Alan Stubbs and his embarrassing ‘mind games’

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Alan Stubbs and his embarrassing ‘mind games’

The English Premier League was
once graced by one of the greatest managers who ever lived in Govan’s most famous
son; Sir Alex Ferguson.
Beyond his sheer brilliance
tactically and commensurate ability to get more out of players than they even
knew they could produce was his legendary practice of mind games.
Arsene Wenger was a long-time
victim of these, and overall many would have to concede Sir Alex had the edge. Ferguson’s spiritual
successor Jose Mourinho has also been more than a tad partial to indulging in
these psychological bouts of warfare, and to his credit, he has been more than
competent at them.

Scottish football never really
had anyone especially brilliant at cerebral combat though, mainly given there
was never any major need.
However, one present-day manager
in the Championship has decided to take on the mantle of psychological warrior,
well-versed in the cogent manipulation of opposition managers. Unfortunately
for the esteemed Mr Alan Stubbs, his attempts at mind games go something below embarrassing
and into the realm of sincerely worrying about his mental stability.
And oddly enough all of this is
aimed in the direction of Ibrox, and rather highlights this former Celtic
player’s increasingly bitter loathing of all things Rangers.
It all started with that
ridiculous epigram in the play-off semifinal v Rangers when Stubbs decided to
try undermining the score at Ibrox by claiming:
“2-0 is the most vulnerable lead in football.”
Woeful does not cover how poor
this was. It failed miserably as Rangers ran out 2-1 aggregate winners.
The next attempt was even more
ludicrous. When Rangers’ bid around £100,000 for Scott Allan, Stubbs’ response
was even more transparent than the first one:
“We’ve had a bid from Rangers, which has
been flatly rejected. We’re not welcoming any bids, out position hasn’t changed
since when I spoke about it a month ago. It (bid of £100,000) doesn’t say a lot
about what Rangers think of the player.”
These comments speak for
themselves.
But the latest ones in the press
over the past day are on a new level of idiocy. I respect mind games, effective
ones anyway. They are a fine way to get sub-epidermal to your opponent, getting
under their skin and potentially altering their tactics in a way that
inadvertently helps you. But Stubbs’ attempts are just getting more and more
feeble.
His latest diatribe tries to
undermine Mark Warburton altogether, saying:
“It’s very easy when you’ve got money to
spend to bring in much better players than what was there at the start.”
Where do we start with this
nonsense? First off Rangers only spent money outright on three of the 10
signings made so far – roughly £200K each on Rob Kiernan, Martyn Waghorn and
James Tavernier. No one is seriously going to build a convincing case that
£600,000 can rebuild a good team from scratch, not even one in Scotland’s
second tier. No, which is why the rest of the signings are all free agents or
loans.
“When you buy good players, which they’ve
obviously brought in, sometimes it does not necessarily take a long a time (to
gel). Compared to where they are last season to now, it is a transformation of
the squad but they’ve spent a lot of money as well.”
No. No. No! Alan, you are plain
lying here, and trying strongly to imply that Rangers, or Warburton in
particular basically opened the cheque book and bought new players willy nilly.
Complete and total drivel, sorry.
Then he makes it even worse, by
spouting another blatant falsehood:
“Their start to the season has been very
strong, there is no denying that and we’ve seen from their second half
performance against us that when things go their way, they can be a dangerous
team.”
Actually Rangers were struck back by
Alloa at Recreation
Park, yet recovered
almost immediately. So, things did not go completely our way there and we
remained a dangerous team. That is called resilience.
In many ways it is paradoxical to
qualify and dignify his absolute babbling with any considered response, but
given how wildly inaccurate his comments are, and how close they come to
complete lies, it was worth offering some sort of counter-argument.
The Allan saga really got to him, huh?

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32 COMMENTS

  1. He needs to have a wee lie down in a dark room…
    Anyway, not impressed with all those missed passes vs Ayr…we need to sharpen up for Sunday.
    To hammer hibs we need to revert to the Alloa team…Oduwa to start ahead of Law.

  2. Stubbs has issued yet another statement to the press, This one was in reaction to being branded an utter bamstick who is incapable of shutting his big idiotic mouth. He said, and I quote :-

    "Alright, I might be a fucked in the head moron, but I can lift heavy fings".

  3. I really hope rangers destroy his on Sunday,teach them a footballing lesson,I really hope these stupid remarks from Alan stubbs gees up those rangers players WATP

  4. Ive tried not to have a go at Stubbs, I did think of submitting an article to uou on thos topic bitt kinda glad you did it instead. Stubbs in my view isn't manager quality. Im sure he has his attributes in coaching terms but his 'press' management and complete inabilty to fluently literate his point has in my mind made him as you say a joke. He is obviously still very loyal to Celtic and thats fine, not sure Celtic voew him in the same manner. If I was a Hibee I would be concerned that he was maybe a bit too pro Celtic. His comments of late are those of a man under pressure and one who knows non promotion means the sack this season. So if he wants to take a swipe at Rangers fine, everyone else seems to be as well. Do we care ? NO. I think if we do go after Stubbs it would be a liberty, let him babble on he does himself abd Hibs bi giod by doing so and motivates every Rangers player and fan everytime he takes a swipe.

  5. This man is completely obsessed with hating Rangers not content with rubbing our noses in it over the Allan affair he is now having a go at Warburton who has behaved with dignity at all times since coming to our club, he is just a bitter and twisted little man. PS cheers Stubbs, you have gave us an even bigger incentive to gub hibs on Sunday WATP.

  6. Stubbs has repeatedly made a complete fool of himself. His time at Celtic has obviously frontal lobotomised him.
    No doubt Ranger's spending power will be his excuse for not gettin to the playoffs this season.

  7. It doesn't take much intelligence to understand that you shouldn't try to play mind games with someone who is obviously more intelligent than you. Alan Stubbs an average football manager and no Machiavelli. Probably won't be in a job by Christmas.

  8. The guy is laughable let him spout his drivel we will concentrate on the football after all thats what it comes down to. Ooooooh warburton is magic he wears a magic hat……

  9. I believe the man Stubbs has realised his coat is on a shoogly peg, And hopefully after this weekend he will be removed from his position,TBH do we REALLY care about some Ex Sellik mug? We have more important things to do like geting outta this sh*te league and wmaybe winnin a cup along the way, that would show em

  10. New song for Sunday – "Cheer-up , Stubbsy, you sold the Tims a ringer, you sold the Tims a ringer, you sold the Tims a ringer!"

    • you sold the tims a ranger u sold the tims a ranger who we were going to build our future on oh u sold the tims our future heh heh

  11. So funny that hibs won't sell to a rival…That would weaken our chances etc.. ok I get that…

    We'll sell now to celtic and weaken OUR team regardless in the championship.

    This Hibs team is weaker without Judas Allan and so we enjoy the day. WATP

    • I don't see why you need to make silly comments about people who have not signed for Rangers, Allan has went to Celtic was he a Rangers fan yes, is he still a Rangers fan I don't know but would you want to play infront of people who verbally abused you the last time you played at the home of the team you supported, or the club that through a not so good manager said no to you after you came out and said come get me (last summer) and previous employer (Hibs) said they would not let you fulfill your dreams I don't think Allan had a choice. I say wish him luck and look forward to seeing him back in a hibs shirt next season cause I can't see how he will fit in that Celtic team. We are Rangers supporters we should accept that not everyone is happy we are on our way back but we shouldn't let it upset us, accept that we are upsetting others then look forward to them coming to our home and us having the fortress we used to have that scares other teams. We are Rangers, we are the people who are on our way back to the top. Let's hope we get the Scottish Cup this season and with it a place in Europe next season.
      WATP

  12. So true my man, really glad now we didn't sign Allan, the man is a money grabber, liar and a complete fake, gers had a very close escape WATP

  13. What's this guy's problem, he was at it days before every match we played them last season and we always kicked their arse, he's too stupid to learn, here's hoping for more of the same on Sunday.

  14. What was his excuse for defeat the other week? Maybe it's because he thinks Dumbarton out spent them too, he should be quiet I'm actually starting to feel embarrassed for the bloke, Stubbs is taking over the asylum WATP

  15. Why has the compliance officer not asked Stubbs to explain the slanderous statement he made that he knew Rangers had made a last minute attempt to get Scott Alan to not to sign for Celtic but to wait until January and sign for Rangers. Scott Alan stated categorically that no such offer had been made by Rangers if this had been our manager in this type of scenario the SFA compliance officer would have been on in it in a flash and asking us for an explanation!!

    • The guy's correct title is the "Rangers Compliance Officer", so the gaffer better just leave big mouth Stubbs to make an arse of himself. Anyway, Stubbs can't help it. Trying to shut that cakehole would be harder than trying to plug the Mersey Tunnel.

      Let's give the upstarts another six of the best on Sunday.

  16. The one thing Stubbs has done has got us all solidified & committed to the cause, BRILLIANT, Now we need to not gte too cocky and go out there on Sunday & batter em & I do mean rip them a new one, leave them in bits on the pitch so that they know they will be nothing but 2nd best in the league & that they will be scrabbling about for a play off place if there lucky at the end of the season, I used to hate Lennon but Stubbs has replaced him now, Roll on Sunday i hope we murder em!!

  17. Just seen on sky sports that hibs top physio Flannigan has handed notice in and will be with the mighty rangers next month, get earplugs at the ready, Stubbs blast off lol WATP

  18. I used to hate Lennon, the hate has gone. I used to hate Stubbs but he was and now is insignificant, he isn't worth talking about, let the gers do the talking on Sunday on the pitch WATP

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