DoofersDad

I am looking towards the future. I'm wondering what Terry's going to be saying tomorrow night.

Yup. You've answered you're own question. Money talks and this is all about money. This is just a readjustment at the top and normal service will be resumed as soon as possible.

I know little about company law but I expect Whyte knows a hell of a lot. And like Baldrick, he will have a cunning plan. Once the legal processes are through we will either have a debt free Rangers or a son of Rangers - it makes no difference. Son of Rangers might, for instance be simply called Rangers Football Club by dropping the Glasgow bit which is never used in any case. And this team will either steal an undeserved place in the SPL or will be placed in the SFL from where they will quickly move back to the SPL. If they stay in the SPL nothing much will change. Their level of income will be considerably more than everyone other than Celtic and they will be the 2nd best side in the land and get stronger. If they sink into the SFL there will be some temporary interest in the jostling for 2nd spot but no other team will be able to exploit Rangers' temporary absence sufficiently nor will Celtic be harmed during Rangers brief absence to allow the balance of power to be changed in the longer term. Whilst I am sure Rangers' will be scheming ways of staying in the SPL next season, I don't see it being more than a temporary blip for them if they don't. They will be looking at the long term future. Without going into administration or collapsing the company Rangers faced an uncertain future crippled by toxic debts and nobody is going to be prepared to throw away millions into Rangers just to pay someone else's tax debt. Without a cleansing they were never going to be able compete in Europe and were increasingly going to be second best to Celtic. Increasingly they would not be able to attract decent players and were at risk of being caught by the pack. But I am sure there are a lot of people willing to invest in a debt free son of Rangers and 3 or 4 years down the line at the latest we will be seeing sums of money being invested in players at Ibrox which have been unthinkable for the last few years. There is no doubt that the old firm need each other within the Scottish system and I am sure that whilst publicly Celtic may be saying they can do without Rangers, behind the scenes they will be working to ensure the rivalry continues. Of course, the one thing which would scupper Rangers would be if Celtic buggered off and joined the English league, Unfortunately, I doubt the English would have them.

I wonder what he will have to say about Grant Munro's performance on the day and over the season. I am sure Chic will point out to him that Munro has been the rock upon which County's success has been built this season whilst ICT have struggled at the back with about 15 different combinations.

I see Zambia beat the favourites Ivory Coast after a dramatic penalty shoot out. I like unusual statistics and one here is that Ivory Coast failed to win the competition despite playing 6 games and not conceding a single goal. It's not just ICT who need their strikers to be scoring more. Mind you, unlike ICT, Ivory Coast had a penalty awarded but Drogba of all people fired high and wide. .

Is there a point to your question, Laurence? If it is something you have an opinion on (and I assume you do, otherwise why start a new thread on the topic) why not give us the benefit of your thoughts and/or knowledge to give others something to actually comment on? Otherwise, I think it safe to assume that most of us neither know nor care.

Of course we shouldn't take a dive but if fouled there need not be any particular rush to get up again unless a clear goal scoring opportunity still exists. Just because officialdom does not enforce the laws of the game as effectively as it should does not give us an excuse for joining the cheats. Unfortunately, everyone is at it and the amount of holding and shirt pulling in the box at set peices is quite farcical. It just seems to be accepted these days and then when a referee decides that a particular incident is OTT and blows, he is accused of being inconsistent. The best way to ensure consistency is to actually enforce the laws of the game as they are and not put your own version into play. It's the same with speed limits - police let you go at a few MPH over the limit most of the time and then you get done at a slightly lower speed somewhere else. If you knew that if you exceed the limit and went through a camera that you would be prosecuted then everyone would know where they stood. So in football, if the ref sees a defender holding a player in the box then it's a penalty every time. Coaches would soon stop telling players to do this if they were to give away penalties every time. Another thing that annoys me is the broad interpretation of shielding a ball when shepherding a ball out of play. Most of the time this is obstruction pure and simple. If this not obstruction then I really don't know what is. Gving the decision the way of the attacker would surely make for more interesting football as the defender would be forced to take control of the ball and actually do something with it under pressure.

I've also noticed we are not doing very well. Over the years one of the strengths of this club is how it has developed youngsters and we have had some success in bringing youngsters through into the first team. If the under 19s appear to be not just not doing too well, but to be actually completely outclassed, then that must raise some questions about the current youth set up. I always understood our youth set up to be very good. Perhaps there is just a poor peer group locally in that age group - these things do tend to vary - but I would be interested to hear some comment from someone involved with the juniors. Another point is that it will be pretty disheartening for the youngsters to be getting gubbed week after week.

Yup. Always thought there was something fishy about him. It is important to give this thread the seriousness it deserves. Davie is spot on.

A single goal defeat away from home against the best team in the country and without our two best central defenders and our two best strikers is a pretty good acheivement. It would have been nice to get a draw but next week is much more important. A win against dunfermline will put us right in the mix for top 6 whilst a loss would give the Pars some hope. If we beat them, there is no way they will catch us.

With the way Dunfermline are playing one is tempted to say 19 points will be enough. However, they may go on a run and and get a few wins before the end of the season. However, averaging a point a game will usually see you safe and as long as we manage that we should be pretty comfortable. But given we are as close to 4th as we are to 12th, we really need to be looking at the teams ahead of us and not those behind.

Not your best post, but congatulations nevertheless on your 10,000th post!

Here's one I haven't heard for a while Caley (clap, clap, clap), Caley (clap, clap, clap) - Repeated till everyone get's bored or the opposition score. Seriously though, I'm 100% behind Doofer - and not just because I'm his Dad. "Caledonia" is a stirring tune and the lyrics are very appropriate. And when it becomes the national anthem of an independent Scotland, we will be recognised as the club side that symbolises Scotland's national identity during our extensive annual travels across Europe.

More chance of Butcher replacing Terry as captain than Capello as manager.

Celtic beating Hearts 3 - 0 at half time at Tynecastle makes Saturday's result look not too bad. Nobody has mentioned the Pars 1-1 draw with Kilmarnock yesterday which was a great result for us. We are now 8 points ahead of them with a game in hand. Winning at home against a middling side like Killie is really a must do for Dunfermline now, whilst winning away at a sh*te side like the Pars is a must do for Kilmarnock if they have aspirations for a top six finish. It will be looking very good for us when we end Celtic's unbeaten run at the weekend. 4 - 0 at full time. Are Hearts having a wobble? We are just 9 points behind with a game in hand. There is surely as much chance of us catching them as the Pars catching us. Europe next year, anyone?

And on the same day as charges are dropped against Rednapp. Perhaps Capello and Terry will be moving to White Hart Lane whilst Harry leads England to failure (but with style) in the Euros.

Yeah I've seen it done on the continent and it can be quite effective. Although I fear the TCS version would end up as: Number 1, Ryan................................. Number 3, Ross.................................. etc Yup, we just lack that German sense of fun

Yes. Not a single positive thing to say or a single word of encouragement for any of the home team for the entire 90 minutes. And what a loud voice the guy's got! To be fair, at least he was making some noise. Everybody else sitting nearby who weren't shouting abuse at our own team also offered no encouragement to the team. If only he could use his vocal talents to offer some support to his team or get a chant or two going he would bring others along with him.

Bring back the terracing

Interesting also to see Lennon's interview. Celtic have now won their last 15 matches and Lennon was heaping praise on his players for what he felt was a very good performance. They certainly defended well but they did not create much and relied on bad defensive errors for their 2 goals - if that was a performance to rave about then Lennon cannot have a particularly high opinion of what he expects of his team. Even accepting that what the 2 managers said after the game is something of an exageration of their true opinion and considering their opinions in the context of what I felt about the performances of the 2 teams yesterday, it seems to me that the 2 managers have pretty similar expectations of the quality of the product they expect from their teams. We lost by just 2 goals to the best team in the country but our manager is damning in his criticism of his team's performance whilst Lennon waxes lyrical about his. That suggests that both managers know there is not a lot of difference between the 2 sides. That is something to be positive about - it is a reflection of how far we have come and it really doesn't serve any purpose to read anything into yesterday's performance beyond the fact that it was disappointing. It is also a bit disappointing to see a return of the Foran bashing again just because we lost to the best team in the land. He may not have been particularly effective yesterday but I don't think his attitude can be faulted. Two incidents stand out for me. The first was when Tokely made his 2nd howler: Foran went to him and clearly offered words of encouragement which is what a captain should do. The Foran of old may have given Tokely a mouthful. The second was in the 2nd half when he dwelt too long on the ball and was dispossed on the edge of the Celtic area. The ball was passed up the field as Celtic counter attacked and it was Foran himself who had run back quickly who made the interception of the final ball in the ICT box. If others had demonstrated the same level of effort yesterday, the score may have been different.

There's a lot of discussion on different threads around much the same theme and it is really summarised by discussion about how to get more people into the grounds. Yesterday's crowd was a bit disappointing although it was not surprising given the fact that it was televised. What I think is of far more significance is that only 17,822 turned up at Ibrox today. OK so this was being televised as well but more ICT fans went to the game yesterday than for a normal league match whilst substantially less than half those who support Rangers in the league turned up today - this on a day when Rangers desparately needed the support of their fans. Whilst this (and the result!) certainly illustrate the level of problems Rangers are now facing, it also illustrates a more general problem in the game which the fans are the victims of and can do little about. It is, of course all about money. The reason why the the gate at Ibrox was so low today is that most who watch them week in and week out are season ticket holders and many of them will have felt that they simply couldn't afford to pay extra to watch a cup game. In other words the financing of the game is driving the fans away. It has long stopped being the people's game and is now the preserve of the middle classes. There is a lot of money in the game but it doesn't get to where it is needed. The top players get far too much money as a result of an unholy alliance with the agents, football authorities, TV companies, sponsors and the clubs which pander to short term finances rather than the long term interests of the game. The agents want the players to be paid as much as possible so that their percentage is as big as possible. The TV companies want to maximise their income from subscribers and advertisers and therefore have to show matches and players that the TV audience wants to watch. In the hope that they can get a decent share of TV revenues, clubs have to invest in the best players they can afford if they are to offer a product the TV companies will buy; this means they have to get as much revenue as they can through the turnstiles. The sponsors and advertisers want a return on their money so will pay the big money when they are guaranteed big audiences, And the authorities go along with this because they want their leagues to attract the best players and the TV money. This means that whilst a lot of money comes into the game, it is not shared in a way which benefits the long term interests of the game. Instead it goes disproportionately to the best players rather than to the clubs further down the pecking order who are nurturing the stars of the future. It even gets to the ludicrous position where some of the top clubs have far more players than they really need but they hang on to them, paying them fabulous wages for not playing on the basis that it is worth paying them not to play rather than having them playing for another team and making it more difficult to maintain a position amongst the elite who get the lions share of the TV and sponsorship money. This means that there are less quality players around for the teams in the lower reaches of the game with the net result that the customer coming through the turnstiles pays more to watch a poorer product whilst there is more top quality product available to watch on TV. The suprising thing is not that attendances have dropped, it is that they have not dropped by more. As long as market forces dictate, we will increasingly have a situation where a bigger and bigger share of the income from the game is shared out by the top players. What we need is international collaboration to cap the wages merry-go-round so that more money is fed back to the grass roots of the game so that smaller clubs can keep the better players and so that admission charges can be reduced to bring the fans back to watch them. Sadly, that just ain't going to happen and the downward spiral of football below the top echelons will continue.

What makes this so disappointing was that this was the poorest Celtic side I have seen at TCS, they were there for the taking and too few of the team seemed to be up for it. The match stats indicate that it was generally pretty even and in general I think that is a fair reflection with neither side really posing any serious threat. The difference was really two moments of defensive madness which led to the two goals. I simply don't understand why Esson was not playing if he was fully fit. Credit where credit is due though. Samaras took his goal very sweetly and Celtic defended well. Our front players are being criticised here but to some extent they played as well as they were allowed to play. Celtic were very effective at closing down quickly and cutting out the through balls as soon as things got potentially threatening. Foran put in a tireless shift and tried to lift his team but with little effect. We only ever got half chances and nobody had the quality to exploit them or to create anything better. I have been a bit criticical of Nick Ross in the past but for me he was our best player today and I was disappointed he was subbed so early. Apart from giving away the penalty I thought Proctor did well. It is easy to pillory players for obvious errors but the stats show Celtic had very few attempts at goal and that is a reflection of what was generally a pretty solid defensive performance from our team although Meekings was very poor when going forward. One should always try to take something positive out of a disappointing situation. The positive today is that Jonny Hayes will definately not be joining Celtic.

I think this is good psychology on Lennon's part. Praising the opposition puts pressure on them because there is then an expectation to do well. It is when a manager plays down the chances of the opposition that they get really fired up with a "nothing to lose" attitude. If we do play some very good football, let's just see if Lennon acknowledges that after the game.

I'm sure a central belt referee would make sure that didn't happen.