Big Rangers Administration/Liquidation Thread - All chat here!

[No8.]

When Wallace was playing in the SPL I agree he would have been good enough for the lower EPL clubs or better Championship clubs but playing against part timers for the last season and a half will have stunted his development. It's certainly a case of potential wasted as last season he wasn't even playing for the team with the best defensive record in the 3rd division.

Yet he has played well enough for Scotland when called upon.

I have watched Scotlands full backs in recent years and Wallace is the best all round player and by a considerable distance the best full back in Scotland at the moment.

[statts1976uk]

Yet he has played well enough for Scotland when called upon.

I have watched Scotlands full backs in recent years and Wallace is the best all round player and by a considerable distance the best full back in Scotland at the moment.

If he had continued to play at a high level I would agree with you but I think that his appearances for Scotland would suggest more about the lack of options in that position.

I think that because he hasn't really been tested for the last season and a half it has stalled what should have been a great career, maybe with a move to a more competitive league we might still see the best of him.

Edited December 20, 2013 by statts1976uk

[~~~]

Wasn't so long ago GMS ripped him a new one in the cup.

[invergowrie arab]

Lee Wallace looked like he had regressed both as a player and physically to a junior when we played them in the cup last year.

I'll admit I was gutted when Daly left but having seen what he has been replaced with its night and day. Also United were only willing to give him.a one year deal due to his knee problems. How long is his rangers deal? Tbf he has had really bad persistent injuries a couple of times at United and seems strong enough to come back. Also as he has never relied on pace he wouldn't miss it. Cut it at an prem team? Probably. Worth a transfer fee over 5 figures? No

Edited December 21, 2013 by invergowrie arab

[Umbungo1874]

Take Jon Daly out of the players SOS named and he is pretty much correct.

Wallace is easily good enough to be first pick at a lower level EPL club and certainly a Championship team.

Sheff Utd supporters i know regret that Law never made it and would interest Championship teams.

Lewis McLeod is going to be a star player in the future and i hope at Ibrox but i fear we will lose him at sometime in the near future.

All this nonsense about them no being top 6 quality is just nonsense. Dean Shiels was nominated for SPL POTY the season he signed for Rangers. Cammy Bell is among the best Keepers in the country. Templeton and Black were 2 of Hearts best players and Temps doesn't even get a regular start at Ibrox

Yet every one of them shows a James Grady style lack of ambition and if Sevco ever start to live within their means they will all be punted for peanuts.

[SonsOfStruth]

Wasn't so long ago GMS ripped him a new one in the cup.

Sorry but he actually didn't. Lee Wallace and MacLeod were only players who had decent games. Daly was the one who caused us the most problems, he bullied our defence.

[Monkey Tennis]

You have previously agreed with me that the playing staff's wages are not the problem, the problem is coming from management/boardroom and special one off/introduction fees and OTT loans etc.

Are you sure mate? I really don't recall saying any such thing.

I may have said management salaries were scandalous.

I may have said boardroom bonuses were indefensible.

I may even have conceded that there have been plenty one-off costs.

Even in weak moments though, I'm fairly sure I've never seen player wages as not huge parts of the problem. Offering top flight players better wages than they were on before was never necessary or sensible. Despite being pretty lousy last season, the League was still won by 20+ points. This season, they've not dropped a point and it's virtually Christmas. These leagues could still have been won with smaller, weaker and ultimately cheaper squads. The expenditure on buses and hotels is part of the same mind set.

The problem is that Rangers were prepared to leave nothing to chance. They needed to pulverise their opponents each week. That's what has filled the ground, yet again taken them to the brink.

Player wages aren't the sole problem, but they're definitely a problem.

Asking where the money's gone while glorying in 8-0 victories, is not to adopt compatible positions.

Edited December 21, 2013 by Monkey Tennis

[Granny Danger]

Yet he has played well enough for Scotland when called upon.

I have watched Scotlands full backs in recent years and Wallace is the best all round player and by a considerable distance the best full back in Scotland at the moment.

Not fit to lace Andy Robertson's boots.

[bennett]

Are you sure mate? I really don't recall saying any such thing.

I may have said management salaries were scandalous.

I may have said boardroom bonuses were indefensible.

I may even have conceded that there have been plenty one-off costs.

Even in weak moments though, I'm fairly sure I've never seen player wages as not huge parts of the problem. Offering top flight players better wages than they were on before was never necessary or sensible. Despite being pretty lousy last season, the League was still won by 20+ points. This season, they've not dropped a point and it's virtually Christmas. These leagues could still have been won with smaller, weaker and ultimately cheaper squads. The expenditure on buses and hotels is part of the same mind set.

The problem is that Rangers were prepared to leave nothing to chance. They needed to pulverise their opponents each week. That's what has filled the ground, yet again taken them to the brink.

Player wages aren't the sole problem, but they're definitely a problem.

Asking where the money's gone while glorying in 8-0 victories, is not to adopt compatible positions.

I was pretty sure but now you've got me wondering, i'll check back later. You may have done your usual "i agree but......" routine.

The old Rangers should only have players from the division we're playing in moan was a lot of nonsense, changing players every season would have been a nightmare. Our playing squad imo is ok, maybe a bit big and we could lose a few fringe players but it's a team of mainly free transfer journeymen SPLers, hardly the superstars that some make them out to be........... but good enough for what was the SFL levels.

The gorund was filled by fans wanting to see their team play fitba, nothing more - nothing less. Now i'd like to see those same fans take a step a back for a while.

The moneys not gone on the players, so it's a bit silly to say that we can't ask questions about it just because the team is winning.

25% of the share issue gone in fees, when the usual fee should be around a fith of that. (just one wee example of the problem)

[dave.j]

Bennett, No8.

Maybe I'm looking at this at a really high level, but are you guys, maybe not defending, but accepting an 8mil player budget as suitable for the divisions you have been in?

I know you seem to think its some sort of bad thing that I go back to it, Bennett, but it's a relative point of comparison... Our wage budget was 250k to 300k to win the first last season. We did it, not with journey men, but with young guys eager to prove themselves. Playing the best football I've seen in Scottish football. Genuinely, we were frightening at times.

This season has seen 2 players move onto Dundee united, 2 get Scotland u21 call ups, 1 a full team call up and 1 being linked heavily with a move to Celtic.

All this was done with an average age of 21 across the starting 11.

I really can't understand how anyone can defend or accept rangers wage budget policy.

It's like this line that gets trotted out that it's not mccoist a fault the wAges at so high... Well it is... He sits down with the chief exec at the end of every season and discussed the season a heads requirements.

Can anyone say mccoist said... No no no, that's too high, but I'll spend it anyway.

What was to stop mccoist saying, this budget is too high, and saying, call it 4 million, and put 4 million into our non existent scouting set up.

The line got fed to us at the start of last season that he got the players he did because there was no time to sign lower league players, he had to sign players he knew in the SPL. Which was absolute rubbish as well.

Let's get some perspective. Rangers have spent the last 18 months playing against guys on a couple of hundred quid a week tops.

16 million pounds on wages over two years?

[Monkey Tennis]

I was pretty sure but now you've got me wondering, i'll check back later. You may have done your usual "i agree but......" routine.

The old Rangers should only have players from the division we're playing in moan was a lot of nonsense, changing players every season would have been a nightmare. Our playing squad imo is ok, maybe a bit big and we could lose a few fringe players but it's a team of mainly free transfer journeymen SPLers, hardly the superstars that some make them out to be........... but good enough for what was the SFL levels.

The gorund was filled by fans wanting to see their team play fitba, nothing more - nothing less. Now i'd like to see those same fans take a step a back for a while.

The moneys not gone on the players, so it's a bit silly to say that we can't ask questions about it just because the team is winning.

25% of the share issue gone in fees, when the usual fee should be around a fith of that. (just one wee example of the problem)

What? I've done my usual and thought about someone's post, before offering a considered response that sometimes involves partial agreement? Yes sorry about that. I should just treat every question as merely requiring a simple yes/no answer.

On the matter of the Rangers squad, bringing in good top flight players for a campaign three tiers lower was of course unnecessarily extravagant. I didn't suggest they should have brought in only division three players. There's a middle ground between that and bringing in the better players from their former rivals though. The argument that they were all frees, cuts no ice. I thought only Brooks Mileson tried to use that line to pretend his squad wasn't unsustainably expensive. Hardly any Scottish clubs ever pay transfer fees these days. It doesn't make employing footballers free.

Clearly, money has been squandered in all manner of ways. The money spent on wages however, is indicative of an entire approach which was unsuitable for Rangers New circumstances.

[bennett]

The playing staff wages are sustainable though, even if we had went with players on £50 per week, the money would have just been siphoned off elsewhere.

You know this, i know i this, even Densboy probably knows this, everykunt knows this.

[Monkey Tennis]

The playing staff wages are sustainable though, even if we had went with players on £50 per week, the money would have just been siphoned off elsewhere.

You know this, i know i this, even Densboy probably knows this, everykunt knows this.

Well the way the new club was set up, staff wages were not sustainable - demonstrably so.

Spending £7million or thereabouts was crazy, simply crazy at that level. The fact that other crazy financial things were happening, doesn't change that.

[dave.j]

The playing staff wages are sustainable though, even if we had went with players on £50 per week, the money would have just been siphoned off elsewhere.

You know this, i know i this, even Densboy probably knows this, everykunt knows this.

No they aren't sustainable. Or are you also saying your new chief exec is a liar?

You have an overspend of 1mill a month. If you had had a 1 million wage budget. What would your over spend be?

Your manager has spent none of his budget on scouting, none!

Your chief exec has said that the wage budget is too high... So, say he has an 8 mil budget in 18 months for the premiership... And you have no scouting network. What faith do you have in him having a squad being able to compete in the premiership.

Now bear in mind what compete means. According to bendarroch, to compete in the premiership is to challenge Celtic, nothing else. Any other place in the division is not competing.

Now if you think that the squad you currently have could compete with Celtic... Then surely you must then ask, why the fck have you got a squad of that capability playing in the third tier, wasting valuable money.

Edited December 21, 2013 by dave.j

[Boghead ranter]

Not long ago, Rangers were playing European football. If they had a particularly bad result or European season, there would be a theory trotted out (same tactic by Celtic, for balance reasons) about the reason that they couldn't perform any better was the low standard of opposition they were playing against domestically week in, week out.

Unless the critical error at that time was that they should have been playing in the 3rd tier to stretch themselves instead of the top tier, then guys like Wallace, Black etc are not playing better now than they were in the top tier, because that theory that Rangers used to hide behind also now applies - the lower the standard of weekly opposition, the worse our players are, as they are dragged down.

[Benjamin_Nevis]

Sums don't come into it.

Sevco fans innate desperation to feel an overwhelming sense of superiority to their opponents dictates policy at all times. The remote possibility of competitive contests terrifies them.

Edited December 21, 2013 by jupe1407

[Monkey Tennis]

Sums don't come into it.

Sevco fans innate desperation to feel an overwhelming sense of superiority to their opponents dictates policy at all times. The remote possibility of competitive contests terrifies them.

Indeed.

The last thing they want is a fair fight.

Risking another insolvency has more appeal than risking losing at football.

[bennett]

Well the way the new club was set up, staff wages were not sustainable - demonstrably so.

Spending £7million or thereabouts was crazy, simply crazy at that level. The fact that other crazy financial things were happening, doesn't change that.

It was indeed crazy and i still wonder why Green made such a fuss about tuping but as you said it "was crazy". Wages for playing staff are now vastly reduced and more suited to our situation.

The "other crazy financial things" do indeed matter, as they are main problem. The common phrase on P&B is "spivs" though i prefer to be more blunt and call them conmen.

One more point slightly connected to this. Change at boardroom level, run the club properly and increase ticket prices to their 'normal' level, try and sort out the dodgy deals done by Green and co, then there shouldn't be a problem.

[Bearwithme]

Sums don't come into it.

Sevco fans innate desperation to feel an overwhelming sense of superiority to their opponents dictates policy at all times. The remote possibility of competitive contests terrifies them.

But you lot make it so easy for us.

Player wages could have been less where we are (though they're still at a reasonable level compared to turnover). I disagree that they will need to be less than they are now once we are in the top tier - and I am allowed to disagree with Mr Wallace! We'll see what he says once he completes his 120-day review.

[No8.]

Sums don't come into it.

Sevco fans innate desperation to feel an overwhelming sense of superiority to their opponents dictates policy at all times. The remote possibility of competitive contests terrifies them.

The best game so far this season , despite the atrocious conditions , was the 4-3 win at Brechin and i would have said that even if it had ended up 3-3. End to end football...crap defending helped right enough. Give me 30 games like that instead of 8-0 victories which become unbelievably tedious after a while.

As far as the wage bill goes. You cant compare Thistles wage bill with Rangers. I have no idea what their average crowd is but i am guessing around 4-5,000...Rangers are averaging close to 10xs that. The wage bill is far too high but we have players such as Cribari who has fast become my least favourite player..obviously a decent player who has played at the highest level but simply could not give a f**k..That to me is unforgivable. He and a few others are stealing a wage but they were brought in at the last minute last season to bolster a depleted squad.

The scouting system is non existent and must be addressed. Hopefully we will bring in more players such as Faure who is young and looks a really decent prospect...Didin't think i would be saying that 12 months ago but a vastly improved player with very decent International under age career.

Rangers youngsters have been given a chance and unfortunately most have been found to be some way short of what is needed. Gasperatto, Lewis McLeod and Robbie Crawford are probably the pick of the bunch. The likes of Barrie McKay are a long way short of what we need and i doubt very much he has a long term future at Ibrox.

We have the makings of a reasonable SPL team at the moment and we wont have to spend anything to win the Championship at a canter next season. I expect to see one or two brought in but only after we can ditch the dead wood we already have.