Legia warsaw v celtic in the europa league is a possible again

Would be fun

Empty stadium for the away leg.

McCoist does walking away

Strange day to offer his resignation if it is accepted, but a new manager is needed. McCall looks to be favourite although I'd cast the net far and wide. It will interest quite a few managers.

Calderwood with the crab as his assistant.

What a xmas present that would be.

This is a big job, not the Aberdeen job.

A big job.

The favourite is a guy who was sacked by Hibs in the summer.

He has tendered his resignation but may still be in charge tonight and until his rolling contract runs out - seems Ally wants his last pound of flesh from the club he loves ...

Wouldn't surprise me if he caught wind of something afoot and this has been his response.

Apparently the "resignation" is his contractual 12-months notice - so unless Santa delivers several sacks of cash to Ibrox, he's a lame-duck manager for the next year.

Given the 12 month rolling contract that he is on, I wonder how flexible Ally is prepared to be in negotiating a settlement with the club he loves.

And, probably linked to that, how much are Rangers prepared to pay a new manager or ( as should be extremely relevant ) really able to pay ? I'd think rather limiting to where they can "cast the net far and wide". Certainly far from the top table.

It's a big job. Rangers will be back in the hunt for the title and a champions league place when they are back in the Premiership. At Aberdeen the best you can hope for is getting rogered in Europe in July by a team that that you might recognise a player from.

You're a little under 4 months early with that...

Rangers and Hearts will go up. The Premiership is full of diddy teams that will sink a division when Rangers/Hearts/Hibs all ascend in time.

Not unlikely.

However, at best one of them will have to get through two play-off ties, first against the Championship 3rd or 4th and then against the Premiership second bottom team. That one could well be Rangers and then there are no guarantees, and a not insignificant chance of another season in the Championship.

No way is this current Rangers team guaranteed promotion at the end of this season. That has to be factored in.

Champions League place? You have to win the SPFL to achieve that. Rangers aren't even promoted yet. You are years away from challenging for title.

I wonder what sort of reception he will get at tonight's game.

If I was a fan of the club from Govan I would be giving him dog's abuse. He's played this perfect imo.

Rangers will be challenging when they go up straight away. Celtic aren't anything special at all even with a few years head start on Rangers. Mike Ashley will be wanting champions league football.

Really? You can't challenge Hearts, who have a young team. You may come up in the play off, but I think Hearts will be champions.

He's more likely to get it in Newcastle than Govan.

Why would Ashley care about Champions League? It's not as if he can have sports direct logos in the ground at the time and the money wouldn't make any difference to him either.

The rumours floating about are that Mike Ashley wants to sell merchandise (obviously) and he wants exposure of his brand in the champions league, something that looks easier to do at Rangers than Newcastle. It would make no sense for him to invest and the team not to be successful or challenging immediately given it might only take a few quality players to do that.

I can see them on the shirt and the stadium, low prices to get people coming in and buying merchandise. He makes money and to make money then Rangers would need to be successful. If that means buying cheap talented players from Europe/abroad to develop here and sell to England or loan talented Newcastle players to gain experience then he will I imagine.

wish y'd make your mind up FFS ?

Ah, it's nice to dream and shut eyes and ears to any stark realities that might interfere with these dreams