Should we prioritise the league over Europe this season?

We didnt competed for either for 7 years and we managed to stay open?

With the skin of our teeth! You can't say that no European football and no source of incoming has helped us. We are still in a fairly poor financial position 7 years later. Especially when now we need to find a way to pay bigger wages and transfer fees. No Europe was fine when you are signing Kevin Kyle and Seb Faure.
 
The only match we suffered in after Europe was mentally challengeds away.

That was after having to see off Ufa with 9 men and flying back from there for a match just over 2 days later.

One game sticks out is Hearts after we horsed Rapid Vienna. That could have beem 5-0 at half time.

We stuttered in December and January when it all caught up with us and the squad seemed to fatigue mentally and physically. There's a seasons experience and conditioning to back us this year. We also have a bigger and more balanced squad.

Bring it all on.

Totally agree. That season was a fantastic education for the team and staff, if ultimately disappointing for us, the fans.

If we can put what we learned from last season into practice this season, I believe we're going to be very happy (and pished) Bears this time next year.
 
Id play a reserve team in Europe. Just look at the first OF game at parkhead last season, flying back from Russia was not ideal and ended up costly.
For me take one league game at a time, prepare and get three points. The league is far more important than anything and nothing must get in the way of this.
 
We could face Eintracht Frankfurt then Roma in the last 3 rounds. It can't possibly be a need or a must to get through that.
Financially it isn't.
But then, next year when there is no marque signing everyone will be up in arms.
How quickly we've all forgotten and just expect sugar daddy Dave to pick up the tab.
 
We need the money, that's the long and short of it. Even with 14m Europa League Revenue last season we still ran at a short loss and our wage bill is increasing all the time. Imagine what our losses would look like without European Revenue?

We need access to that Champions League money to complete our recovery on and off the park.
Yeah and to get the champions league money we need to win the league
 
We need to do well in both - That's just facts.

The dark times of settling for mediocrity have started to lift, we need to hit this season coming like a fkn train!
 
I think when Chelsea won the league a couple of seasons ago not being in Europe definitely helped , I agree with the OP i would sacrifice Europe for this season only to get the title and I genuinely believe if we only need to concentrate on the league we will win it .
 
Do understand your point op, but we are rangers we enter every tournament to win.

I understand this viewpoint but it’s not workable any more IMO, especially if people are thinking our absolute number one aim is the league.

We could end up with trips to Russia, Turkey and Ukraine as a worst case scenario - I guarantee those giving it ‘we enter to win everything’ would be the first on here moaning if we dropped points on the Sunday after playing the strongest team 3,000 miles away on the Thursday.

I would fully understand if we rotated the team for Europe - and we’ve not even talked about the two cups yet.
 
We threw away our chance at the title in Jan/Feb! Nothing to do with Europe. We should be aiming to win the league and get to and compete in the group stages. Building a squad capable of both is exactly what is happening just now. If we repeat or better the 6 points from 12 against them and sort out the inconsistencies against the rest we will have a superb season.
 
Losing in Europe is gut wrenching and puts the whole squad, fans and club on a massive downer, which leaks into the league performances. The exhilaration of knowing we have group stage Euro football (pr have come through a tricky qualifier tie) more than makes up for fatigue, there's no way we should be resting players for it. We need the cash for squad development in any case.

Last season it was March that saw our domestic campaign turn into a wet fart, it wasn't the Europa League.
 
If you could guarantee me that we win the league then I’d happily go out of the Europa in the first qualifying round.

That isn’t possible however so our aim should be to win every game we play this season.
 
That's not the point. This is not a normal season
No season for us is normal, you could make that claim literally any year. We have the same manager going into the next season for the first time in ages, the bones of a good squad, realism in the support about transfers in and out and no (comparative to recent years) chaos swirling around the club. I know we're desperate for 55, but these are all normal football club scenarios.
 
I think the league is there for us this season my worry is that the Thursday Sunday routine takes its toll on the team and would be a distraction we could do without.

We won’t get a better shot imo of winning the league and I would be going all out for the league.

I know the glamour and extra money is a huge thing for us and the club but I wouldn’t be going all out in Europe I’d use our squad and keep our strongest side for the league.

What way do you lean on this?
There is no difference between Thursday/Sunday and Wednesday/Saturday.
General point though.
We’re in every competition to win it so I think we need to take each game as it comes.
 
That would be insane and extremely worrying if qualifying for the group is a "need". Like last season it will be a fantastic bonus if we get there.
Being important for our business plan doesn’t necessary equate to breakeven points or anything like that per se. Clubs will have 1 year, 3 year or 5 year business plans, with certain targets in addition to financial plans. Getting into Europe allows you to attract better players, as well as helping finance better players. It’s also about building the coefficient to help in future years, both in terms of Europe and its impact on domestic football.
 
We threw away our chance at the title in Jan/Feb! Nothing to do with Europe. We should be aiming to win the league and get to and compete in the group stages. Building a squad capable of both is exactly what is happening just now. If we repeat or better the 6 points from 12 against them and sort out the inconsistencies against the rest we will have a superb season.

This.

We were joint top at the end of the year. We blew the league when we were already out of Europe.

We need income from European football. Dave King has been open about that from the start. It's not a nice extra.
 
I think the league is there for us this season my worry is that the Thursday Sunday routine takes its toll on the team and would be a distraction we could do without.

We won’t get a better shot imo of winning the league and I would be going all out for the league.

I know the glamour and extra money is a huge thing for us and the club but I wouldn’t be going all out in Europe I’d use our squad and keep our strongest side for the league.

What way do you lean on this?
I think its important to make the group stages for the money and just as Important our Coefficient points.
 
Europe is what is one of the attractions for players, we are a big club we need to be playing in Europe and doing well that quite simply is the answer
 
Rangers should always want to go as far as humanly possible in every competition we enter
 
Being important for our business plan doesn’t necessary equate to breakeven points or anything like that per se. Clubs will have 1 year, 3 year or 5 year business plans, with certain targets in addition to financial plans. Getting into Europe allows you to attract better players, as well as helping finance better players. It’s also about building the coefficient to help in future years, both in terms of Europe and its impact on domestic football.
I get all that mate. Possibly I'm being overly pernickety here but it's still not a need.
 
The league is our priority every season.

Exactly. If we don't win the league this season there'll be no romanticism of "oh, but we nearly beat Villareal and nearly beat Moscow away, that was excellent stuff and a great adventure"

The league should always be a priority, IMO and any other 'nearly' is a bonus but not a fallback from not winning our ultimate prize.
 
Posted this last week but applies to this thread.

If we manage to qualify for the group stages of the Europa again I think we need to adopt a similar strategy to Epl teams who play in that competition and make wholesale changes when we play 2 games in a week. Looks like we're building a squad that can do this. The league is the priority and last year our European exploits absolutely had a negative affect on our league form, but if we know a certain group of players are only going to be selected for one of the games we can prepare them accordingly. The Gaffer, Beale, our players have all mentioned our training is greatly affected by the Thursday/Sunday schedule. On the basis we secure our rumoured targets I'd like to see something like this -

#1
McGregor

Tav Goldson Edmundson Barisic

Docherty Rossiter Jack

Arfield Kent

Defoe

#2
McGregor

Tav Goldson Katic Flanagan

Kamara Davis Aribo

Ojo Morelos* Jones

(*or replacement)

Murphy could play in either set up depending on how he is when he returns.
Candieas could come into the 433 for a tricky European game.
McCrorie, Middleton and Hastie go out on loan.

The two sides don't need to be set in stone, we could mix and match depending on who we are playing. As long as we have fresh, well prepared players going into a Sunday league game it gives us a much better chance of not dropping silly points due to being tired from Europe.
 
People can say this before the season starts all they want, but not one Rangers fan would be happy if we sent a reserve team out in a European game. Especially if we reach the group stage and we're paying £40 for each home game.
 
The only match we suffered in after Europe was mentally challengeds away.

That was after having to see off Ufa with 9 men and flying back from there for a match just over 2 days later.

One game sticks out is Hearts after we horsed Rapid Vienna. That could have beem 5-0 at half time.

We stuttered in December and January when it all caught up with us and the squad seemed to fatigue mentally and physically. There's a seasons experience and conditioning to back us this year. We also have a bigger and more balanced squad.

Bring it all on.

Not correct.

I just checked - we dropped NINE points directly after European games last year.

  • We drew with Aberdeen after Osijek.
  • We drew with Motherwell after Ufa.
  • We lost to Celtic after Ufa second leg.
  • We drew with Hibs after Spartak Moscow.

I’m not sure we can say it has no effect, all of those games were two days after the European games as well.
 
If we want to progress over the longer term we need to improve our European coefficient, and to do that, we need to take Europe seriously. The financial gains, not to mention the ambitions of where we want our club to be, are only served by taking it seriously.

I can see an argument for rotating in Europe a bit if we make the groups, but we need to do all we can to get their in the first instance. Our coefficient and Scotland's coefficient being so poor are the main reason we start qualifiers before the middle of July - only us and them (unfortunately) are capable of driving an improvement in that which will benefit us in the long run, domestically and abroad
 
Qualifying for the europa group stages is massive financially for the club we need to use the squad better next season imo playing guys like morelos in a game at Ibrox against ayr utd in the shitey league cup was daft play the fringe guys in league cup and use the squad better for certain league games
 
No season for us is normal, you could make that claim literally any year. We have the same manager going into the next season for the first time in ages, the bones of a good squad, realism in the support about transfers in and out and no (comparative to recent years) chaos swirling around the club. I know we're desperate for 55, but these are all normal football club scenarios.

I don't agree at all. Winning the league is far more valuable than any stage we are likely to get into the Europa League financially.

If that curbs their so called wealth by automatically denying them Champions League football then it's a leveller higher than any income from the Europa League.

In an ideal world we have both. Priority next season is the league
 
I slightly disagree it affected us in the first old firm game after Russia the team was shattered and Gerrard admitted he couldn’t d play the way he wanted us too.
This could have been avoided if we kept 11 men on the park. It was the 9 men that killed us for the old firm game, not the Thursday fixture imo.

European football is key to the long term success of the business. I agree 55 is the top priority but we cant focus solely on the league. We should have adequate resources and fitness levels to deal with 2 games a week
 
Based on last year the first old firm game was probably the only game I thought Europe cost us. It’s was other things that eventually halted our challenge
 
It's a Yes from me.

Whilst we all love a European run, the best thing for me is to get knocked out early doors and put our full concentration and effort into this League. Some would turn on Gerrard if we failed in Europe though.

We need to get off to a great start and put these Bastards under pressure form the get go. Treat every game like a cup final. The daft points dropped last year against shite cost us. It can't happen again.

Kill this 10 chat once and for all. A bit of pressure and Lennon will combust. They have had no pressure for years.
 
I think the league is there for us this season my worry is that the Thursday Sunday routine takes its toll on the team and would be a distraction we could do without.

We won’t get a better shot imo of winning the league and I would be going all out for the league.

I know the glamour and extra money is a huge thing for us and the club but I wouldn’t be going all out in Europe I’d use our squad and keep our strongest side for the league.

What way do you lean on this?
That's why we'll need a big squad,so we can cchange like for like without weakening the team. We need to be utterly ruthless from the off so that any dubious refereeing decision doesn't harm the overall result. We were close to it last year as our head to head against Celtic showed. Now I think we will kick on and some with the additions we e brought in.
 
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