What needs to change at the club going forward to achieve consistent success? If anything.

What needs to change at the club going forward, for us to get consistent success?

  • A/ Nothing. We are doing ok. Especially considering all the restraints in place.

    Votes: 4 1.0%

  • B/ Major Investment. In players and infrastructure, going forward.

    Votes: 197 50.4%

  • C/ Change of mind set at boardroom level.

    Votes: 43 11.0%

  • D/ Expectations by supporters.Always going to be high, but is it realistic?

    Votes: 5 1.3%

  • E/ Combination of B & C & D

    Votes: 115 29.4%

  • F/ Other (please state what that might be)

    Votes: 27 6.9%
  • Total voters
    391
  • Poll closed .
Laudrup11Cooper

Laudrup11Cooper

Well-Known Member
We are on the verge, as many have already said, of letting our bitterest rivals walk away with yet another title.
Despite being only a few weeks ago, in a very strong position.

So.Genuine question, which please let's try and keep it civil, and calm, as it could prove an interesting debate.

Q/ What needs to change at the club to stop this from happening season after season?

Or maybe as some others have suggested, nothing needs to change, and we are where we are, because of the UEFA restraints, and our financial restraints.So we are where we should be?

With the Champions League money for automatic qualification about to end for all Scottish teams, how do we bankroll going forward, to even wrestle back the title?
 
I voted for major investment, because the vast majority of the squad do not have the correct mentality to be serial winners and never will.

We have too many players who are never fit enough, can't handle the pressure or are simply not very good footballers.

That means we need to move them on and bring in replacements, but that costs money.

Even when we win games we seldom seem to absolutely dominate them and have them finished as contests well before the final whistle. We go a goal up and then seem to sit back, and then there's that horrible air of anxiety (especially at home games) where we might concede late on and drop points.

I don't understand why we can't just boss a first half and go in a couple of goals ahead at the break. For the money we've spent (and continue to spend in wages) and the training facilities we have, this shouldn't be too much to ask.

Yes, teams come to Ibrox and park the bus. This is predictable. But we are paying good money to managers, coaches and players to come up with ways around this and they let us down time and again. It isn't good enough.
 
We need better scouting. Need to be able to consistently identify guys who can come in and do well.

Looking back at 55 we have not managed to replace any of the players who were contributing most of all.

We have nobody even close to replacing Morelos, Kent, Aribo, Hagi, Davis, Jack, Arfield, Kamara.

Tav, Goldson and Barisic are done and should also have been replaced.

SIX transfer windows have come and gone since we won 55 and we were still starting a major old firm game with Scotty Wright in the starting eleven.

The decision to appoint Michael Beale and to allow him to spend so much on new players is one that will probably set the club back years.
 
In a perfect world major investment but that’s just not happening for a number of reasons.

Having a board in place who actually know how to run the club properly is the biggest realistic issue.

We’ve replaced Park and Robertson with more of the same. Guys who thought it was genuinely a good idea to sanction paying Goldson nearly £2m per year in wages and Davies £1.4m to sit in the stands spectating.

We’re a poorly run club at every level going round in circles year after year.
 
RedWhiteBlue said:
We need better scouting. Need to be able to consistently identify guys who can come in and do well.

Looking back at 55 we have not managed to replace any of the players who were contributing most of all.

We have nobody even close to replacing Morelos, Kent, Aribo, Hagi, Davis, Jack, Arfield, Kamara.

Tav, Goldson and Barisic are done and should also have been replaced.

SIX transfer windows have come and gone since we won 55 and we were still starting a major old firm game with Scotty Wright in the starting eleven.

The decision to appoint Michael Beale and to allow him to spend so much on new players is one that will probably set the club back years.
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I don't feel that the board are savvy at all when it comes to sanctioning transfers and contracts.

The money we waste on wages is hideous. The return has been abysmal.

We just aren't shrewd in that regard at all.
 
Options A and D won’t lead to success, so not sure why they are there.

We need a change of mindset throughout the club. We seem to be happy where we are, still living off the excuse of 2012 and the ‘glories’ of winning 55 and reaching (but not winning) a cup final in 2022.

It will need money too, or maybe a stroke of luck to kick it off. A revolution akin to Souness coming in and changing the mindset and expectations at all levels, although paradoxically we will need to accept that Celtic will overtake our title haul in the next few years.
 
It’s B.

For all Diomande for example stunk the place out versus Celtic especially first half, guys like him are athletes, want to go places in the game and are to some extent blank canvases.

In comparison the free transfers from down south are playing lower level stuff for a reason. Guys like Lawrence, Dowell, Goldson etc don’t look like guys who take being a professional footballer at a club like rangers as anything other than a job. They’re here to pick up excessive wages for minimal output. We need to avoid these chancers at all costs.
 
Coza said:
It’s B.

For all Diomande for example stunk the place out versus Celtic especially first half, guys like him are athletes, want to go places in the game and are to some extent blank canvases.

In comparison the free transfers from down south are playing lower level stuff for a reason. Guys like Lawrence, Dowell, Goldson etc don’t look like guys who take being a professional footballer at a club like rangers as anything other than a job. They’re here to pick up excessive wages for minimal output. We need to avoid these chancers at all costs.
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I agree.

There's a lot of players from down south who are ignorant about the expectations of this club. They scoff at the idea that we have to win every game. They just don't get it at all.

For them, playing football is just a job. If you win, that's nice. But no biggie if you don't.

That might be fine at a run of the mill Championship side, but not up here.
 
Option D can’t be serious. It’s a 2 horse race, so are you suggesting we accept second best and that we’ll only win 1 league every 5/6 years? Because it’s apathy like that which is part of the problem

Is it too much to expect more trophies too? Our budget dwarfs all teams aside from Celtic
 
Gringotts Dragon said:
Option D can’t be serious. It’s a 2 horse race, so are you suggesting we accept second best and that we’ll only win 1 league every 5/6 years? Because it’s apathy like that which is part of the problem

Is it too much to expect more trophies too? Our budget dwarfs all teams aside from Celtic
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No. I am not suggesting that.At all.
Exact opposite in fact.
As for apathy, I agree.

We only have to beat one team to win the league every season.
Ok, so do you think that our board feel and agree, that the fan's expectations are fair?
 
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Option C - The transfer focus for years now has been on recruitment from the English championship and Europe with a belief we can recruit undervalued players and create a "player trading model" while winning things.

It hasn't worked for about the past 5 years and to me never will. We need a much more Scottish focussed scouting network and sign players based on their numbers rather than perceived potential. Signing a load of project players and assuming they will show consistency to win a league is a daft strategy.
 
Better recruitment leading to a player trading model, leading to the ability to spend on players, and even deal with a few misses here and there.
Our current pattern of buying shite and losing players for nothing means we must hit a home run with every player.
Over there for every miss (sorry i dont know their names but the 2 center halfs they pissed money on this year), they sell a Jota for 25 million, the Croatian for 10, Frimpong for 11 and soon to be O'Riley for a bunch.
We got good money for Patterson and Bassey, but let Kent, Morelas etc walk for free.
This is the vital part for me.
 
Have said this in other threads, stadium redevelopment and capacity increase is necessary to push us to the next level, increase our financial advantage, fix all of the lingering issues we have with facilities, basically to make us ready for the rest of this century. This will come at a cost but in the 30-40 year term it will restore dominance.

Financially, a broken (was it ever working to begin with?) "player trading model" which only works when you find the odd diamond and when your team is winning trophies is not going to be reliable enough.

I would not turn my nose up at investment from "non-Rangers men" if it helped us achieve regular success and improvement of the entire business as well as the quality of player we clearly don't have at this point in time.
 
My two bobs worth. I really think we as a fanbase, especially on here, overthink Scottish football. It's not the EPL with Pep, Klopp and the rest of them. It's our play each other 4 times a season, on not very good pitches, where 10 teams games against you are a cup final and you effectively need to be better than one main rival.

I listened to Boyd at half time saying Rangers need to be braver as there is a league title on the line. Boyd played in Rangers teams that won leagues so knows what it's all about. He's also a Rangers man himself, something severely lacking in our current squad.

Walter's teams always had a sprinkling of Rangers men or at least Scottish guys brought up playing Scottish football. That was offset by a few gems that could turn a game for you.

The foundations were always the same. A solid defence in front of a good keeper. Two midfield battlers with a playmaker. Good wide men and forwards that could stick the ball in the net.

Even in his second spell he stuck to the same set up. Remember when he returned he signed Weir and Ehiogu, shored up the defence. He won leagues with players like McCulloch and Broadfoot. Not world beaters by a long shot but they knew how to battle it out and win against the rest of the league. He brought back Miller who scored for fun.

I'll no doubt be accused of living in the past but honestly, has Scottish football changed a lot in 20 years, I really don't think it has. Guys like John Brown would run through a brick wall for Rangers but crucially they could handle the pressure of playing for Rangers. We don't have enough players of that ilk in the squad IMHO.
 
Other- The core of the starting 11 that has overstayed its welcome that yet again is costing us

Imposters at right back, right centre half and a midfielder that were all done a year or more ago yet are still “Senior players” who are akin to towing caravans in the starting 11
 
FDB1978 said:
In a perfect world major investment but that’s just not happening for a number of reasons.

Having a board in place who actually know how to run the club properly is the biggest realistic issue.

We’ve replaced Park and Robertson with more of the same. Guys who thought it was genuinely a good idea to sanction paying Goldson nearly £2m per year in wages and Davies £1.4m to sit in the stands spectating.

We’re a poorly run club at every level going round in circles year after year.
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If so, then what needs to change?
Otherwise it will be the equivalent of “Groundhog Day” season after season.
 
Its been said a lot on here,but theres a core group of players we have who are deep down not bothered about losing.It doesnt hurt enough and theve created a culture with new players in that it doesnt matter the wages are in the bank who gives a toss.
It needs cut out from inside and a new group who want to.win i really believe its a major factor,not just spending money.We all know who need booted out its just when its financially possible to do it,the manager must know this.
 
There's no single thing that has to change. Everything has to.

We need to invest heavily in youth development. We cannot keep buying expensive players who flop. We need to be bringing through players with some kind of sell on value. Nathan Patterson brought us decent money. Before that? It was Alan Hutton. Thats just too big a gap. How mamy players have come through our ranks and had meaningful Rangers careers in the past 30 years?

We also need to stop wasting so much money on bench warmers, or guys who can't even make the bench. If Bailey Rice is the next big hope then we need to trust him to be part of the first team squad. If he's not ready then we need to be shopping for the likes of Connor Barron or Watson at Kilmarnock. Or trying to get Lennon Miller. We can;t go out and buy a guy like Cifuentes on the basis that hes foreign and therefore better than domestic talent. We've still got folk in the fanbase who swear that Lewis Ferguson just isnt good enough to be a Rangers player. But Raskin and Dimande are?

We need to get better at scouring and identifying targets. The English Championship is not a league we should be buying from. Overpriced players of a questionable standard,.We can't afford so many expensive flops. These guys come with strong fees and even stronger wages. Thats not to say that our European recruitment has been better lately. See messrs Lammers, Danilo and Dessers for proof of that. Raskin isnt close to being the player who thinks he can get a move to the EPL.

There's no 1 thing that the club can do to fix this and bring consistent success. Its a huge job. The board needs to be football savvy. Appoint a proper director of football who'll sit on the board and be the football voice to the other directors. There has to be a football focused and football knowledgeable person on the board to help the rest of the board members understand football issues. The club also has to be honest with fans. We've been poor for too long. 55 was a very welcome respite from a period of domination by our rivals across the city. If we genuinely want to stop that then its going to take time and its going to involve significant change. Some fans won't like it and won't admit that we're not going to be genuinely competitive and genuinely successful for a while. Denying reality doesnt make our problems any less real.

Full overhaul needed. Proper leadership at board level. A better football understanding in the board room. Focus on youth development. Proper squad building rather than throwing money at guys from the EPL or quick fix imports. A smaller squad that gives more chances to young players and to affordable domestic talent. Eventually all of that pays off. You end up with a core of the squad who are good enough, supplemented by decent, but affordable, domestic talent. You end up with young talents with a sell on fee that can be used to help finance the next squad refresh. Which should be smaller than we need right now because we should have proper squad management. There has to be a complete change in all areas of Rangers because the alternative is to allow Celtic to maintain their position above us. Doing nothing just isnt an option.
 
The biggest thing to change is the culture throughout the club. Being second best has become the norm and that is completely unacceptable. To change that we need to start being better at recruitment throughout the club, better at contract negotiation and crucially player trading and recruitment.

The current squad needs a major overhaul to bring in players with character who meet the criteria for being a rangers player. Too many cannot handle the expectations and as we have seen crumble under the pressure to deliver titles. Weed them out
 
GeeSpot said:
Have said this in other threads, stadium redevelopment and capacity increase is necessary to push us to the next level, increase our financial advantage, fix all of the lingering issues we have with facilities, basically to make us ready for the rest of this century. This will come at a cost but in the 30-40 year term it will restore dominance.

Financially, a broken (was it ever working to begin with?) "player trading model" which only works when you find the odd diamond and when your team is winning trophies is not going to be reliable enough.

I would not turn my nose up at investment from "non-Rangers men" if it helped us achieve regular success and improvement of the entire business as well as the quality of player we clearly don't have at this point in time.
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I'm not waiting 30-40.years for us to start dominating again, waiting 12 years now has been long enough. Plus I'll not be here to see that :D
 
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We could have a bank full of cash but if the recruitment isn’t right then you’re back to square one.
Not only the right recruitment but moving people on when it’s clear they’re just going through the motions.
 
The signing policy needs ripped up

We pay for too much fees and particularly wages for bang average players. Some are slow as a week in Barlinnie.

We need younger, hungry, ambitious guys with a never say die attitude who will run and press and tackle for 90 minutes.

It's embarrassing that Dundee and Ross County midfielders made ours look invisible. Shocking.

The team is so slow.
 
We need investment, but the usual caveat is who’s going to provide it, and how do we stay within FFP rules.
 
macjohn212 said:
I'd stop overnight stays at Gleneagles for games against the like of Dundee , I just don't get it ..
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Every rangers team since souness became manager have stayed overnight in hotels for away games.sometimes they have also done it before big games at Ibrox.
 
Some within our support need a change of mindset on signing players from clubs here in Scotland.they constantly turn there noses up at the prospect of signing an Aaron Hickey,Lewis Ferguson as two examples.they then see of they are doing well in seri a and then decide we should sign them.its to late then as they are out of our price range.
 
The answer is B but it’s really about how we spend the money. It’s not like we haven’t done so - it’s just been wasted.
 
It's B and C with C being the most important our board have constantly tried to do it as cheaply as possible especially when it comes to scouting that need to change if we are to start being financially viable but it could very well be too late
 
John from Larne said:
This.

The Board needs to go all out in the Summer to bring in 4-5 quality players that will guarantee us the next league.

Letting the scum win yet another league next year and rake in all the champions league money should not be even conceivable.
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There isn't such a guarantee in football. There never has been. We won't have the funds for 4-5 quality players and their wages.

We will still have the players here on contracts with good money. It will be letting the out of contract players go. That only frees the wages up. However the wages will rise back up with the new players. It doesn't create a pot of gold to go and spend. It will be other players out of contract elsewhere or smaller cash buys for players with potential.

If we require starters then I don't see how the club can financially achieve that to be honest. We already having to pay £4.3m for Diomande. That's a massive chunk of what will be available..
 
KGR98 said:
It's B and C with C being the most important our board have constantly tried to do it as cheaply as possible especially when it comes to scouting that need to change if we are to start being financially viable but it could very well be too late
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The board havnt just spent player budget cheaply. The budget available was spent by the managers who were here. The board havnt withheld money or stolen it. We spend what we bring in all season to actually run the club.
 
For me it almost entirely comes down to recruitment. The investment has been there but we have spent it badly and also not sold players at the right times.

We are not fixing this in one or two windows, we need a clear strategy over the next few years.
 
Better footballers which requires better recruitment.

It really is as simple as that. It's no coincidence that, as Gerrard went on, we got better as the squad got better and have since been getting worse as the team has got worse.

Still be a few moonhowlers who think that guys like Dessers and Cantwell will start producing more and becoming brilliant if someone shouts more at them though.
 
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