AJF

How often does this happen in comparison to a club appointing another, preferred candidate? There is a reason it is not common. Additionally, they are almost always "interim" appointments. Which backs up my theory around the manager merry-go-round.

It's different because clubs have the ability to sign multiple strikers and build a squad that is theoretically capable of handling situations where one of them is out of form. You can't sign multiple managers with the purpose of replacing one if they aren't doing well. A squad of players is vastly different to the sole position of a manager.

But you are restricted to managers out of contract, and generally, they are out of contract for a reason. You will be unlikely able to bring in your preferred candidate and it will no doubt lead to an even larger manager merry-go-round where they are signed for a couple of months at a time until they club can get someone they actually want. Why would that be appealing to any manager or club?

I've voted no, mainly based on the second point you touched on. Players have competition in the squad for their places and if they are not performing they can be dropped and someone else takes their place in the team. That's not realistically feasible with a manager and would force clubs to persevere with a manager without being able to replace them (until a transfer window).

One person outright said the play offs were introduced to help Rangers, another questioned how much of a coincidence it was. Maybe not get offended at my comments and take it as it was intended, which was to ridicule those that thought that way rather than an attempt to set a narrative, as you say.

Maybe one for the Statto's amongst the forum, but it would be interesting to see who has had the longest run of successful penalties in Scotland. I seem to recall Novo had an excellent penalty record, but no idea how many consecutively.

Refereeing injustices aside, the wildest take from this thread is the insistence that if decisions had gone a certain way across the season, team X would be on Y points. It doesn't really work like that.

Folk are ridiculously biased to the extent they believe play off's were introduced solely to benefit one club The non-Rangers fans that give differing views are just ignored because it doesn't suit a particular narrative.

But, forgive me if I am wrong, the main reason the FOH succeeded was due to the commitment of the wealthy businessmen/fans that agreed to provide the upfront capital required that allowed Hearts to exit administration in the first place? It’s a bit like a chicken and egg scenario, without them, it would ultimately have failed. Similarly without the FOH, it would’ve failed as well. As I said, forgive me because I’m going from memory. My main point was that the scenarios were vastly different and due to the differing levels of debt and I don’t think any blame can be placed on the Rangers fans. I get why people would choose to do so, though.

Really looking forward to this. Feels like an age since our match against Lyon. Haaland out is obviously a bonus, but let’s be fair, we will be right up against it regardless. We could be doing with Balogun being fit with Helander not included in the European squad and I’d rather not play Barasic if we can help it. A bit of a free hit (sorry for the cliche) against a quality team in a tie we are heavy favourites to be eliminated from. We’ve seen in the past how effective we can be on the break in European competition so I’d imagine Diallo will be in from the start given his pace in comparison to Arfield.

Aye, he definitely seems quite happy and content where he is. I don't think he gets enough credit for what he is achieving, maybe down to his "personality".

I believe there were some considerations by the various supporters trusts we had at the time, I think the issue that it wasn’t as prominent as the FOH was two-fold. Firstly, how quickly things escalated and the scale of the debt probably caught people on the hop. Of course, there were signs that it was coming, I just don’t think anyone was prepared for how much in the shit we were. Secondly, we were gullible enough to believe in Craig Whyte we’d found the answer and believed things were going to be resolved. Aye, fair point. I’ll leave you all to it

It was, but I don’t think I’ve got my point across correctly. The big tax case was still looming over the club in conjunction with the small tax case, so any wealthy individual or consortium would effectively have to agree to take on a debt estimated to be worth up to £100M. This meant it was a very unattractive proposition for anyone, even if there was some kind of foundation in place. You also need to factor in the significance riding on The Big Tax case. HMRC at this point were looking to set a legal precedent regarding the treatment of EBT’s and contractor loans. This made the agreement of any CVA difficult due to the fact that the big tax case was being argued back and forth (and would continue to do so for years). You are being disingenuous in my opinion, painting this out as if it was simply a case of “you should’ve done what we done” which, I will repeat, was not feasible without someone agreeing to take on the debt in the first place.

And therein the part I've highlighted in bold, lies the major difference. Rangers' main creditor was HMRC with a reported debt running up to almost £100M in respect of The Big Tax Case. You then add in the additional £9M owed from the Small Tax Case. Every single Rangers fan in Scotland could've pledged to pay back a wealthy individual or individuals over time, but if there was nobody willing to take on that level of debt in the first place, then it makes it a moot point. Hearts' main creditors were, I believe, the Lithuanian Banks which, if I remember correctly, agreed to write off large portions of the debt and eventually did not oppose the CVA proposal. Therefore the level of finance required to bring Hearts out of administration was in no way comparable to Rangers. It's simply futile to suggest that the average fan can be held any way responsible for what happened.

I did do that (unfortunately). Mental when you think back to those times.

That is quite a large myth. To suggest there wasn't enough people worried enough to do something is disingenuous. The circumstances surrounding both clubs were vastly different and as your "run of the mill" fan, there is pretty much nothing I could've done that would've avoided anything that happened.

Bushiri is god awful.

Let’s just hope for penalties now.

Could do a lot worse than Martindale.

I'm hoping there is a clearer pathway into first team football for the youngsters under Gio. Lowry certainly hasn't done himself any harm with his performances so fingers crossed others can push for inclusion more often as well. I also maintain there must be a forward in our youth groups that is just as, if not more effective than Itten.

I think it was just below that if I remember right from the commentary.

Aye I’m not minding it to be fair! Good to see things from a different angle sometimes.