The disaster that is/was Frank McParland

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The disaster that is/was Frank McParland

If one appointment Rangers’ new board has made has been exposed as an unmitigated disaster, it was the placement of the now outgoing Frank McParland as Head of Recruitment in October 2015.

To describe the signatures acquired since then as abysmal is an understatement, and it is worth looking at just what rubbish Rangers have snapped up since McParland took over the transfer policy.

In the first window under his ‘guidance’, Rangers wasted £500,000 on Michael O’Halloran, picked up the inconsistent Harry Forrester for free, and brought in two pieces of dead wood in the form of Billy King (signed because of his name – still cannot get a look in at Hearts, he is now on loan at Inverness) and Polish goalkeeper Maciej Gostomski. The latter ended up turfed out two months later for reasons unknown.

It did not get much better with the summer window either. The likes of Matt Gilks, Joey Barton, Joe Garner and Matt Crooks darkened Rangers’ doorstop and with the draw v County featuring only three of the summer signings (and Senderos only showed up because Kiernan’s uselessness went too far and Wilson is not fully match fit yet) it is pretty clear that level of import was not exactly sufficient enough for a Rangers side wishing to establish themselves as the clear best of the rest.

This year’s winter window hardly made Frank McParland look like a genius either. Another two loans (both promising enough I suppose but still not ours) coupled with signing already on-loan David Bates permanently and bringing in a ‘body’ to replace the departed Matt Gilks is the stuff of mediocrity.

Rangers’ Head of Recruitment has really been a bit of a nightmare and his apparent exit does not surprise – it only suggests his ally Mark Warburton is not far away from such a move himself.

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28 COMMENTS

  1. yip the whole management team have been hopeless .garner i think has been the dreadful .looks like thats another lot jumping ship .only way is up

  2. What do you expect ? He's operating with a crap budget and we won't pay good enough wages to attract better caliber players. It's very easy to blame Warburton and McParland but the real blame lies with the board that nobody dares to critise.

    And please don't reference the Garner fee that was probably buy now pay 2019.

    • why did they come in the first place they must have known there budget its costing a fortune to run ibrox plus the training complex what do you know what is happening behind scenes .rangers have got nothing coming in money wise and footballing wise not one player worth any decent money warbs said he was happy beginning season with his lot .they have signed one load of rubbish that is why were in this state

    • King has not exactly been an innocent in all of this! When you shop at Pound Land you tend to get rubbish and we were not even shopping at pound land!
      The above said I reckon that Forrester could be a decent player with the right level of coaching, so could Crooks, (who was not fit for months after joining us and didn't really get a chance to gain match fitness while the less than useless Andy Halliday started every game), The poor defensive qualities of our defence and I include Wallace in that, speaks volumes for the incompetence of Davie Weir who is also failing to instil in the team what it means to wear the Rangers jersey.

  3. The Sun reporting that Rangers’ head of recruitment Frank McParland is set to quit the club because he is so disappointed at the abysmally low transfer budget. This could be excellent news as it should make it much easier to dispose of Warburton and Weir.

    If we don't beat Morton, or get maximum points from the Dundee and Inverness games, then for me, they must go immediately, so that we can end up in the top three.

    I would bring in Alex McLeish as caretaker/interim manager and upgrade Kenny Miller as player/coach until the end of the season.

    Although Frank De Boer is available now with no club and no transfer to pay, or am I only dreaming again?

    • Yes Richard, sound judgement. Bring in McLeish. I would like Miller and Hill having a say as they have trained and played with all the players and must have their own ideas on strengths and weaknesses of the team. I do think we could have a very good finish to the end of the season by taking Warburton's insistence of playing touch ball out of Ibrox. All we need for a drastic improvement is a commanding centre fullback as a growling no nonsense captain and an out and out poacher who is forever in the opposing six yard box. Quite simply we will concede far less and score a barrowload more. I'm sure there is a lot going on behind the curtain re Ashley, new share offer, legal issues and major advertising contracts. The results from the scouting system have been chronic.

    • Brilliant guys..although Macleish did lead us to third place in a two horse race with a much bigger budget than Warbs…but hey why let history interfere with trying to be progressive.

  4. bobby how can you say that ??

    He signed 11 players in the summer most on good wages second biggest budget in Scotland by a distance is that not backing, he identified the players not the board, We are third in the league closer to relagation than to Celtic, who's faults that ??

    We are surviving on soft loan to get us through a season, effectively keeping the lights on, we have no banking facilty, we have court cases pending… Some fans heads are the clouds it's not the 90s anymore, like it or not our success of that era was funded by debt.

    People should realise what King,Park etc are doing for us, if they walk were finished, they only do it cause they are supporters like the rest of us..

    • It does not make me happy to say but I agree with The Realist, and the sooner others get real the better, we are in serious shit and I know we do not want to hear it and it is sore but it is the F***ing truth. The backroom team had a budget and blew it whilst some people were happy to make Garner a hero and get a song number 1 in the charts he was doing nothing really positive – rephrase, he was not doing what he is paid to do – score goals, and lets face it that is why he was bought, not to be a headless chicken that tries, we can all try but we are not all good enough. Other purchases are the same, post match discussions about we played well and if this had happened or that had not happened – it does not matter, we need a clear out – AGAIN.

  5. To be fair when Warburton came to Ibrox I was as happy as larry as was probably 99 % of the fans and the board.everything was looking good up until we new the league was won and Delia'so celtic had been thrashed in the cup. Since then it's been a downhill spiral and MW/DW have had no answer. The board are finding out at the same rate of knots as the rest of us . They've spent and lost a lot of money. They're obviously waiting for the next manager to sanction the Kenny Miller contract extension. The clock'speed ticking.

  6. Before i have my say here,i rated our head of recruitment frank mcparland,before he got the rangers gig!!Still do rate him,though some of his recruitment players,haven't worked out for various reasons!If mcparland does quit his post at rangers, then there's someone we should go and try to get as a replacement!We should go for paul mitchell at spurs!He IMO is better than mcparland,with a fantastic record at both southampton and spurs!!I know he's serving his notice at spurs!

    • A good shout Robert, if we could get him. I read that he wants to go into management and that's why he's serving his notice, but if we could get him that would be good! Glad we can agree for a change!

  7. King is doing nothing apart from giving false promises, agree Park keeping lights on, trouble is, we appear to be going backwards, football is a lot better if you believe Mr W who talks as good a game as Mr K on his promised £30M for players. Support need to wake up to the prospect of several more years of poor football and a lack of financial plan or worse still …… J

    • totally agree, the deluded amongst our fans need to realize, that we are not going to spend a fifth of what celtic will spend. king is hiding, weir & warbs talking nonsense, regression on the pitch. i hope fans will let them know by notbuying season tickets what they think. its just embarassing how the club is being run, we are going more and more into debt and our chairman is not giing a toss about it. on one hand i dont want warbs to be here, but on the other he is being deluded by king with his silly deluded promises.

      time for change Bears!

  8. Gilks dodnt darkem the door step, he was decent when used but he just wanted 1st team football at his age. Other than that I cant really find a reason not to agree with this piece.

  9. Warburton comes out today and claims we are lucky to have mcpartland – no we are not.

    Further evidence how stubborn and out of touch with reality our manager is.

    Sadly the board seem to think they are a silent partner in the business. They owe the fans more – but I'm guessing they will save their empty words for when they need out season ticket money.

    For goodness sake – either back or sack the man, and get a move on about doing it.

    If we back him then we need to get out act together and start recruitment for our supposed challenge next season.

    If we sack him we need to given the new management a chance both with money and time.

    Waiting to summer might seem like a good idea, however it would give the new man very little preparation time and damns us to repeat the same mistakes.

    In terms of names, people will come forward- have no doubt. We should be creative and not limit ourselves to past players or people with rangers connections- that is a very limited and unimaginative solution that will not move us forward.

  10. Agree all comments Mc Parland not living up to his billing Garner cant play in Warburton System he was better at Preston as he was getting service > Not good enough goes for quite a lot of them sorry ..

  11. Hopefully there's some truth to the rumour that young Gilmour is in the team on Sunday. If your good enough, your old enough! He can't be any worse than most of the senior players have been this season. At least he would be keen to show what he can do and offer some passion! If we don't give him a chance we could lose him to a richer club and that would be terrible! I'd prefer to see young talented Scots like Gilmour and Burt get a game, than loan signings.

  12. I predict we will win on Sunday, we may struggle or we may steamroller them. I doubt they have sufficient quality on the break to hurt us.

    But that changes nothing, the board need to make a decision and back that decision.

  13. Rangers problems go far beyond what is happening on the park and clearly that is not good.
    Football clubs have to recognise that they are subject to the normal constraints of business and sensible businessmen are not prepared to pour their money into a bottomless pit.
    The ability of the football club to attract sponsorship and investment depends on how they are perceived in the widest market.
    so why are Rangers despised throughout Scotland and beyond?
    Lets start here for a grown up debate.

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