The 2000/01 Campaign

Advocatt was a very good manager but his arrogance was his downfall that season. He thought, correctly, that we had a superior squad to the mentally challengeds talent wise and they would be unable to match us over the course of the league. Also he underestimated O'Neill's man management where he got the best out of his more limited players. He was wrong on both counts unfortunately. Add in the unnecessary signing and shoeing in of Konterman and the beginnings of an unhappy dressing room.

DA was incredibly stubborn. The way stuck by Konterman being a prime example of this. We beat Aberdeen 2-0 at home one midweek night that season; Tugay scored 2, I think, and had an excellent match. After the match DA played down Tugay's performance, instead banging on about how Konterman worked his socks off and should have been man of the match. DA also changed the system just to accommodate Konterman to sit in front of the 2 centre halves, just to get him slightly out of harm's way.
 
Been watching old games on YouTube and why was there such a massive difference between Advocaats 2nd and 3rd season?

Quick check of the league table and in 2000 we won 28/38 league games, losing only 2 and getting 90 points.

Following year after spending an absolute fortune (Ricksen, Miller, De Boer, Konterman, Flo - combined 25 million quid in 2000!) we won 26/38 games but lost an incredible 8 times.

Squad was clearly improved and albeit the mhanks improved as well, but how did we go from losing only twice to eight times and then put out the cups as well?

O'Neill just got better off Advocaat? Injuries? Fluke season from them (they got 97 points so good total).

I was only young but remember getting few doings at home from likes of Killie, Dundee etc.

Did fans want Advocaat sacked end of season or still bit of goodwill for the previous two seasons? Arguably one of our best ever squads as well with Gio, Reyna, Tugay, Klos, RDB, Flo, Ferguson, Ricksen, Mols).
Billy Dodds scoring a fair few
 
O’Neill signed a team of hammer throwers to kick us off the pitch. There must have been 6-7 6ft+ players in his team plus Larsson who probably could have been the world high jump champion if he was that way inclined. Ricksen and Konterman were just terrible signings who took the team backwards.
 
I was only 15 but can remember scratching my head that we signed so many players. The previous summer we only signed Mols & Adamczuk.

I just didn’t think we needed so many new players. I still believe Ritchie, Johnstone & Miller were Murray signings.

Konterman & Ricksen were dugshite and for whatever reason Advocaat changed to 3 at the back to fit Konterman in at CB.

Mental when we could of bought 2/3 players and strengthened from the year before.
 
It was a series of problems really, chief among them being Advocaat’s desire to change a back four that had served us so well the previous couple of seasons.

That being said, Amoruso was always prone to the odd defensive calamity and Porrini was beginning to get on a bit so the choice of two younger Dutch internationals did look sound on paper.

In reality it was a disaster with both Ricksen and Konterman looking utterly paralysed at the back and then Moore got injured in the first game of the season forcing Advocaat to bring back his deposed captain, who he’d been trying to punt all summer, to partner Bertie Bombscare in the centre of our defence.

The result was a back four that spectacularly fell apart at Parkhead infusing Celtic with all the belief they needed and conversely robbing us of our own.

Add in injuries to key players like Numan, Van Bronckhorst, Reyna, Albertz and Ferguson throughout the season, and we were never really able to field our first choice XI for any length of time.

Funnily enough on one of the few occasions we did we gubbed the Yahoos 5-1, a case of what might have been, but by then the damage was done and internal divisions in the dressing room pretty much did the rest.
 
Been watching old games on YouTube and why was there such a massive difference between Advocaats 2nd and 3rd season?

Quick check of the league table and in 2000 we won 28/38 league games, losing only 2 and getting 90 points.

Following year after spending an absolute fortune (Ricksen, Miller, De Boer, Konterman, Flo - combined 25 million quid in 2000!) we won 26/38 games but lost an incredible 8 times.

Squad was clearly improved and albeit the mhanks improved as well, but how did we go from losing only twice to eight times and then put out the cups as well?

O'Neill just got better off Advocaat? Injuries? Fluke season from them (they got 97 points so good total).

I was only young but remember getting few doings at home from likes of Killie, Dundee etc.

Did fans want Advocaat sacked end of season or still bit of goodwill for the previous two seasons? Arguably one of our best ever squads as well with Gio, Reyna, Tugay, Klos, RDB, Flo, Ferguson, Ricksen, Mols).

Just out of interest, what is the highest points total we’ve ever had in a league season?

I remember when I started properly getting into Rangers (2001ish) I would check the table and the darkside were always close to racking up at least 95-100 points under O’Neill. I used to think that we’d never beat them (thankfully Ferguson and co put that worries to bed the following season).
 
Advocaat lost the plot. I'm so glad a lot of those players were able to redeem themselves under Big Eck.

Still haven't forgiven Advocaat for selling Albertz.
Advocaat has to be one of our most overrated managers ever for all the money that was spent we had two good seasons then that was it. Played some cracking football but wasted an absolute shed load of cash especially at that time. No manager would get away with that now. Within six months big eck had turned it around shows this
 
Recruitment. Got it all wrong that summer. Celtic got it right. Changed a defence that was settled and performing well. If we’d got Hartson ( and the deal was done and despite what he says now he was delighted to be joining us) we probably have a striker that can handle their physicality. But you can’t blame us for not taking the risk on his knee given our luck with injuries.
 
Dont take this the wrong way mate but I had a wee chuckle reading that
No offence taken, I have a wee smile at the memory myself now.
By that stage he was in full “no fucks given” mode, one night I was at his bedside when a mentally challenged visitor walked by bedecked in the green and grey hoops.
As loud as he could manage my old man said “ look at the fucking state of that! What kind of way is that to visit in a hospital?”
 
Mixture of bad man management, bad signings and horrendous injuries are my lasting memories of that season.

Marcus Gayle and Bert bombscare Konterman ffs
 
No offence taken, I have a wee smile at the memory myself now.
By that stage he was in full “no fucks given” mode, one night I was at his bedside when a mentally challenged visitor walked by bedecked in the green and grey hoops.
As loud as he could manage my old man said “ look at the fucking state of that! What kind of way is that to visit in a hospital?”

superb:D
 
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Just out of interest, what is the highest points total we’ve ever had in a league season?

I remember when I started properly getting into Rangers (2001ish) I would check the table and the darkside were always close to racking up at least 95-100 points under O’Neill. I used to think that we’d never beat them (thankfully Ferguson and co put that worries to bed the following season).

We actually won the league during 9IAR with remarkably low points totals.

Think McLeish or Walter in second term must have been highest for us... The mhanks lost the title with 97 points when we won Treble I believe so McLeish had to actually improve our points total from Advocaats title wins by quite a bit just to win league by a goal.
 
I remember watching him making a horrendous error at Euro 2000 when he mistimed a header with nobody within 30 feet of him, injuring his own neck in the process. Prompted Ruud Gullit to comment on it at half time, saying he couldn't believe how bad that was for a professional footballer! He arrived at Ibrox a few weeks later and the horror show continued.

To this day, I remain baffled that a Dutch international who'd led Feyenoord to win the UEFA cup the previous season could turn out to be so poor.

After leaving us, I think he signed for an amateur team in the Netherlands and never played professional football again.
Played a season for Vitesse after us.
 
We actually won the league during 9IAR with remarkably low points totals.

Think McLeish or Walter in second term must have been highest for us... The mhanks lost the title with 97 points when we won Treble I believe so McLeish had to actually improve our points total from Advocaats title wins by quite a bit just to win league by a goal.
Did a bit of research after I posed the question and my mind wasn’t playing tricks on me, that darkside team did pick up a lot of wins, O’Neill never dropped below 92 points during his spell there. Thankfully McLeish rose to the occasion more than once for us.
 
To take the 99/00 squad to the ‘next level’ in Europe we probably needed an upgrade at CB, right back and another striker to play alongside Mols.
In fairness to Advocaat, he recognised this, only problem is we bought in Konterman, Ricksen and Flo who all proved worse than what we already had in those positions!

It was a horrible season, not helped by injuries but there were many self-inflicted wounds.
The league is one thing, but even now I’m still raging that we chucked away a great chance to advance in the CL. After our huge exertions in a ‘Group of Death’ the previous season we got a very favourable group, won the first two games and still managed to mess up qualification.
 
We made soo many signings that made little or no sense, but it would be hard to under state just how bad Konterman was, especially when you consider the fee we paid and pedigree he came with.

He was just a complete and utter calamity on a weekly basis. He didnt even resemble a football player. I remember him getting booed after yet another howler which cost us a goal against Dundee Utd around the March/April 2001. I would never condone booing one of our own but the supporters patience had totally gone by that point in the season.

Advocaat's stubbornness really came to the fore that season in a big way.
 
Konterman was absolutely garbage. £4.5m worth of garbage, and that was 20 years ago too, frightening. I was still a teenager at the time and I still remember you’d hear people huffing and puffing in the Copland when he jogged over there to start his pre-match warm up.

There was definitely an element of Advocaat being stubborn and arrogant with regards to that particular player, I once saw him humiliate Craig Moore for far less than what Konterman was responsible for. The other big change was O’Neill doing what O’Neill typically does and filling his team with big physical players and our team never really stood up to that.
 
I've looked over the posts and i'm reminded in some ways of the youth development thread. The squad we had in 99/00 needed freshened up. However i feel we could have achieved better things with bringing on a couple of the younger boys that we either had on the books or had bought in like Kenny Miller. Especially for the league games. Porrini would have been fine not playing in every league game as an example and we could have covered that.

DA was chasing European success much like Walter did before him with big money signings that "made sense" in European games but you knew they weren't going to fancy an early away cup tie against the likes of Forfar.

Celtic's signings were to win the league at all costs, they won a couple and whilst a UEFA cup final flattered them, they were usually found out in Europe after bullying sides in the group stages. There is only so much long ball you can play.
 
We suffered a couple of shocking decisions in the first OF game which contributed to us getting gubbed 6-2 and our confidence was totally fucked after that
Correct. Both sides scored 2 legitimate goals in the first half.......and we went in 3 - 1 down.
 
We actually won the league during 9IAR with remarkably low points totals.

Think McLeish or Walter in second term must have been highest for us... The mhanks lost the title with 97 points when we won Treble I believe so McLeish had to actually improve our points total from Advocaats title wins by quite a bit just to win league by a goal.

Three points for a win wasn't introduced until 95/96

In 92/93 we would have 106 points if the rule changed prior to that. In 91/92 105 points.
 
The unpalatable truth was Albertz was no longer the player he was. We sold him at the right time because he had missed a huge chunk of the 00/01 season with his knee problems

Within 14 months of being sold to Hamburg he needed two operations on his knee, had the captaincy taken off him and was dumped in the reserves

Spot on. Two of the few things Murray got right, post 9 in a row, were the decisions to sell Albertz and Gascoigne when he did and for the fees collected.
 
We became complacent
Textbook Dutch arrogance is what i've seen it put down to. DA could've built a lasting legacy and went on to win 4, 5 or more in a row but they got the cigars out and acted like they would stroll it. MON was up for a fight and got the better of him and then DA chucked it.
 
As fans we wanted Gazza here for 10IAR but he was a wreck by that point if truth be told.

He was. He never really kicked a ball again after us. In fact the last telling performance that I can recall from Gascoigne was in an England shirt when they drew with Italy away in late 1997 to secure a World Cup place.

He left us in the March of the next year a shambles and Hoddle rightly binned him from England’s squad.
 
I was only 13/14 but remember talks of serious division in the dressing room. Think the players that were there had had enough of Advocaat and his rules by their 3rd year too. Think it was Amo that said that in his book
 
I remember watching him making a horrendous error at Euro 2000 when he mistimed a header with nobody within 30 feet of him, injuring his own neck in the process. Prompted Ruud Gullit to comment on it at half time, saying he couldn't believe how bad that was for a professional footballer! He arrived at Ibrox a few weeks later and the horror show continued.

To this day, I remain baffled that a Dutch international who'd led Feyenoord to win the UEFA cup the previous season could turn out to be so poor.

After leaving us, I think he signed for an amateur team in the Netherlands and never played professional football again.

He didn’t win the UEFA cup at Feyenoord. He joined 2000 they won it in 2002
 
And we should have knocked them out. I was at the away leg and when VHD was lining up the second free kick Amoruso went to stand on the goal line and Klos told him to move back into the wall.

Boom - planted in the same spot. Still angers me.

I remember my dad being convinced we were in with a real shout of winning the UEFA cup that year.
 
Textbook Dutch arrogance is what i've seen it put down to. DA could've built a lasting legacy and went on to win 4, 5 or more in a row but they got the cigars out and acted like they would stroll it. MON was up for a fight and got the better of him and then DA chucked it.

I don’t think Advocaat ever intended to stay longer than the duration of his contract. He has never stayed in any of the multitude of jobs he’s had for more than four years, which was the length of his deal with us.

It was interesting that after two years of huge success he demurred over a contract extension.

When it all began to unravel in his third season and some of the criticism got personal, I think he more or less quit in his own mind.
 
Was looking up about this season the other day. Our top goalscorer in the league had 11 goals. That is pathetic.

In October we lost 3 games on the bounce away to Hibs, away to St Johnstone and 3-0 to Kilmarnock at Ibrox. After that we only dropped 2 points until a 1-0 defeat at the piggery in February.
 
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