Tom English on King

[Virtuoso 27,180]

I'm no lover of Tom English, but he's spot on here

 

Quote

 

Rangers have fallen short of Dave King's targets, so where are his answers?

By Tom English

BBC Scotland

There are quite a few Rangers people who wouldn't mind putting some questions to Dave King sometime soon, the only problem being that in order to quiz their chairman face-to-face they're going to have to get themselves to Las Vegas. King doesn't do Glasgow much these days.[/font]

Next month he will appear at the North American Rangers Supporters Association bash at the Planet Hollywood hotel on the famous Vegas Strip. Somewhere else in the complex, Britney Spears will continue her two-year residency with her show entitled 'Piece of Me'. In truth, it wouldn't be a bad title for an audience with King, such are the emotions swirling around Rangers right now.

A week ago, Pedro Caixinha said he was "ashamed" to show his face after Rangers lost 2-0 to Celtic at Hampden in the Scottish Cup semi-final. On Saturday, after losing 5-1 to Celtic at Ibrox, he said his team had raised their level and had been better than the week before.

Thirty-six points adrift of Celtic - Rangers are closer to Inverness Caledonian Thistle in last place than they are to the leaders - and nine points behind Aberdeen. The team is still on course to qualify for the Europa League but this is what it has come to for Caixinha already: compensations, contradictions, panning a historic humiliation for pieces of positivity.

Confusion reigns at Ibrox. King's promise of a personal investment of 30m - where is it? 

This business of appointing a director of football, as announced in February - what's going on? 

The Takeover Appeal Board ruling against King that he should make an offer for all the club's shares, and Tab's criticism of him - what happens next? 

The legal action from former manager Mark Warburton and assistant David Weir - where's it at? The manager, the squad, the academy, the scouting system - is anything moving forward?

An unpopular old board have been removed - a war that needed to be won - but the new board are coming under some scrutiny from their own people now. Back-to-back beatings of the kind of magnitude of Hampden and Ibrox tend to provoke a reaction.

John Gilligan, King and Paul Murray helped to oust the previous Rangers board in March 2015. On appointing Warburton, the Rangers board, via King, said that it needed to be "an appointment that sees us through the next three years". It lasted 18 months and ended in a bitter divorce that could reach the courts.

When it all went wrong, King said in a statement, by way of explanation, that Rangers had "required, at short notice, a relatively untested management team".

Maybe it was an admission that they appointed the wrong man in Warburton. But why that line about "short notice"? Rangers had lots of time to make that appointment in the summer of 2015. And why "relatively untested"? They had other options, some of them vastly experienced. It was the board's decision to give the job to a relatively untested manager. Nobody made them do it.

Decision-making has been of a desperately poor order at Ibrox for quite some time. When Warburton left town, Rangers were level on points with Aberdeen in second, albeit having played one game more. He had major flaws, Warburton - so many poor signings for a start - but things have not got better since he left.

Having appointed "at short notice, a relatively untested management team", King would have been entitled - if not obliged - to take the lead, as chairman, in the appointment of a new management team. Why run the risk of getting it wrong for a second time? But he didn't take the lead. He said he had absolutely nothing to do with it - wasn't his function. He didn't even speak to Caixinha until he was given the job.

The brief, as he has outlined in public, is for this new manager to compete for the title next season - yes, next season - as well as making progress in Europe. But King didn't see it as his place to get himself involved in the selection of the man tasked with such a gargantuan job?

What Rangers have ended up with is another relatively untested management team. Is history repeating here? And if it is - whose fault is it?

Remember how it used to be under King? In September 2015, while Rangers were still in the Championship, King was asked if it was possible for them to push Celtic for the league title immediately on their return to the top flight.

"Definitely," was his response. "My feeling, sitting here today, is we can start next season [2016-17] intending to win the Premier League... The gap is not as big in my mind as it was three or four months ago."

Positions change, of course. Reality dawns. Not long ago, King said that his expectations for this season were as follows: "I would have expected us to be equidistant between Aberdeen and Celtic. If we were 12 points behind Celtic and 12 points ahead of Aberdeen, I would have thought it was a fair position."

King has made many statements and not all of them stand up to scrutiny. "You'll go far to find a single football club in the world that's got a balance sheet as strong as Rangers," he said at the club's annual general meeting in 2015.

This has been the King shtick. The year before, as he fought to get rid of the boardroom regime at Ibrox, he presented a vision of a war-chest. "My view of what it will take to make Rangers competitive again is bottom end 30m but probably 50m over the next four years." King's timetable - "the next four years" - concludes in March next year.

Loan agreements (Rangers International Football Club 2016 Annual Report)Additional Funding (as of October 2016):

New Oasis Asset Limited (Dave King)3.75m

Douglas Park, John Bennett, Paul Murray 2.25m

George Taylor, George Letham, Andrew Ross, Barry Scott, Scott Murdoch 3.875m 

Unspecified investors 2.9m

He went on: "I would say I would probably have to put in 30m of the 50m over the period of time. And I could probably get other people to put in 20m."

There is now no talk of 50m and little detail about King's "personal" investment of 30m and where it has gone. He was clear at the time that this was going to be money that would be invested not in accumulating shares or paying off debt - as was done with the 5m owed to Sports Direct - but go straight into the heart of the club to improve the playing squad, the academy, the scouting, the general infrastructure.

Major investment in the academy and the scouting network is still needed. The Rangers chairman recently paid tribute to the "marvellous work that has been achieved by the academy over the last two years". For sure, Barrie McKay is a product of that academy and was a deserving winner of Rangers' young player of the year award last season, but Rangers are doing a poor job in developing McKay's talents.

This season's club young player of the year is Emerson Hyndman, a loan signing in January from Bournemouth. The overall player of the year is 37-year-old Kenny Miller, with 38-year-old Clint Hill probably the best of the rest.

King's most recent timetable, from February, states that Rangers should be targeting a proper title challenge next season. Talk is cheap.

Maybe in Vegas, while Britney is giving it laldy down the corridor, he might explain, precisely, how they're going to do it. You sense that there's a growing number of concerned Rangers supporters who'd quite like to know.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/39784876

 

Even the most hardened King-a-lings must now see that he's failed to deliver on every promise made. There's no defending the indefensible.

He needs to go / stand down.

 

[calio 688]

Fuck Tom English and the BBC. 

Why the fuck any Bear would give a toss what that Fenian tramp says or writes is beyond me.

[K.A.I 36,183]

Sad day when you think a Tom English article on Rangers is spot-on and on point. Sad fucking day indeed. 

King's a cretin. As is the rest of the boardroom nobodies. 

[B1872 20,699]

Tom English is a cunt!

[Virtuoso 27,180]

3 minutes ago, calio said:

Fuck Tom English and the BBC. 

Why the fuck any Bear would give a toss what that Fenian tramp says or writes is beyond me.

As I said, I'm far from a lover of English but regardless of who the author is - it doesn't detract from the subject and content.

As much as it pains me to admit.

[Virtuoso 27,180]

3 minutes ago, K.A.I said:

Sad day when you think a Tom English article on Rangers is spot-on and on point. Sad fucking day indeed. 

King's a cretin. As is the rest of the boardroom nobodies. 

Unfortunately.

[kaiser1041 9,088]

It doesn't take a genius to see king has failed on many front so I won't be giving another vocal Rangers hater a pat on the back for his drivell

[KeyserSoze 14,531]

Geez a break ffs. Stop hunting down stuff for us all to read. It's boring - Tom English now ffs. 

Never ends

 

[blue_dynamite 57]

Fuck Tom English! he has no credibility when writing regards Rangers.

[blueballss 2,969]

wonder if he asked mad phil for his tuppence

[IbroxBurnzy 484]

Tom Irish  ? More like.

biased cunt loves putting the boot in to us and praising the Smellies and every other club in scotland whenever he can.

Another Rangers hater allowed to talk all sorts of shit about us whenever he likes.

Even if he's correct I can't agree with that Rangers hater.

[Sweetheart 8,458]

41 minutes ago, Virtuoso said:

As I said, I'm far from a lover of English but regardless of who the author is - it doesn't detract from the subject and content.

As much as it pains me to admit.

Agreed. A lot of those questions I would like answered by DK
 

[piperpete 3,186]

45 minutes ago, Sweetheart said:

. A lot d like answered by Dk
 

He would fall asleep listening to your  Questions though or he wouldnt get a word IN, either way IT woukd be fun to watch.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Bobby Hume 13,022]

 

Definitely a deep low when the enemy gets it spot on .... not like we don't already know the score ..... just sickening to see it coming from this mickey BBC attack poodle.

Not even Donald Findlay ..... or  the late Joe Beltrami could defend this one ..... depressing to say the least ....  

[Tenerife Bear 1,748]

English is a cunt. King is a cunt. Murray is a cunt. Gilligan is a cunt. They're awe cunts. Every cunt, except us, are cunts. The poor souls who have had to suffer every last minute of the last 6 years. 

[Sweetheart 8,458]

3 minutes ago, piperpete said:

He would fall asleep listening to your  Questions though or he wouldnt get a word IN, either way IT woukd be fun to watch.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Good afternoon Pete, I see your not in a good mood today? 

[bob1873 417]

1 hour ago, Virtuoso said:

I'm no lover of Tom English, but he's spot on here

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/39784876

 

Even the most hardened King-a-lings must now see that he's failed to deliver on every promise made. There's no defending the indefensible.

He needs to go / stand down.

 

I agree however SDM was trying to sell since 2006 (according to the Whyte trial) and there were no buyers. So whom does King sell to and for how much? 

[WWTC 2,247]

Any chance you can change the title to:

"Tom English Hon-King"? 

[WWTC 2,247]

2 minutes ago, bob1873 said:

I agree however SDM was trying to sell since 2006 (according to the Whyte trial) and there were no buyers. So whom does King sell to and for how much? 

Are you comparing us as a business to the one under the "control" of MIH? Seriously? 

[STEPPS BOY 73,890]

Wow just wow.

Britney playing Planet Hollywood when we are there..

 

 

[Malvern 11,329]

English may be a cunt of a man but I can think of another one who is residing in SA and just about to go to Vegas. Couldn't even be arsed to watch us play our biggest rivals.

Also those loans are far less than the £20 Mil "invested" by other parties let alone his own £30 Mil pound "investment". Still he has shelled out £18 Mil apparently, wonder where that money came from....

[piperpete 3,186]

24 minutes ago, Sweetheart said:

Good afternoon Pete, I see your not in a good mood today? 

Great moodisntas ITs a saturday. Worked this morning, cleaned the beerlines now home and about to fire up the bbq, there IS no chance Rangers will get beat today so happy days.

[Sweetheart 8,458]

11 minutes ago, bob1873 said:

I agree however SDM was trying to sell since 2006 (according to the Whyte trial) and there were no buyers. So whom does King sell to and for how much? 

Once these court cases are over, Rangers will find investors queuing up. It's the court cases that made the club unsaleable. 

[Virtuoso 27,180]

13 minutes ago, bob1873 said:

I agree however SDM was trying to sell since 2006 (according to the Whyte trial) and there were no buyers. So whom does King sell to and for how much? 

Due to there not being anyone lurking in the shadows then all we can hope for is that the Parks buy him out...

[Virtuoso 27,180]

1 minute ago, Sweetheart said:

Once these court cases are over, Rangers will find investors queuing up. It's the court cases that made the club unsaleable. 

There's also the issue of King and the TAB ruling.

We're toxic.