Off Topic Pointless point-scoring thread

Patience · Apr 4, 2016

http://forum.followfollow.com/showt...ess-in-the-premiership-2016-2017-(32-Viewing)

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Big Audio Dynamite · Apr 5, 2016

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/...livingston-blast-spfl-decision-switch-7689453

http://videocelts.com/2016/04/blogs...ngston-plunge-the-depths-with-twitter-apology

Patience · Apr 5, 2016

Keith Jackson: Rangers title party will end honeymoon for Mark Warburton... the next fortnight will separate men from Bhoys

THE journey will almost certainly end tomorrow but, by the time the last of the title winning ticker tape is blowing around a deserted Ibrox, so too will the honeymoon be over.

Mark Warburton should milk these celebrations for all they are worth should his side do away with Dumbarton to wrap up the Championship crown and secure promotion to the top flight because when it’s done he will soon discover that everything has changed.

The world into which Warburton walked last summer, when he took on the job of reinventing Rangers , has been as artificial as the plastic pitches which so grind the Londoner’s gears.

He may think he’s become assimilated to local life over the last nine months but he’s kidding himself if he actually believes he’s got his head around the peculiarities of this gig.

At various points throughout the season Warburton has displayed signs of feeling the strain and that’s something of a concern because if he believes he’s been under pressure in the second tier of the Scottish game then he’s in for an almighty awakening when this job of his begins for real, as it is about to do.

That’s not being churlish or unkind. Warburton, in fact, can feel rightly proud of what he has achieved in his first season in Scotland. Under his watch, Rangers have been completely overhauled and transformed into a contemporary, stylish attacking unit.

This process of modernisation has required vision and diligence from the man in charge. Warburton was also brave enough to take a blank canvas approach to rebuilding the football side of a club which, over a chaotic four years, had been horrifically mistreated off the park and horribly neglected on it.

While Dave King’s new regime have cleaned up the general working environment, Warburton’s hard graft and radical thinking has re-energised Rangers from top to bottom. As a result this club is unrecognisable from the putrid mess which King and his men liberated a little more than a year ago.

So, yes, Warburton should be satisfied with his initial contribution but the truth of the matter is, this first campaign in Glasgow, has been nothing more stressful than a dress rehearsal.

He’s slipped his feet under the table during a period when Rangers and Celtic can coexist in the same city, at the same time whilst at the top of separate leagues.

In the real world it doesn’t work like that and Warburton is about to get a taste of it over the next fortnight as the countdown continues towards a Scottish Cup semi final of enormous significance for the men in Hampden’s two dugouts.

Ronny Deila too has been enjoying a largely cosseted existence since pitching up on the other side of the Clyde two summers ago. Like Warburton, there have been times when the Norwegian has made it all look unduly stressful, considering that managing Celtic to successive Scottish titles can seldom have been so straightforward.

Remember, the job only became available partly because Neil Lennon had become so bored of dominating a domestic scene minus any kind of serious challenge that he couldn't motivate himself to continue.

Lennon, unlike the men now in charge of these festering neighbours, knows exactly what it’s like to operate in the grit of this snarling rivalry. By comparison, Deila and Warburton have been getting by in a sugary world where the clouds are made of candy floss, living happily next to one another in gum drop houses on Lollipop Lane.

That all changes in less than two weeks time when this pair will be confronted by a derby match, the sheer ferocity of which is likely to shock them into reality.

If Deila thinks he’s an experienced campaigner having managed Celtic to victory over Rangers in the League Cup last season then he too is delusionary . That particular ‘contest’ ranks high among the biggest non-events in the history of this fixture.

A 2-0 win over a Rangers team which arrived at the national stadium armed only with the ambition of getting out of the place as quickly and unscathed as possible. One managed by a caretaker who was longing to be let lose on his petunias rather than dirty his hands with a match he knew he could not possibly win.

If Deila really grasped the nature of what he was involved in that day then he would have laid into his players for downing tools after easing into a two goal lead when Rangers were there to be annihilated and humiliated. In the real world, such opportunities are to be ruthlessly seized upon.

It will be interesting to see how or if Celtic’s attitude has changed this time around because there is a chance that a similar scenario could arise, especially given the defensive lapses which have been plaguing Rangers over recent weeks.

If Warburton’s side can ship three goals at home to Queen of the South as well as away to Falkirk and Raith, then what might Scotland’s champions do to it in the wide open spaces of Hampden?

If Celtic are of a mind to inflict maximum damage then they could hand Warburton a hefty bleaching and, if that were to happen, then the Rangers boss would also discover pretty quickly that all the Championship titles and Petrofac Cups in the world won’t spare him from the full force of derby day fall-out.

On the flip side, if Rangers passing game should click into gear at the national stadium then it is possible that Celtic may struggle to cope with it as Deila’s team has been searching for form for some considerable time now and the manager still appears none the wiser as to the make-up of his strongest eleven.

If Deila is defeated at Hampden then he will be done for in the eyes of the majority of his own supporters, many of whom have been unstintingly generous towards him up until now. It would be a serious mistake for Deila to think falling over the line in front of a one horse title race would be enough to win their goodwill back.

Since the draw that put these two on collision course was made Deila has wasted the chance to find consistency of selection and this will not be forgotten if all goes wrong for him when it matters most of all.

What he has discovered, however, is a potential match winner in Patrick Roberts, a teenage prodigy who plays the game as if he spends every spare minute locked in a room watching a video tutorial entitled How Would Lionel Messi Do It?

Roberts scored his first two goals for Celtic at the weekend and there was more than a touch of the Messis about them both. The trouble is, so confused is Deila’s selection strategy that it's impossible to say with any certainty if the Manchester City attacker has done enough to play his way into the semi final.

As for Warburton, he must somehow find a way of plugging the kind of gaping holes which Roberts will be hoping to exploit.

But again, there will be an element of uncertainty even if his team does manage to keep successive clean sheets tomorrow at home to Dumbarton and in Sunday’s Petrofac Cup Final against Peterhead.

These matches represent the death throes of what has been a four-year long phoney war.

Warburton and Deila are about to lock horns in Glasgow’s real world and, in time, one of them will discover the first rule of engagement remains as true today as it has always been. This town ain’t big enough for the two of them.
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Reasonable article, and the huns are in meltdown over it

DevAdvocate · Apr 5, 2016

****** The Dog said: ↑

Reasonable article, and the huns are in meltdown over it
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"AS the build-up to the Scottish Cup semi final continues, Keith reckons the managers of both Rangers and Celtic have had it easy up until now."

Aye righto Keith

Rustie bugmuncher · Apr 5, 2016

BigAudioDynamite said: ↑

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/...livingston-blast-spfl-decision-switch-7689453

http://videocelts.com/2016/04/blogs...ngston-plunge-the-depths-with-twitter-apology

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I saw some daft **** accepted the apologies from livingston. Utter ****ing spastics

DevAdvocate · Apr 5, 2016

They have had enough of the "dignified silence" from Rangers

Big Audio Dynamite · Apr 5, 2016

This may cause consternation in some households

http://talksport.com/football/bigge...016-top-16-capacity-revealed-160404190752?p=9

Patience · Apr 5, 2016

Prepare for the "lishted building sho it ish"

DevAdvocate · Apr 5, 2016

Grade B Facade Timmy

Patience · Apr 5, 2016

Rangers fans left furious as Gogglebox bosses censor TV family's 'Bridgeton Loyal' mug
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"Boycott Gogglebox"

DevAdvocate · Apr 5, 2016

****** The Dog said: ↑

"Boycott Gogglebox"
Click to expand...

I've been boycotting that show since it started.

Rustie bugmuncher · Apr 5, 2016

BigAudioDynamite said: ↑

This may cause consternation in some households

http://talksport.com/football/bigge...016-top-16-capacity-revealed-160404190752?p=9
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Some will like this not a jot

Big Audio Dynamite · Apr 5, 2016

****** The Dog said: ↑

"Boycott Gogglebox"
Click to expand...

I know them ..they are lovely people

Big Audio Dynamite · Apr 5, 2016

http://thecelticblog.com/2016/04/bl...ont-want-sevco-supporters-allowed-at-parkhead

Mind The Duck · Apr 5, 2016

BigAudioDynamite said: ↑

http://thecelticblog.com/2016/04/bl...ont-want-sevco-supporters-allowed-at-parkhead
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Like

Big Audio Dynamite · Apr 5, 2016

"Obviously one is expecting a win from Mark Warburton's men"

http://www.ibroxnoise.co.uk/2016/04/watch-out-premiership-rangers-are-back.html

Patience · Apr 6, 2016

BigAudioDynamite said: ↑

"Obviously one is expecting a win from Mark Warburton's men"

http://www.ibroxnoise.co.uk/2016/04/watch-out-premiership-rangers-are-back.html
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That 2012’s admin and Third Division demotion
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Trotting out the same old myths I see.

DevAdvocate · Apr 6, 2016

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Patience · Apr 6, 2016

http://forum.rangersmedia.co.uk/index.php?/topic/293851-pitch-invasion/

Big Audio Dynamite · Apr 6, 2016

"We are a club of class" Of course you are, pal

Off Topic Pointless point-scoring thread

Patience Spastic Arab

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Off Topic Pointless point-scoring thread

Patience Spastic Arab

Big Audio Dynamite Well-Known Member

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Patience Spastic Arab

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