You Can’t Judge Rangers…Can You?

11
You Can’t Judge Rangers…Can You?


After recent entries focused on behind the scenes nonsense, it comes as
a genuine pleasure to write about football again. So if politics are what you
came for, I hate to disappoint you with 11 men kickin’ a baw.
With a patchy 4-3 victory
achieved at Glebe park, to a 4th-bottom Brechin City,
coming back from both 2-0 and 3-1 down no less, it is abundantly clear this
Rangers team is incredibly difficult to judge.
More or less the same first XI
absolutely destroyed Stenhousemuir 8-0 at Ibrox, and have effectively coasted
their way through the season thus far, with only one defeat. Consequently
judging either the players or the manager is an extremely tricky process
because of the unprecedented nature of the situation Rangers find themselves
in.
Dunno about you but I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to it.
It is difficult to give too high
a praise when a convincing win is achieved, because the disclaimer is ‘they should be destroying teams like this’.
Equally it is hard to criticise too harshly after a poor team display because
‘this club is used to playing Aberdeen, not Ayr’ and as a result the circumstances and comparisons
are thoroughly skewed.

Rangers fans are incredibly
fussy, and expect 8-0 every week, but of course footballers are human and will
not produce high-quality performances every match, no matter how poor the
opposition are.
However, with a return to the SPL
(Or ‘Premiership’ as it is now called) within mid-term sight it is worth
considering exactly where Rangers will be, personnel-wise, by the time the club
reaches the summit.
A valid question to ponder is how
many of the current squad are truly good enough for an SPL-winning Rangers
team? While the return to the SPL will almost certainly not yield a title
during the first season, Rangers fans, for the majority, will still expect it
to happen anyway.
As a result, it is worth
examining the quality of the current squad compared with the last SPL-winning
Rangers team.
In 2010/11, Rangers’ team was,
give or take, the following;
Allan McGregor; Steven Whittaker,
Madjid Bougherra, David Weir, Sasa Papac; Maurice Edu, Steven Davis, El-Hadji
Diouf, Vladimir Weiss, Nikica Jelavic, Steven Naismith, Kyle Lafferty, Kenny
Miller.
Our first team today is, give or
take;
Cammy Bell; Richard Foster, Lee
McCulloch, Bilel Mohsni, Lee Wallace, Ian Black, Lewis MacLeod, David
Templeton, Robbie Crawford, Nicky Law, Jon Daly, Andew Little, Arnold Peralta.
Ultimately, the difference
between the two squads is that the title-winning team only contained two
players signed from ‘lesser SPL teams’ – those being Naismith and Whittaker.
Nowadays effectively the entire squad is made up from such players and those groomed
through the youth system.
From a Croat international…
Now, this is nothing fans do not
know. However, I polled the question on Twitter yesterday of who the fans
believe is good enough for a Rangers SPL team, albeit I excluded the term
‘title-winning’, and only one response of the many I got believed that a mere
solitary player, that being Lee Wallace, was good enough. The rest of the
replies considered the likes of Bell,
MacLeod, Law, Little, Mohsni and Templeton to be suitable.
…to a reserve Norn Iron cap
Is this ‘blue-tinted specs’? Have
Rangers fans standards dropped so much that we now feel a 25-year old Templeton
who has been, frankly, a grossly disappointing player for Rangers, is good
enough to play in an SPL Rangers team?

Bottom line is few of these
players would have been consistently selected in the SPL prior to
administration. Only Wallace (who played along with Papac rather than instead
of him) and Foster managed it, and even then, the latter was a squad utility
player.
It seems unlikely that Jon Daly,
Nicky Law, Ian Black or Dean Shiels (Remember him?) would even have been signed
by Rangers in the SPL let alone take up a space on the bench far less start
every week.
This is not to deride them; Law,
Daly and Black are in particular having fine seasons. But the world will change
markedly when Rangers return to the top flight and supporters have to remember
that the current team (upcoming mid-term changes notwithstanding) will almost
certainly have a massive overhaul in 2015.
I will put it out to you guys out
there reading this; do you agree with me that this team (and all the players in
it, with the possible exception of Wallace) is miles off the quality of a
title-winning Rangers SPL team? Or do you think there are fragments of isolated
quality (or more) in it which would be good enough to make the step up?

No posts to display

11 COMMENTS

  1. We will get promoted from division 1 all be it will not be easy with the current mediocre squad, but will struggle in the championship unless be buy better quality players, I think we will stay in the championship for a couple of seasons.

  2. Well i know he is only a boy , but how Templeton sneaked in there i will never know .The kid is talented alright , but i dont think i have ever seen a wide player whos decision making is so poor other than Greig W . McLeod and Wallace are certainly good enough and there are one or two others as well .As far as being stuck in the Championship is concerned ? i dont go along with that at all , this squad will easily take us to the top division and " as is " would be sitting mid table .Thats not saying that Rangers are anywhere near the finished article its just that there is so much dross in that league .INCLUDING the so caled "Champions " .

  3. You make the point that you excluded the term "a team worthy of winning the title ". On that basis the only players who HAVEN`T played in the SPL are Mohsni and Peralta . So they are mostly all good enough to play in the new Premiership That same Premiership is 2 seasons away . By that stage Big Jig may have hung up his boots and perhaps Jon Daly as well . I personally don`t rate Andy Little at all and feel his presence in the current team hinders us .
    I think this team will break records this season , but not a season where we win every game . We have an embarressment of riches in young players who are gaining valuable experience playing alongside Lee Wallace , Lee McCullogh , Ian Black , Jon Daly and Arnold Peralta ( Whos ` just helped Honduras qualify for Brazil ) . There is talk of Barrie McKay , Frazer Aird and one or two others going out on loan as well .
    The bottom Line : i don`t think it is fair to judge or compare our current team . We forget sometimes the pressure on Ally last season , this season and that`s just him picking the team ,,, not to mention the constant pressure from the mhedia , praying he gives them even more scandal/ ammunition to feed their obsession of booting our club into oblivion . We Are The People , We Are The Protectors of our Club , Our Dream , OUR WAY OF LIFE .,,, ONLY WE can determine where our Club will be in 2 weeks or 2 years . Judge not , lest ye be Judged .

  4. Let's face it. We will never be a force in Scottish football for 5 years at least, if we don't get this mess sorted before Xmas.
    By the way, what is Jim Traynor doing with himself. Mr invisible, on a whole load of money.

  5. Just an inexpert opinion.
    I think the team as it currently stands is good enough to survive in the Premiership. But when we get there in 2 years, as I believe we will win the Championship first time round(we will strengthen again in January or summer 2014) this squad will need refreshed.
    Jig will not be good enough. Great leader though he is he will not have the speed for any of the departments and he lacks the quality that David Weir had. Mohsni may be good enough. I suspect Ally won't give Hegarty or Gasparotto enough time to gain experience and Perry seems unlikely to make it. So we will need a good CB.
    We have enough in midfield, in fact too many to give the kids experience, so they need to go out on loan to grow.
    Up front, Daly may still be good enough but I doubt it. I like Little, but suspect he doesn't have the quality we need to lead the line. Clark needs gametime to convince. So we will need a minimum of 1 quality striker.
    All round, a bit more quality needed for 2nd place. Winning it may take more than we will have for a couple of years, we lack the funds to spend big and I don't want to see us in debt again.
    But we won't do walking away

  6. Andy Little's never a striker and should look to his former position as a right back if he's going to make it . We still need a centre half as although Jigs doing a reasonable job its not his natural position and we're not solid enough there . We'll struggle to do well in the top league unless we have a stronger , fitter team in the Jock Wallace mode , that can compensate for the lack of true class in the first instance until we're back on a sounder financial footing . Under Jock's reign in his first period , we were the fittest , strongest team in Britain and it brought great success and ended Stein's dominance of Scottish football .

  7. … My point being , We will be Ready when we arrive in 2 seasons . Greenock Morton showed the unwashed up recently , they scraped a draw with hibs last Saturday . Yes , they have downsized , under the delusion they dont need to have big names or big wages for the Scottish Premiership , which is all very well ,,, UNTILL they meet a strong hibs team with a fair referee or a game in EUROPE against anybody half decent , can`t wait to see Lennons face and hear his excuses at the end of this group ,,, THEY are dreading our Glorious Return and wishing they`d kicked us harder . To Keep Us Down .
    We Are The Present and The Past .
    The Return Of The People Cometh .

  8. Rangers where liquidated when a CVA couldnt be agreed with HMRC comparing this current new Rangers with the old Rangers is no different than comparing them with Real Madrid or Stenhousemuir,theyre different clubs aswell.

  9. Squad would struggle week in week out in the premiership but has enough to get there, I think we all know this as do any of the "want to be directors" that is why this AGM is so important for the club

Comments are closed.