I’m not proud of it in all honesty, your good will as a football fan is what drives you towards whom and what you support, I have to say though, what’s best for the club ultimately is what drives you towards your stance. I try to stay away from who to blame and why, in the current environment we’d be here all day. The very fact that we have so many different fans pointing the finger at so many different people clearly flags up a more serious underlying problem than what is actually happening ON the park.
We’ve come down a long road which I honestly believe is coming to a crossroads, quite rightly pointed out by Mr McCoist. Where do we go from here, and who with?
Do we blame David Murray for the lack of funds available?
Do we blame the players on the park for not giving enough?
Do we blame the opposition for being so inferior that we find ourselves ill-prepared for European Competition time and time again?
….. or do we blame one Alex McLeish ?
Do we blame anyone? I’ve made my choice. Financial restraint is a circumstance, one which everyone at the club from supporter to chairmen is all too aware of. I am not a David Murray fan at all, but in all honesty I think we’ve punched WELL above our weight in the transfer market this season. I didn’t envisage us signing all of the players that we did, clearly though, it’s not enough. Alex McLeish quite clearly had some sort of budget to work to, and quite clearly he used it all up on players he had earmarked for a good number of months.
Question Number 1: Has Alex McLeish made the most of the budget he had available?
He hasn't in my honest opinion. I love the fact that up front we now have Novo, Prso, Thompson and Arveladze to choose from. Not only do we have strength up front, also have depth. This is the first time we’ve been able to make such a claim since the days of Walter Smith.
Arveladze and Prso combine very well, and seem to have hit it off quite quickly. The main problem with these two is that they are being dragged out of position constantly. Prso and Novo ended up out on the wings during our two biggest games of the season so far, and Novo has already stated he despises playing out there; Arveladze just gets on with playing wherever McLeish feels like playing him next. Don’t even get me started on Andrews playing up front.
I don’t have all the answers on this one, but deep down, it pains me to admit that perhaps we shouldn’t have signed Nacho Novo. Don’t get me wrong, I think he’s a great player and he’ll score a barrel-load of goals for us, so please don’t take this as a criticism of the wee man. I am very concerned however, that we have 4 decent strikers yet NOTHING on the wings, and apparently nothing in the midfield at all. We need four strikers so that we have adequate back-up, but we also need to have two wingers who can put crosses into the box, take the ball passed players, and generally make things happen. We do not have that ….. Chris Burke’s return will ease that problem slightly but the fact remains.
Questions Number 2: MIDFIELD …… Do we have one?
Our midfield is totally makeshift. Starting from the centre, Alex Rae has done fine so far. He’s solid, he’s a box to box player (not a hatchet man as some have been led to believe) but he’s not the most creative player we’ve seen at Ibrox. We know we’re going to get a shift out of the guy every time he plays, and even during a fairly average display against Hibs, he didn’t put a foot wrong. He brings reliability if nothing else.
Stephen Hughes, as much as it pains every bluenose to say it, simply doesn’t have it. He has stood still for over 2 years, albeit he has had poor luck due to injury as well. He has good footwork, and is capable of picking out decent passes to the wings and through the middle. Unfortunately though, his lack of presence and his body’s refusal to bulk up will see this guy fade away toKilmarnock or Hibs soon enough. So much promise, but sadly we will get no-where with him as first choice. Works his skinny behind off every chance he gets, but it just isn’t enough.
Dragan Mladenovic looks solid, has a good presence, a decent shot and looks ok so far. It would be somewhat harsh to make any overall judgment of the guy just yet. He looks the part though in my opinion, and will hopefully prove a good buy for us.
Let’s have a wee look at the wings (sorry, we have to) I think it’s safe to say that we are all happy with Burkey. His emergence last season really put a smile on our faces; I’d go as far to say that the pressure on Eck may have intensified if Burke hadn’t brightened up the pitch at Ibrox with his performances last season. That coupled with the arrival of Hutton and Namouchi later on really gave us something to be hopeful about. If those three hadn’t come through, our confidence as fans would’ve dipped even further … if that was humanly possible.
Should Burkey be our first choice right winger?
I don’t like the amount of pressure on the boy, as much as I love to watch him play. Chris Burke has no quality wingers there to show him new things. We are so devoid of creativity in most areas it’s frightening. Burkey isn’t a bad choice at all to start games, but at the end of the day, he has no back-up what so ever, be it on the bench or on the pitch. If that doesn’t bring him down or increase the pressure on him, he’s only got to look over to the left hand side and see what the alternative is ………
Peter ‘Lovely hands’ Lovenkrands.
Shitebag, bottler, impostor, talent-less, doesn’t have a football brain, clueless, pretentious, pre-Madonna, prissy, loser and not good enough are just some of the words and phrases that spring to mind when I think of this guy. When he is on the pitch, we are down to ten men for 89 minutes. He’ll have his shot at goal which he skies over the bar from a ridiculous range and that’ll be him. One of Alex McLeish’s single biggest faults is sticking by this guy …
Question 3: What’s the alternative?
Charlie Adam, Hamed Namouchi, Ross McCormack ….
.. But they aren’t ready yet?
Is Lovenkrands? The guy isn’t any less inept than what one of these boys would be if they were thrown in at the deep end, and I’d sooner play any of them in front of this waste of space any day of the week (and twice on a Sunday, particularly last Sunday). I’m not going to waste any valuable kilobytes of web space on this tosspot.
The wide areas in defence are also a concern, particularly on the left hand side, but not as glaring a problem as what lies in front of it. I’m much happier with Vignal at left back than Ball. Vanoli is and only ever will be back up, so that doesn’t concern me too much. I’m happy enough with Zurab and Boumsong as our first choice central defence pairing as well.
Question 4: Why did Eck change our defence?
Against CSKA Moscow and Celtic, Alex McLeish decided it would be best for the team to reintroduce Craig Moore to the fold. This unfairly resulted in Zurab Khizanishvili making way for him.
Mooreand other Decisions ….
Against the Russians and against Celtic, Alexander McLeish made a rod for his own back. Not only did we perform poorly and get put out of the Champions League qualifiers by the Russians and painfully suffer our 7th Old Firm defeat in a row, but he also made a backtrack any other previous Rangers manager would’ve been ashamed to make … let me rephrase that actually…..
He made a back track no other Rangers manager would EVER have made.
This has resulted in him signing his own death warrant. He took a risk that he didn’t even need to think about. He threw the possibility of fan unrest into the air when he didn’t have to. He played a man who was our captain, and last season embarrassed the club, the manager and the fans with his disloyal and disrespectful comments to the press about what he wanted to see at the club and why. Given the season he had last season this was a total insult.
Craig Moore should have NEVER pulled on the blue jersey again after what he said and did. Deciding to go to a meaningless tournament and play forAustralia as an over aged player when we were facing arguably the most crucial time in the clubs history with an act of selfish disregard. Of course it is an honour to play in the Olympics, but did you see Viduka, Kewell, Laziridis and Emerton chapping at the bit to leave the club that puts food on their tables and clothes on their back to go and play there?
NO! .. Because they ultimately know who pays their wages, and realise the consequences of leaving at the crucial start of their team’s season.
Now thatMoore has also played against Celtic, it appears that Skippy is well back in contention. Frankly, that makes me sick.
Combined with his continual failure to make the right decisions and organise our team for big matches, I’m 100% convinced that Alex McLeish is not the man to take Rangers forward. Debating this with fellow bears has also raised some questions …..
Why sack Alex? We can’t afford to!
Is that a viable excuse for not sacking a man incapable of taking us forward, getting us into the Champions League and challenging Celtic? It’s only the beginning of September and we’re 5 points behind Celtic. In the final third of the pitch during the Celtic game, we looked no better than we did last season. We quite clearly have far superior options up front nowadays, so surely this isn’t down to the players.
Prso and Novo, are they wingers?
No! Yet another fine display of the Alex McLeish philosophy: “If the team isn’t playing very well, let’s just start moving people out of their natural positions and see what happens”. I honestly don’t know or care if he’s trying something that doesn’t work or what he is doing does work but isn’t effective, he can’t make the difference during big games where, ultimately, all Old Firm managers live or die.
In Conclusion
All in All, As much as I hate getting to this stage and I’ve never known myself to feel this way towards a Rangers manager before, but McLeish has proved he can’t turn it around in my opinion. He sometimes says the right things in the press, comes across as quite a reserved, likeable guy, but that is not enough. As Freddie Shepherd said earlier this week when he sacked Bobby Robson “There is no room for sentiment in football”. Never a truer word spoken, and whilst the Alzheimer’s may have kicked in with old Bobby, he’s as loved as they come in the manager stakes, hence the reason he is known as ‘Uncle Bobby’. If Bobby Robson isn’t immune to the sack after a poor start and a relatively fruitless tenure at Newcastle United, a somewhat smaller club in stature compared to Glasgow Rangers, Alex McLeish cannot expect to hide behind financial handcuffs when it’s clear that the clubs on-field problems go well above and beyond that.
Illustrious is a word you could never use to describe McLeish, his methods, his arrival or his time in charge of our club, but the overwhelming majority of fans have given him ample time to see what he can do. He started off gloriously but it’s been downhill ever since and contrary to what McLeish perhaps though, the vast improvement in personnel has not taken the spotlight away from him. If anything, the spotlight is shining on McLeish in a rather intense fashion, making a lot of people realise that the players on the pitch are not the cause of our early season flaws.
I hope Mr McLeish realises this as much as the supporters do. I’d hate to see the guy hounded out of Ibrox, but his determination and blind faith in his own ability will make him see it right through. The only person who will make McLeish leave Ibrox is McLeish.
As sad as it makes me to say it, that day cannot come soon enough.