No teams left in Europe and not even September, wasn't so long ago Celtic and Rangers were in the final and now they can't even beat teams from Slovenia and Switzerland.

[soi 2]

Slovenia, lets remember they made it to the World Cup 2010. Scotland didn't. Although they did lose 1-0 to a poor England team. Switzerland also qualified for the World Cup 2010 and beat Spain in a group match. So I don't think we can really treat these countries teams with anything other than a measure of respect.

Rangers side that creaked over the finish line to win the league with Walter Smith has had to be rebuilt, with limited funds.. Celtic with a more settled side I would have expected to get into the Europa League.

Not getting into the Champions League was a blow for Rangers, financially. The Europa League is an entertaining diversion for both sets of fans from domestic football. But the league would still take priority over a run in this competition. This was always a bonus to the season.

Unusual for both teams to be out so early. Very disappointing night.

Can't see the point of the league, only 2 teams in it. Will only get harder financially now , has this new bloke who bought Rangers got some money to spend ?
Funny how in the 80's Rangers were buying Englands best players.

[soi 2]

Craig Whyte is the new owner of Rangers. Unfortunately he's not a billionaire doing it for a hobby. He's a businessman who thinks he can make a profit somehow up here. He's spent a fair bit already wiping out Rangers debt. Money was announced to be spent on players. I can't remember how much but apparently a lot of that has gone on salaries for long term contracts for key men in the team like Davis and McGregor.

Some money has been spent though, Wallace for 1.5 million from Hearts is good. Bocanegra ex Fulham and US captain signed along with Bedoya another American and McKay, player of the year in Australia. These guys have still to come into the team so there is some hope for the season ahead. But we're talking small money compared to the Premiership.

As poor as the league might seem sometimes. At least it was entertaining last year with the added frisson of death threats, referee's going on strike, foreign refs coming in, Neil Lennon's outbursts and the Old Firm games.

Yeah I remember the good old days well. Terry Butcher, Chris Woods, Gary Stevens and later Trevor Stevens and Gazza. Apparently Craig Whyte likes Butcher and if McCoist goes soon he's lined up to take over.

Personally I like McCoist and don't envy the terrible position he's in with no money and massive expectations. Hope he gets more time.

[soi 2]

Decent article from Rangersmedia.co.uk...

The slow and drawn out death of Scottish football.

The date is August 25th 2011, and for the first time that I can remember, Ireland has a team left in European football longer than Scotland.

Gutsy Shamrock Rovers made it to the Europa League group stage meanwhile four, yes thats right, FOUR Scottish Premier League teams all failed to do the same thing, and arguably Shamrock Rovers had the second most difficult tie after Hearts.

Where has it went wrong? In Manchester 2008n Rangers valiantly held Zenit until around the 78th minute in the UEFA cup final, now we are being beaten over two legs by Maribor. Who are Maribor? Well they shall now be known as one of the teams that hammered a nail into the coffin of Scottish football.

Tonight was a convergence of many things: lack of money spent (faith in the manager perhaps), managerial mistakes, players not playing well (big game players again going missing)...

Firstly, lets start with Craig Whyte.

He is partially to blame for this mess we are facing, most probably because it looks like he is caught in the middle of backing McCoist or sacking him, and bringing in his own men. A decision needs to be made, and made fast. Does he trust Ally enough to give him the marquee signing or two, or does he go his own way and says thank you to McCoist?

Then we have the manager.

Tonight McCoist sent out a team that, on paper, should have been good enough to win by 2 or 3 goals, but the mistakes in the tie (and previous humiliations in Europe this season) were made long before tonight.

Mistakes can be traced back to the Malmo first leg, Malmo second leg and again in the Maribor first leg. Surely the fact McCulloch didnt get near the team tonight indicates the end of his Rangers career as an automatic first pick, but tonight one of the most frightening things was McCoist sitting the whole first half seeing our right hand side being completely ineffective. Ortiz will never take a man on and beat him for pace, and Broadfoot is simply not the overlapping fullback that Ortiz needs

Jordan McMillan must wonder what he has done wrong after Sunday's game, certainly Maribor offered nothing of note that McCoist would feel the need to use Broadfoot's experience.

And Lafferty should have been brought off purely because he looked shattered. Yes, he did some fancy footwork late on in the game, but it was clear that he was lagging in match fitness. But I'll give McCoist some leeway as the next part will be the most damning.

The players.

Davis, Jelavic and Ortiz are all still posted MIA, Wylde was his usual inconsistent self, Broadfoot is an honest trier, Bocanegra was alright, Wallace gets his regular injury that forces him off (Hearts fans will recognise this), whilst Lafferty has no match fitness and even then the jury is still out,

McGregor had nothing to do, and ends up picking the ball out of the net. Goian gave everything he had tonight, easily the best game of the big mans short career at the club, and Edu was actually the best midfielder on the night (didnt have much competition, but still he can be pleased with his own game).

But two of the names at the start of the previous paragraph need a right good look at themselves. Simply nothing of note from either. It's alright taking apart the Motherwell's and the Inverness', but that brings nothing to the club if these players go missing in the big games. Davis was abysmal tonight, never made a telling pass (although his striking colleagues didnt give him much to aim at sometimes), his dead ball delivery was woeful...again when we required him to be our playmaker he is missing

Jelavic, in my opinion, looks like he doesnt want to be here. Simply nothing of note from our £4 million striker tonight- his movement was unusually shite and his ball retention was poor (when he finally got it).

How this is solved, I have no idea. People are wanting Whyte to splash the cash, but when tonights team had two players valued at £3.5million and one player valued at £4 million and they did nothing...when our best player was a £500k purchase....when 2 out of our 3 european goals this season have came from an out of position midfielder and a centre half come left back, both bought for under half a million each...

So there is no guarantee that money will be spent and it will be spent wisely.

An absolutely dreadful night for Rangers and for Scottish football in general, especially as our run to Manchester falls off the co-efficient points system next season. If this trend continues for Scottish football, we'll be starting our Euro qualifiers in June, never mind July.

No doubt we'll go cuff Aberdeen by 4 on Sunday, with Davis MOTM and Jelavic getting a hat-trick....pity its too late for the real competitions this season.

[tom]

Originally Posted by soi 2

The slow and drawn out death of Scottish football.

I loved the quote by Lennon ....


"I can't fault the players, they were brilliant. They played for 87 minutes with 10 men and played excellently."

The sad thing is that most of their supporters probably believe him.

Rangers and Celtic will be starting their seasons in June next year as they've fallen so far down the rankings.

[Jake]

Nice to see a sympathetic view ::

[soi 2]

Celtic back in Europe after Swiss side Sion get booted out for playing ineligible players. Heh heh can only distract them from the league and demoralise them.