Comings and Goings

Having started his second stint off at Ibrox in pretty convincing manner with a crunching demolition of the usually-troublesome Tangerine Terrors, to the tune of a 5-0 victory, Walter Smith could be forgiven for suspecting the turnaround from the chaos of the past few months will be easier than he suspected.

Of course, we know there is no way he will be so foolish as to commit such folly, with complacency like this the reserve of people less wiley than Smith.

Nevertheless, while he is under no illusions about the gravity of the task facing himself and his staff, he will nonetheless have allowed himself to derive a small amount of pleasure from such a good start, and so he should. Ibrox was heaving with the good feeling of the return of the Prodigal Sons, and while the flaky defence gave the support jitters in the first half, a convincing return of goals sent the supporters happy.

This is considered a new era, albeit not one furnished with vast sums of cash, and the hope is that Smith and Ally can inspire the side with their own respective loves of the club. Then they can hopefully get considerably more from the players than their predecessors did.

Speaking of players, it is indeed the January window and two acquisitions remains the sum total of the club’s exploits – Webster, out injured for a month, and Weir. Plenty of speculation has surrounded the club though, predictably so, with plenty of names being linked.

One such story strongly hints at Hearts’ Hartley, and given the whole background of this player, it is a compelling state of affairs. Playing together with Rangers’ very own captain Ferguson at youth level with Mill Utd led to the two bonding rather famously, and while their careers separated, they remained good friends. When the Sun newspaper recently published a story featuring a fanzine article from Hartley’s Millwall days in which a bigoted comment against Rangers was attributed to the then 18-year old midfielder, it is safe to say many Rangers faithful were disgusted by him. Hartley began legal proceedings when this story surfaced, however, and categorically denied making the comments. After all, given Ferguson is such a close friend to him now, and was at the time he allegedly made them, such a comment would be an amazing insult to his buddy. Nevertheless, many fans are convinced Hartley is poison, and strongly wish to keep him away from Ibrox.

That said, the speculation remains.

A more concrete link is that of Lee McCulloch, the Wigan striker. An official offer has been made to the English club to secure his services, but when their manager Jewell received word of its sum, he considered it an insult. He believed a striker of Lee’s standing was worth considerably more than £750,000.
McCulloch then proceeded to hand in a transfer request, but unless Wigan receive a bid they believe meets their valuation, the Scot will surely stay put.

Another concrete bid was likewise made for Falkirk’s Gow, to the tune of £150,000. Once again, it was rebuffed, and a sum of half a million seems to be the required amount to prise him away.
Going in the opposite direction, however, appears to be the young Frenchman Clement. Signed from Lyon by his former boss at that club, Paul Le Guen, the French Under-21 international was pretty transparent from day one that he had come to Scotland to play under his mentor. Now that Le Guen has departed, he has stated publicly his desire to join him at Le Guen’s new club, citing a lack of motivation to play in Glasgow as a reason to leave. Obviously, the club cannot have any player conveying such sentiment, even if the fans might appreciate the honesty. Clement did this many months ago as well, admitting in the press that he would not have come to Ibrox had Le Guen not been the boss. So, now he wishes to get away, and the club will surely endeavour to get a substantial sum of cash for him from Paris Saint Germain, Le Guen’s new club.

Another player has fully severed ties with the club though, in Clement’s countryman Rodriguez. Bought for just over a million pounds, the defender departed to Marseille for no sum at all. The club losing yet more money seems to be par for the course these days.

Furthermore, N’Guessan looks to be going too, with Lincoln City in the frame to secure his services. Having never really featured for Rangers, this would be a loss barely felt by the club.

Lastly, the tenuous speculation linking Rangers with Hibs duo Thompson and Brown has rather died down of late. Certain media outlets implied it was practically a done deal, yet news on the situation has been conspicuous by its absence.

All of this news must take a back seat though in light of the priority of the club; SPL business.
Tomorrow’s game is a trip to Dunfermline with Weir to make his debut. The rest of the lineup is unlikely to be changed too much from the previous game, bar perhaps the dropping of Clement from the squad with Hemdani taking his place in midfield. That said, one enforced change may be that Novo will start, due to Prso’s injury, keeping him out for a month. Novo featured as a sub when Prso pulled his hamstring at the end of the first half, so it is still not stark disruption to the squad.

Smith will be hoping the squad can concentrate on the task at hand, and leave the speculation to one side.

Changes Afoot

After the gargantuan chaos during the opening week of the year, events at Ibrox have calmed down in terms of the incessant upheaval plaguing the club.

The appointment of Walter Smith as manager, plus Ally McCoist in the assistant role and finally Kenny McDowall as first team coach has altogether restructured the managerial composition of the outfit from the ground up. It has also installed a cogent direction to the club as a whole, with a hierarchy who have the club’s best interests at heart, given two of them are former Rangers men, once again back at the club they love.

As a result, the distinct consequent uniform nature of the club is conducive to a real parity over proceedings.

One of the first signs of this was the reinstatement of Barry Ferguson on Saturday as club captain, with Smith asserting his full support of the Scotland captain, stating he was categorically the best captain at the club.

Disappointingly, during the game against Dundee Utd itself, which Rangers won comfortably 5-0 to get Smith’s second reign off to a flier, there was substantial booing for the captain, particularly in the first 25 minutes of the match. It is always a much maligned notion to boo your own player, but perhaps it was inevitable given the outright controversy surrounding Ferguson in light of former manager Le Guen’s departure. Still a sad thing to hear, nonetheless, and one wonders how many of these fans were the same ones chanting Barry’s name at the top of their lungs during the previous game against Motherwell.

The booing thankfully disappeared when choruses of ‘Oh Barry Barry’ rang out among the majority of the faithful.

In other news, the January window is open, and the first acquisition Smith has officially made is to bring in the second former Hearts player in a week to arrive in Glasgow, in Everton’s David Weir. Andy Webster preceded him, but it is slightly ambiguous as to whether Smith himself sanctioned that signing. Even more unfortunate in Webster’s case is his immediate injury ruling him out for a month and maybe longer. As for Weir, the 36 year old Scotland international is a well-respected player, who might not bring the glamour the fans would want, but is a steady ship, and very experienced, and who should be able to shore up the flimsy defence still haunting the side, never more evidenced than by Saturday’s shaky display against a Utd side who recently found themselves crushed 6-0 by Falkirk.

There have also been many other players linked during this January window, namely Paul Hartley, Scott Brown, Kevin Thompson and Alan Gow – quite clearly the club are endeavouring to overhaul the squad with some suitable enhancements. The budget for such moves is conspicuous by its absence, but all that matters is gaining quality however much such a transaction should cost.

As an unrelated aside, Le Guen has now taken over the reigns at Paris Saint Germain, as expected. Now that he has left Rangers, and all these changes are occurring, it is safe to say things at Ibrox are just starting to fall into place.