Falkirk bye then Inter-dict begins for Alex

Worst Rangers ever? Nah. I doubt it. In 1985/86 I attended every game but one away trip to Pittodrie of the only league season in which Rangers finished up having lost more games than they’d won. We’ve still got plenty time to retrieve that situation. Burley, Curbishley, Le Guen or Butcher won’t allow us to close this Scottish season as badly as we’ve opened it.

Worst ever run of results for Rangers? Offically, yes. But, considering we can still realistically finish second and maybe even put the skids under Sellik’s half-arsed attempt at “running away with it” (If Burley or Curbishley are installed at Ibrox before the year’s end, Strachan will shit himself and his team’ll follow suit. Plenty more “Dunfermlines” await), there’s still plenty time for the last eight games to become nothing more than a stat.

Burley is the rumour today. Mostly based on his appearence on Saturday’s Football Focus and the fact Portsmouth seem more likely to go for Neil Warnock than Georgie, formerly of Gorgie, B.

It could be none of the above-mentioned names to manage Rangers but, for Yours Bluely, it cannot be Alex McLeish any longer.

I know - “No shit, Sherlock”. Call me Einstein but I think we’ll only rescue our domestic season if Mr McLeish stands aside and, here’s the rub, I think he’s gonnae do just that after the Internazionale game. That’s McLeish to resign next Tuesday night in effect - probably on Wednesday morning officially.

There was a lot of bucolic, pastoral talk from our Ginger Gaffer in today’s papers: GARDENS weren’t ROSY, PASTURES new would ideally happen and critics were having a FIELD day - all according to the man who strangely incurs my pity rather than wrath when he denies there’s a crisis.

There’s no crisis, Alex - but only because we still have enough games left for a new manager to do something with this season.

If Hibs are as great as everyone with eyes agrees they were yesterday and we lost to them by only one goal, with so many first-team players missing and a massive shift in Porto in our legs, then maybe Eck’s right to defend his corner. But that record run of winlessness cannot be argued with.

Perhaps a Rangers team of the past has lost six in a row then won one before losing another half dozen on the bounce. Statistics can be dangerously misleading. But league tables never are.

Chairmen, especially chairmen of football clubs, can be very misleading. We were told Alex had until December. Our next game takes place on the 3rd of December.but David Murray today confirmed something which had never previously been spelled out - that December didn’t really begin until he said it did.

Fair enough, Dave - you’ll do for me, Sir and if you want to move the months just as Mr Burns blocks the sun from shining on Springfield then I’ll go with that. Because I have a very strong suspicion, fomed partly through desire for it to be true, that McLeish is being allowed one las chance to bow out on a high. As a reward - a DESERVED reward - for all he’s done for us over the last four years (And the positive spin of spinning out McLeish’s reign to almost EXACTLY four years cannot be underestimated when Murray is trying to sell himself as the captain of a stable ship) Eck will be allowed to take us into and out the other side of the Falkirk game , no matter the great likelihood that we’ll lose this SPL tie or draw in humiliating fashion.

He joined in the second week of December 2001 and David Murray will let Alex McLeish leave at the very outset of the second week in December 2005 - that’s for the Chairman’s sake. But the Chairman is also a good man to his employees and he’ll fulfill the honourable side of his character by allowing Alex McLeish the game with Inter. The man’s already got us into Europe after Christmas - job done. But he’ll be permitted the opportunity to depart with a career-enhancing victory which’ll mean far more in long-term finances for McLeish than any �850,000.00 pay off from Ibrox:

Becoming the first manager to qualify a Scottish club from the group stages of the Uefa Champions League.

That should see Alex’s career in management saved. It would also allow Alex the chance to leave here with his head held high - something he can do anyway, but something made easier by one last unprecedented success.

If we’re talking about Rangers teams having all-time bad domestic seasons then we could do worse than look at a Rangers side which lost three times to Celtic at Ibrox in the first month of the season. Parkhead was under a bit of reconstruction at the time so we played both our home and away League Cup sectional games against the smellies at The Palace. We lost both them and the first league derby of the season by an aggregate of 8-2.

This particular Rangers side went out of that season’s League Cup at that preliminary stage, we also lost the Scottish cup semi-final to Hibs, the club whom we just pipped on goal-difference to a third place finish in the championship. We finished six points behind Aberdeen in second and sixteen points behind Celtic in third - and this in the days of two points for a win! Not one domestic trophy, not even a cup final - what stopped this being regarded as the worst Rangers team of all time?

Perhaps the fact I’m talking about season 1971/72.

If singular European achievement at Ibrox goes hand-in-hand with domestic disaster then we can all be strangely optimistic about next Tuesday. This link, of course, is rubbish - for me the greatest European achievement by any Ranger side was the Champions League run of 1992/93 … which was all washed down with a Treble. To be a goal away from the final of the newly elongated European Cup was more credible, glamorous and worthy of us than winning the easiest to win of the three European trophies, albeit we had one of the hardest ever routes in 1971/72. But McLeish can take heat from the fact that at least one Bear thinks qualifying for the second stage of the Champions League makes him a better European achiever than managers like Wallace or Waddell, Greig or white.

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Talking of Inter, see they were making some Messina player greet at the weekend. More accurately, I see some of the Inter Ultras - arsehole fans of a magical club - were subjecting an Ivory coast international to racist abuse of such a level that he threatened to walk off the pitch. Good on the bloke - Zoro is his name - he fucking should have.

Mind you, Mark Walters didn’t do so when he was subjected to far greater levels of such abuse on his first visit to parkhead. He just made a note to self: Must score against these bastards as I choreograph a 4-1 and 5-1 demolition before a year has passed.

Bobo Balde must have made a similair note to self when he first attended Ibrox - must score an unprecedented amount of goals for a centre-half against these bastards from now on.

Aach - what’s his problem, eh?! - it’s just a bit of banter. It’d be the same if he was fat or ginger, eh??!!

EH??!!

And this from the guys who get their pants in a twist when anyone calls them a hun.