray park. We have brought in the following players: Wallace £1,496,000 Bocanegra £404,800 Ortiz £396,000 Bedoya £303,000 Goian £748,000 That is a total spend to date of £3,347,800 (figures were taken from this web-site (http://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/en/premier-league/transfers/verein_124_2011.html) And I have no figures for the signing of McKay. We received £1,716,000 for the sale of Boughera and should have received £700,000 (10%) of the Charlie Adam deal. Not counting any appearance money for Danny Wilson at Liverpool, we have taken in £2,416,000. So the net spend so far is £931,800. That’s a long way short of the 5 million and its only 6% of the 15 million he was bragging about. He can’t use the HMRC tax issue as an excuse, because he knew about that when he announced that there was £15million available. Quite honestly a net £5million spend would have done me. If he sells Jelavic then I think there will be a revolt tomorrow.

If you were given 6 months to live what decisions would you make today?

Well big John Greig lasted 5 years as manager and won nothing. We did get to the QFs of the European Cup after beating Juventus and PSV Eindhoven on the way (I was at both home legs!!). On last nights showing I think QFs of a European cup is a long way away, even if Mr Whyte keeps Ally that long.

Never forget Colin Stein's debut hat-trick after signing from Hibs for £100,000. (it was against Arbroath) Btw he scored 8 goals in his first 3 games for the Gers. Absolute legend.

As I mentioned here previously http://forum.rangersmedia.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=196601&st=180&p=1059311731entry1059311731 I totally agree with your assertion that Big Laff is a 'confidence player'. He really is a class act when he is confident. Rangers are a bigger threat to whoever we're playing when he is in the team. The 'confidence' thing is a lot down to us and our reaction from the stands. I seriously think that we affect his game hugely. Maybe we need to employ a psychologist for Laff to make him feel confident all the time or more appropriately, maybe we, the fans, could support him through thick and thin, and then we'll get the very best out of him. Mark my words, if his confidence remains high for the rest of the season then he will be our player of the year this year.

Really looking forward to the game tonight. I don't think we'll sit back and defend like the way Walter used to set us up. I think we'll really go for it right from the kick off. A bit like the way we played against Valencia in the champions league last season would do nicely thankyou!! Really looking forward to watching the new Carlos slotting seamlessly into our defence. Fingers crossed.

Signing the two Americans looks like a good bit of business. I wonder how much influence big Edu had in a. persuading the duo to sign and b. persuading McCoist to sign them?

Cheers bud

I’ve been reading these boards for a long time without ever registering. I went to my first Rangers game in 1961 and was a season ticket holder for about 20 years. I am no longer a season ticket holder but go to as many games as possible. I only registered to this forum today to make some points regarding the harsh criticism of Kyle Lafferty. It has been said many times before that the big lad has been played on the wing out of position. Very true, but I would play anywhere just to get a game for the Gers. Big Kyle is no different because he is a true Rangers fan as well as a player. He also proved that he is not frightened to actually take a player on….which he does regularly. How many of our team actually do that….they nearly all opt for the easy quick pass which keeps the fans off their backs. Big Laff at least has the guts (and the ability btw) to have a go at them. Lets not forget too that he has scored a lot of excellent goals, even whilst playing out of position. He obviously scored a lot more when he moved into the middle of the park. It’s obvious in this forum that the verdict on the big man is split. We need to get behind this big guy, who has undoubted talent. Personally I love watching the big guy. He has more guts that most of the team and he is a very skilful individual. If the fans were to really get behind him, I’m certain he could become a legend. I can well remember when more than 50% of the Rangers support booed Mark Hately when he first came to Ibrox. The bottom line was he was unfit when he arrived. He got no change out of the fans at that stage, but as we all know went on to become a legend. Jonas Thern got booed as well. Again he was unfit. Or was it that the fans knew better. He only played 75 times for Sweden and captained them for 7 years….but he still wasn’t good enough for the boo brigade at Ibrox. It is far too easy to criticise. We are ‘supporters’ after all. I think big Kyle has already proved his worth in my eyes, but I think it won’t be long before the whole support realise just how good the big man certainly is.