Badger

That challenge.... wtf.?

My throat is dry. I need to cough?

Regressed in what way. Regressed back to being Wigan reserve, Swindon and Accrington Stanley players? We assembled a squad good enough to win the championship last year, with a bit of style. We are now finding that was many players level.

Our biggest issue is lack of goals. Whilst our defence is often liable, goals win games. Ive issue that a player who is 7wks off of his 37th birthday, and our right back are our most dangerous attackers and.... its tells its own story. We have failed to secure match winning quality in the attacking 3rd, and combined with MW prefered system of play, we overplay the ball and look toothless. We urgently need to invest money in this area. We do not need more players in the £200k mould that can play here.

As said on another thread. We don't need to be spending money on more 200k transfer fees, with £4k, £5k per week wages. These type of players might fill holes, but they won't win leagues. In terms of estimated annual wage budgets Celtic - £24- £27m Rangers - £7-8m Aberdeen - £4-5m Yeah we have the 2nd biggest wage budget, but it is not a huge amount above he likes of Aberdeen, and a long way behind Celtic. Aberdeen have been building a settled team for 4-5yrs now - don't underestimate how big a factor that is. We need money for quality to compete and win.

We are Rangers. We never expect too much. We demand to know why we are not meeting expectations, and sort it.... quickly.

I think Warburtons skills are more suited to being a Sporting Director/Director of Football, rather than a Head Coach/Manager. I like what he is trying to do, I like his modern approach, I'm confident that he'd do us a turn given time and his own way to build the clubs coaching/scouting infrastructure. He is, IMO, doing a lot of things right. However...... Having a good approach & doing things right doesn't always make somebody a good manager. Can he motivate and breed a winning mentality? Does he have the experience? Does he have the mentality? Does he have tactical nouse? He wasn't a player - can he gain respect of his peers having not really played the game? If we did get rid of Warburton, I really would hate to see us tear up any of the good work that has been done behind the scenes and start again with a Walter Smith type manager - a manager who would get results but is archaic in approach and maybe does not really get the bigger, long term picture. If we do get rid of him I'd like to see us get somebody who shares Warburtons ethos, but maybe a bit more experienced and proven in the game.

Lack of offensive quality is going to cost us.... again.

Figures off Wikipedia Gilks (£0) - (£0) Gordon Hodson (£0.25) - (£0) Lustig Kiernan (£0.22) - (£3.0) Simonuvic Hill (£0) - (£1.5) Sviatchenko Wallace (£1.5) - (£0) Tierney Windass (£0.06) - (£4.0) Brown Halliday (£0) - (£0.7) Bitton Holt (£0.06) - (£0) Forrest Tavernier (£0.2) - (£0.5) Rogic Miller (£0) - (£3.5) Sinclair McKay (£0) - (£0.5) Dembele £2.29m Total £13.7m SUBS Foderingham (£0) - (£0) De Vries Senderos (£0) - (£0) Toure Crooks (£0.06) - (loan) Roberts* Waghorn (£0.2) - (£0) McGregor O'Halloran (£0.5) - (£2.0) Armstrong Dodoo (£0.25) - (UD) Gamboa** Garner (£1.5) - (£1.0) Griffiths £2.51m Total £3.0 £4.8m OVERALL £16.7m *Roberts cost £12m on his last transfer. **The undisclosed fee for Gamboa is likely to be under £0.5m and not included Celtic had 3 home grown players in there squad, we had 1. This isn't accounting for wages either, which will have a huge gap between them. Then the guys who were not in squad Cash signings injured/out of favour/loaned out Rangers Rossiter (£0,25) Total (£0.25m) Overall Total Squad Spend (£5.05m) Celtic Ajer (£0.8) Izzaguirre (£0.6) Ambrose (£1.5) Boyata (£1.5) Commons (£0.3) Christie (£0.5) MacKay-Steven (£0.25) Ciftci (£1.5) Allan (£0.275) Total (£7.725,) Overall Total Squad Spend (£24.5m)

I think in government/media this is called a spin on the facts.

What card was it, about 2yrs back, that there were 7 fights on, and if you bet on all 7 Matchroom fighters to win...... you were only getting odds of something like 5/7. I think the best price on a single fight that night was 1/7. I can't remember (I'm thinking it was when Joshua fought that useless Brazillian guy), but it was perhaps the worst TV card I've ever watched.

This is it. We don't need more £100k, £200k, £500k players. We have a foundation of them and - bar the odd exception - these type of players will not improve us to where we need to be. It is not a market we should chiefly be operating in if we have league winning ambitions. We need to be signing £1m, £2m, £4m type players to catch and pass them. Whether we have the means to is another matter.

As I have said quite a few times. Since the SPL was founded, every champion has had a squad spend of, at least, £20m - indeed the norm is about £25m. The only exception was Celtic in 2011/12, who had a squad spend of about £18m, and obviously were helped by us going into admin and the shit storm surrounding that. Even Delia's and McLeish's league winning sides were all comfortably over the £20m spent on the players within those squads. Currently our squad spend is £5m (Warburtons signings + Lee Wallace). Celtics is in the region of £25m. Currently our wage bill is £7-8m, Celtics ~£25m. Until our squad are posting these sort of figures then history strongly suggests it will be very hard to win the league. By squad spend, I mean the total transfer fees of everyone in the squad added up. I feel it is a decent gauge of squad quality rather than net spend or the likes.

Thanks to the previous incompetants whom were coaching and running the club, we did blow 3 'pressure free' years to rebuild the club. I'm sure many of us are greatly frustrated by that fact. We are maybe 2yrs behind where we should be in rebuilding but..... ££££'s will catch that up quickly. They are not world beaters, but maintaining the status quo means that in order to surpass them, we are relying on gross incompetance on their part.

I agree completely. Jelavic cost £4m but it was clear he was the type of player who could turn a 1-1 into a 2-1. He scored goals that dug us out holes and won games. But stating the obvious, Jelavic wouldn't be effective without a decent supporting cast, and that also costs money, and.... when Jelavic was injured we could turn to proven international quality on the bench.... that also costs money. Our squad then had strength, depth and quality. Now it's filled with guys that are worth.... about £250k. In 2010 we didn't need to play well to get 3pts, we had quality that could scrape a result most weeks, regardless of performances. Fast forward to today and even playing well doesn't guarantee a win, as we simply don't have the quality of player to turn good play into a result - in the games where we are just average, then it us much harder to get a win than in 2010, and points get dropped. That for me is the difference. We still have 2010 expectation with much, much less quality.