“We’re just too negative”; an ode to Ibrox Noise

Ibrox Noise’s Greg recently provided an early report card, one which was rather balanced and both criticised and praised Steven Gerrard’s start at Ibrox in equal measure.

We then followed this up with another, more critical piece discussing the direction of the club in light of such a number of loan signings arriving, and their own motivations for doing so.

Safe to say, some of the disagreeing feedback has been vitriolic to both articles, while those who agree or accept the points made have been extremely civil.

Some of the critical points argue we’re incessantly negative or we’re not supporters

We would like to address these in turn.

The negative slant is interesting; for around six+ weeks from the announcement of Gerrard till his first match against FK Shkupi, the accusations were similarly intense, but equally opposite – we were being labelled as a ‘propaganda tool’ for the board, with our constant positivity and optimism.

All you have to do is look at our output from around mid-May to 12 July to see just how good we were feeling about Gerrard’s imminent appointment, and how we projected some serious players arriving as a result of his name. We admitted we were unsure how he’d do as a manager, but that was about as negative as it got. So the idea we’re nothing but negativity is frankly absurd and based on selective reading.

We will now have a look at that second point – that we’re not supporters.

One accusation is that we ‘don’t go to the games, that says it all’. Well, that is absolutely nonsense – while not all of us on the site are able to get to the games frequently (bit like many of you lot reading this article), we have season ticket holders (just like many of you reading are) writing for us or part of the staff, past and present, and we all put repeated sums of cash into the club for varying reasons (just like many of you have).

We have always found the accusation that anyone who doesn’t go to the matches as much as the rest or at all is in some way a non-fan to be the most ludicrous piffle ever put by quill to parchment, given the majority of Rangers fans clearly do not. This club has hundreds and hundreds of thousands of fans globally, and only 51,000 seats at Ibrox. You do the maths.

However, what we would attest is that perhaps we’re a different ‘kind’ of supporter, that we buck convention.

You see, we hold our club to account – we don’t blindly put faith in despite the evidence before us. We call what we see, and we’re honest about our opinions.

If we see a poor performance, we call it a poor performance. If we have doubts about this player, or that formation, or this manager, we express them. Just like all you reading have throughout your lives.

The difference, perhaps, is we’re prepared to express those beliefs on this site, while most of you will keep your scepticism to private chat with friends or talk of the terrace. We respect how each fan wishes to convey themselves. But this Ibrox Noise here will say what we think – and many people agree with our comments. Many don’t, and we have no issue with that. The personal slurs (99.99% false incidentally) we could do without, but it’s par for the course online. Much more a reflection of those slurring us than anything else.

Sometimes our more public thoughts are proven to be false – that this player actually turned out great, or that one turned out rubbish – but we don’t have any issue saying what we think, both good and bad.

The overriding worry on Ibrox Noise, though, is that Steven Gerrard appears to be making more errors than successes – few fans could be thrilled at the Greg Docherty story, out of position players, the appointment of Tavernier as captain or the continued selection of Alfredo Morelos and Andy Halliday.

We simply hope he irons these out and does it quickly. We still remain uninformed about how good he will be as our manager because he hasn’t been in the job long enough to make truly useful judgements but signs so far are mixed at best.

Many reading this are of the lines of ‘give him time’, and ‘far too early’ – and they’re right. It is too early. But there’s nothing wrong with making judgements based on empirical evidence, and we’ve done that without any shame.

This is our club and we want the best for it.

Time will tell if that’s Steven Gerrard and his signings or not, but if you don’t like us calling  anything he (and the players) does wrong as well as praising what he does right (defence is far better, for one) then Ibrox Noise isn’t for you.

Peace.