RANGERS wonderkid John Fleck has been sensationally axed from the first team squ

[RFC55 109,819]

na fleck is in the brothers bar in possill alot of the time at the weekends! when ive been in hes not been drinking

[Guest therabbitt]

This really doesn't bother me at all. If he's fiesty then brilliant. Yes, it's always going to be a bit of a tightrope with a youngster if they get ahead of themselves, but it seems to me that we are handling him fine.

I'm more worried when young players like Charlie Adam stop trying hard once they are given five year deals, than having a 17 year old player that has the desire and belief to succeed.

Walter Smith can handle John Fleck.

[JR 1,480]

This really doesn't bother me at all. If he's fiesty then brilliant. Yes, it's always going to be a bit of a tightrope with a youngster if they get ahead of themselves, but it seems to me that we are handling him fine.

I'm more worried when young players like Charlie Adam stop trying hard once they are given five year deals, than having a 17 year old player that has the desire and belief to succeed.

Walter Smith can handle John Fleck.

[Polo 1,435]

As they were playing 5-a-side together it sounds like he told him to F off "team-mate to team-mate" rather than "player to assistant manager". That kind of thing surely happens all the time, especially when someone's got a fiercely competitive mentality.

I really hope he doesn't fuck things up for himself with this kind of spat though. Hopefully Walter will sort him out privately and this will be the end of it. Rangers should try their utmost to keep anything like this - and any action taken by the manager - out of the papers. He probably needs a bit of shelter at the moment.

[Muff 245]

wonderkid

Based on what. John Fleck has done nothing. A wonderkid is someone like 17 year old, Jack Wilshere - an absolutely class act with a terrific attitude.

imho we should cash in on Fleck

And get what for him, £250k, because he isn't worth much more than that, if at all!?

[4boysandabaw 3]

I think Fleck will become another wonderkid non-event.

[ibrox52 0]

do not waste your chance fleck

[BlueIsTheColour 35]

wonderkid

Based on what. John Fleck has done nothing. A wonderkid is someone like 17 year old, Jack Wilshere - an absolutely class act with a terrific attitude.

imho we should cash in on Fleck

And get what for him, £250k, because he isn't worth much more than that, if at all!?

I have to say mate, that boy Wilshere is absolutely phenomenal. His maturity is beyond belief for his age. He will be a superstar.

As for this story, it is blown out of proportion as always and some people are daft enough to give the lad stick for it. Two strong charactors get into a heated exchange on the field, big deal. Only tells me that John has alot of heart and hates to lose.

He is a talented young man and is sensible for his age. Those who want us to sell one of our star youngsters are the same ones who slated the club for letting other assets leave. Hypocrites.

[Muff 245]

Until he plays, and in his proper position, we'll never know how good John Fleck is/could be?

[SuperRangers 2]

na fleck is in the brothers bar in possill alot of the time at the weekends! when ive been in hes not been drinking

This is eh truth ive spoke to him a few tiimes anaw when hes been in wae his uncle and hes always on the fresh orange.

[tommy2212 151]

He is a young boy full of spunk with money to burn. He plays for the famous glasgow rangers, he has the world at his feet if he really wants it. If you gave all that to me at 17 i don't know how i could handle it. One thing is for sure it is the club responsibility to guide him through these early years. If the club don't do a good job a talent maybe lost.

Some young boys can handle it, some cant and need guidance.

[AMMS 27]

I was told today that it was the club who put out the story to the sunday papers. Their is genuine concern about Fleck wasting his talent and they hope that a 'public embarrassment' will straighten Fleck out before the season begins. The club have high hopes for him this season and with a paired down squad Fleck is expected to be more than a fringe player. Also apparently one of the tabloids has been preparing a negative piece about some of the company he keeps and the club know about it and have been leaning on the paper to kill the story, expect it to run if/when he becomes a first team regular though.

[Boab 73]

Walter Smith gives the impression that he thinks all young folk should be doing voluntary work and helping old ladies across the street. Maybe even a spot of national service.

There is a slightly disapproving, old-fashioned streak to the Rangers manager when it comes to dealing with young guys. He is not easily impressed by them, not readily convinced of their character and their worth. Smith signs men like Davie Weir, Christian Dailly and Lee McCulloch: straightforward troops who have served their time. He isn't seduced by so-called wonderkids with their agents and their money and their cars and their nightclubs. It's easy to imagine Smith recalling the hardships of his own playing career and muttering: "Christ, the youth of today..."

Smith is 61 now. John Fleck is 17. Since he fully emerged into the Rangers side just seven months ago, Fleck has had no shortage of enthusiastic cheerleaders. He has been lauded as the greatest thing since sliced bread. Scotland's Wayne Rooney. By the time he had made three starts for Rangers - that's right, three - there were calls for him to play for Scotland in the World Cup qualifier against Holland. Denis Law was quoted on how he'd be happy to be usurped by Fleck as Scotland's youngest international since the war.

A teenager's ego can easily swell. It shouldn't come as a surprise if the manager of Rangers now has a boy on his hands who thinks he's owed the world and has no appetite for serving an apprenticeship.

Fleck now has Willie McKay looking after his interests, a big-name agent who deals with big-name players and big-money transfer deals. Having McKay in his corner is a sign of Fleck's status, or at least of the direction in which he hopes and expects his career to go next.

McKay will doubtless have told him he has the talent to make himself a fortune one day in the English Premier League. Maybe he does. Maybe the Scotland caps and the lucrative transfers are an inevitability and Fleck will become every bit the superstar that his entourage and admirers have been claiming.

But where was Scotland's Wayne Rooney last week? Playing for Rangers reserves against Portadown and Glentoran.

That was Smith's idea of taking Fleck down a peg or two. During Rangers' pre-season trip to Germany Fleck swore at assistant manager Ally McCoist in a five-a-side match. That alone suggested there is an element of his temperament which needs to be worked on, but he wasn't packed off to Northern Ireland for that act of angry insubordination. If anything, a single act of cheek towards McCoist would have been less concerning for Rangers. The worry they have with Fleck is a wider one regarding his attitude. They believe he already thinks himself above the traditional chores and duties expected of emerging players around a club.

Even the biggest stars have anecdotes of how they used to muck in as teenagers, cleaning the senior players' boots or washing their flash motors in the car park. Managers subject all their young players to these responsibilities not to punish or humiliate them but to instil a sense of order, respect and discipline. Soon they move up the ladder and it is the turn of the next set of youngsters to take over the dirty work.

Smith and Fleck, these two Rangers men born 43 years apart, have different views about Fleck's current place in the pecking order. Even if it is quickly resolved without festering, as it surely will be, Fleck now has a stained reputation. He is perceived as having an attitude problem, of being a bit of a big-time Charlie.

In his short lifetime so far he has been told he is the best player in his boys' team, his school team, and in every youth team he has graced up to the full Rangers side. Some within Ibrox insist that if he were to play regularly in the hole behind the strikers he would quickly prove himself to be technically the best footballer at the club. That doesn't square with Smith's sparing use of him: he has started only seven matches for Rangers and scored only once in a total of 13 appearances. Smith hardly used him as Rangers won the double.

If he knows what's good for him Fleck will promptly tell the manager he won't be causing him any more problems and will dutifully carry out whatever is asked of him around Ibrox and Murray Park. He may have been seduced by all those whispering in his ear about how wonderful he is but he hasn't heard Smith's voice adding to the chorus of adulation. Smith worked with the genuine article, Rooney, when he was in charge of Everton and on Sunday he watched in quiet admiration as his Rangers team was exposed to the talent of Jack Wilshere, Arsene Wenger's latest protege at Arsenal.

Wilshere scored twice and was voted man of the match, having cruised through a match watched by 56,000 supporters inside the Emirates Stadium. While the English media purred over him and touted him as a potential star at next summer's World Cup finals, Fleck was in Belfast playing against Glentoran for Rangers reserves. And they lost. Wilshere is four months younger than him.

If John Fleck is to continue as Rangers' wonderkid, Smith won't be the only one wondering what happens next.

http://www.theherald.co.uk/sport/headlines...lecks_court.php

[Boab 73]

I was told today that it was the club who put out the story to the sunday papers. Their is genuine concern about Fleck wasting his talent and they hope that a 'public embarrassment' will straighten Fleck out before the season begins. The club have high hopes for him this season and with a paired down squad Fleck is expected to be more than a fringe player. Also apparently one of the tabloids has been preparing a negative piece about some of the company he keeps and the club know about it and have been leaning on the paper to kill the story, expect it to run if/when he becomes a first team regular though.

Interesting stuff.

[Creampuff 22,628]

I'm scared he'll become nothing.

He has potential, but still has to prove everything.

[RFC55 109,819]

This is eh truth ive spoke to him a few tiimes anaw when hes been in wae his uncle and hes always on the fresh orange.

glad someone on here goes in or i coulda looked daft lol!

You gone to the night in there on the 28th of this month mate

[Boab 73]

JOHN FLECK has reached a very important stage in his fledgling career.

However, I couldn't help but watch the Emirates Cup decider and admire the performance and professionalism of Arsenal's Jack Wilshere who, at 17, is the same age as the Rangers youngster.

In a sense, it is a shame that Fleck, unlike Wilshere, does not have the opportunity to develop alongside other stars of his age in a pressure-free environment before breaking into the first team permanently when he is ready.

But at the Old Firm there is always pressure and, in football, the one thing you can't do as a kid is have a go at the managerial staff.

It can show self-belief and confidence to mouth off at a senior professional and demand the ball, but shouting at coaching staff who are only trying to further your development is the last thing you do.

Obviously I was a teenager at Rangers, albeit in a completely different era, with different values, but the one bit of advice I got from the old heads in the dressing room was to do what I was told.

So, when the coaching staff spoke, DJ jumped.

Fleck is a great talent and he has the attributes to go all the way and, although I am not privy to exactly what he said to Ally McCoist in Germany, he has done himself no favours.

For me, there is no-one better qualified to give Fleck the kind of advice he needs at this stage than Ally.

It may well be that his attitude and work ethic in a training game were not what they should have been and John has to remember that managers pick their teams on the basis of what they see day-in day-out.

So it is vital you give 100% every time you train and not just in games.

Now he has only one option and that is to take his medicine, get his head down and work harder than he has ever done before.

Simply put, he must provide the Rangers management with the right response.

I know that Walter Smith felt the media over-hyped Flecky last season when he was given his chance and felt they had to rein him in a bit.

Maybe the young lad has found the frustration of not cementing a first-team place too much to handle when he had virtually got one within his grasp.

The fact that the manager had made a place for him in the first-team dressing room and that he was down for the Emirates tournament only underlines how unhappy Walter and Ally are with Fleck, given that he was then sent to Ireland with the reserves and the kids.

Maybe it is asking a lot of a 17-year-old to handle this type of situation but, if you look at Wilshere, then you have the example of a youngster who has been nurtured and taken advice on board.

But what Fleck must realise is that, in Smith and McCoist, he has two men who could not be better placed to get the best out of him.

Hopefully the fact that Fleck scored in the reserve game with Glentoran in Northern Ireland is a positive early sign that he is willing to provide the required response.

But the next few weeks are going to very interesting, and Fleck may well have to show a good deal of patience as he is going to have to work his way back into the first-team picture.

In many ways, this whole scenario probably represents the biggest test yet of his young career

.

http://www.eveningtimes.co.uk/sport/displa...2523842.0.0.php