I'm sure he's not.
Mistakes
1. Sitting in the stand while Hibs papped us out of the Cup. Does anyone think any of the better Rangers managers having accepted the job would have sat in their seat at half time while we were getting papped out of a semi-final?
Walter Smith would have been in that dressing room, Souness would have, McLeish would have, Gerrard would have. All of them would have hoped to inspire a reaction. Gio didn't even get off his seat.
2. We got a bounce when he did take charge, good league form and turning Sparta Prague over at home to get into the Europa knockouts then we came back after the winter break with horrendous form, losing our title in the process. He sanctioned the signing of Aaron Ramsey who would go on to spend most of his time injured or on the bench before missing the decisive penalty in the Europa League final. A frankly disastrous signing.
3. His other signings that January were Sands (with a 5m buy out) who until a CB crisis was squad filler at best and Diallo who was physically so far out of his depth. Gio would think it fit to throw him in at Parkhead in the run in..
4. We dropped 11 points in 8 games between Jan 18th and Feb 27th and including getting pumped at Celtic park with Amad inexplicably starting that game and handed the title to Celtic process.
Aberdeen, Ross County, Celtic, Dundee United and Motherwell would all take points from us in this period.
This was followed by getting beat at home by Celtic in the next Old Firm.
5. Summer transfer window. On here it seems he seems to be absolved of any blame and all the fingers are pointing to Ross Wilson. He almost certainly deserves criticism but does anyone think he makes decisions without consulting the manager?
It's a tough job when two of your top players are sold but we got a lot of money for two players we paid almost nothing for.
For some McGregor's age caught up with him last season and we needed a new keeper, Gio decided otherwise and move last years back up to No1. It's not worked and due to injury we seen our best Goalkeeping display this season when McGregor returned.
Bassey is sold and Balogun/Katic allowed to leave. We replace them with Souttar, Davies and Yilmaz.
Yilmaz out most expensive signing can't dislodge Barasic, on limited outings he looks talented but hard to tell much yet. Davies seemingly fit but can't get ahead of Sands or Leon King despite costing 4m. Hard to see the reasoning behind letting Balogun go and bringing him in. Souttar has a horror debut then takes Katic' place in the physio room. We are significantly worse off despite 8m spent on two players.
Midfield we sign two attacking midfielders in Lawrence and Tillman to replace Aribo. Lawrence has been our best player when he's played and Tillman has contributed well plus has the attributes to be moulded into a big player should he improve his work rate but he's not ready to make a big impact yet.
We sign no traditional central midfielders despite having an aging trio of Davis, Jack and Arfield. The wantaway Glen Kamara (i don't blame him Gio doesn't seem to trust him) and Lundstram who had 6 months of form after a terrible start. It was clear we needed a quality player in this area.
We signed Matondo who is complete muck. Sakala without the goals and likeability.
Colak is signed and has steadily improved and will do well in Scotland but he won't cut it like Morelos can on his day in Europe.
6. Slapped about by Celtic looking like a team devoid of a plan and confidence then the same teams slapped about by Ajax again looking like a team devoid of a plan.
Positives
There have been some but not enough for me.
Knockout games he seems to be good at getting results in.
Huge credit for the tactical changes away at Dortmund that seen us come back to Ibrox with a two goal lead. 4 magical home games followed and for upsetting the odds with the extra time win over Celtic in the Scottish Cup which allowed us to at least win a trophy.
Setting us up to come back after the horror night in Belgium and setting us up to do a number on PSV (although the way things are going it might have been better to get beat )
Although this season isn't yet a write off, the difference in performances between us and Celtic suggests it soon will be.
Next season is massive for Rangers in terms of squad turnover, it's a whole new team kind of summer. I would not trust Gio to do that, i want a new manager in so he can decide who he wants to keep and get planning for next summer.
End of contract
McGregor
McCrorie
Helander
Jack
Davis
Arfield
Kent
Morelos
Tillman / Sands (Buy out 5m a piece)
Is Gio the man?
posted on 17/9/22
1) I think he was 100% correct to stay in the stand for the Hibs game.....no matter what the result, he wasn't the manager for that game so I don't know why it's being laid at his door
2) Rotten form after Xmas isn't something new with Hip, we only had good form once after Xmas under Gerrard and that was the season we won the league, the 2 seasons before that, we won the new year old firm then threw away our advantage gained from that victory.
As for Ramsey, not gonna slate Gio or the club for bringing in a player of that quality hoping it would work...ultimately, it was down to Ramsey to get his a t together, he didn't and still hasn't...only thing I'll slate Gio for there is his decision to bring him on just for a penalty, which he missed
3) Sands for me has proven a decent addition. Diallo had the quality, it was his attitude that was all wrong for me, and he hardly featured for that reason
4) That is what happened yes, it also coincided with Celtic going on a very long unbeaten run, and the title was lost by 4 points....but we did have a very heavy European schedule during the close season, and you only have to look at when both old firm sides made it to the final in previous season to see that neither side won the league on those occassions, lost too many silly points, same as us
5) Didn't agree with giving McGregor another year, was time to move on, we didn't...and McLaughlin, although decent, wasn't a good enough replacement, and isn't exactly young either
In defence, the new guys certainly haven't hit the ground running, but it's only September....you talk about Bassey being one of our best players that got sold, this time last year he had only made 4 starts for us and the jury was still out on him.....way to early to judge these guys.
Yilmaz is still young and has loads of potential, his arrival gave Barasic the kick up the erse he was needing, and he looks a decent replacement if Barasic form dips.
Have no idea why we let Balogun go but kept Helander, must have been about money
Happy with Lawrence and Tillman, felt creative midfielders is what we were lacking with more sitting in defensive guys like Lundstram, Kamara and Davis already here
Matondo looked good early, guy should be of use in domestic games when we are looking to rest others
Colak not an improvement on Morelos but better than what we had
6) Gio certainly takes blame there...but so do the players. If the same bunch can go out and win at PSV, and give Napoli a decent game, they can do a helluva lot better than they did in both those games. Mistakes happen, it's how we react that matters.
posted on 17/9/22
comment by Humble Hamish (U21959)
posted 1 hour, 26 minutes ago
The gk situation is not as simple as folk saying ‘McLaughlin is better than McGregor’ or not.
They are different and bring different things to the team.
No Rangers fan would argue that a young McGregor doesn’t win hands down. But McGregor cost us a lot of points last season.
He is still the better gk choice in games like Wednesday where you need a shot stopper. But is he still up to the job in games we dominate and he may only be tested once in the last minute? Last season put a very valid question mark over it.
I don’t understand why we resigned McGregor if he wasn’t going to play every week.
In the absence of a new gk being brought in it was a toss up between the McGregor who cost us points last season and McLaughlin who isn’t going to make the saves McGregor might when he’s on form but he might not make the same mistakes as an ageing gk who has stood around doing nothing for 89 mins.
Plus McGregors ever growing reluctance to come for cross balls and fear of taking any risk whatsoever with the ball at his feet don’t help.
We needed a new number one for this season. McGregor having a good game on Wednesday doesn’t change that.
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Exactly this.
Folk talking about McGregor as if he didn’t cost us last season. The McGregor from even 3 years ago was a lot better than last season.
We needed a new no.1.
As for signings, Davies on the bench today with King starting… Matondo not in the squad… Yilmaz and Tilman at least made the bench.
Great to see McCann start though to see what he’s got about him.
posted on 17/9/22
Is Schizo still too verklempt to do the live thread?
posted on 17/9/22
Unkempt anaw
posted on 17/9/22
Can you not see it?
posted on 17/9/22
Sliding closer to the Gio out camp, 3 points but poor
posted on 17/9/22
comment by HB Fash - The Madrid Minutes Folklore. 50mins of not getting pumped. DVD's out now. (U21935)
posted 7 hours, 36 minutes ago
People believe Wilson is more responsible for signings, I can accept that but absolving Gio of all blame for all signings is a load of nonsense. He’s communicates with Wilson on signings as did Gerrard so he must accept a portion of the blame.
Diallo at Parkhead was mental considering we had seen him he out of his depth for weeks before that, he’s not getting away with that either. He chose to sub Ramsey on in the Europa final so it shows he had faith in him so also not getting off with that, he wanted Ramsey.
His OF record is rotten. His domestic record poor.
He actually thought McLaughlin was better than McGregor and that is criminal. I know some of you lot agreed and I still can’t wrap my head around that.
I hope he goes on to prove me wrong but he won’t.
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👍
posted on 18/9/22
Anyone else think McGregor could have done better when United scored yesterday?
posted on 20/9/22
1. He didnt have a work permit so it would have been illegal to start his work before then. Its also very disrespectful towards the guys who had prepared for it and were managing the team for that game. Guys he had to then work for, he didnt even know any of the players.
2 - He sanctioned the signing of Ramsay. Thats just a claim made up out of thin air IMO. We have employed someone for that role in Wilson, Id say there is more chance that Wilson the guy brought in to deal with recruitment signed off on that one. You can pick out one specific error you think he made in bringing on Ramsay in the final but choose to forget the umpteen decisions that he made to get us to that final.
3 - see point two answer
4 - Post Christmas form, yes this is something you can possibly blame him for however this was not a problem exclusive to him.
5 - See point 2 & 3. Picking McLaughlin ahead of McGregor made sense. Mcgregor is on the slide and didnt have the best of seasons last year. Its plain and pretty obvious last season that we were gonna need a keeper, again this was not dealt with by the recruitment team.
"Davies seemingly fit but can't get ahead of Sands or Leon King despite costing 4m" - Gio told us that he is not up to fitness yet.
"Midfield we sign two attacking midfielders in Lawrence and Tillman to replace Aribo. Lawrence has been our best player when he's played and Tillman has contributed well plus has the attributes to be moulded into a big player should he improve his work rate but he's not ready to make a big impact yet." - in what way this is this a negative? yout have included this in the negative lists.
Souttar did have a nightmare on his debut but lets just forget that his brother had not long just died. you can judge him on the back of that if you want, I wont.
"Colak is signed and has steadily improved and will do well in Scotland but he won't cut it like Morelos can on his day in Europe." Again your argument is that as one of the negatives that Colak isnt as good as Morelos?! Colak has been excellent for us since coming in. But I dont give him praise for signing him cos that was Wilson, Gio gets praise for getting him to perform.
so a lot of the same points being raised about recruited players and blaming someone else for the poor job WIlson has done.
finally
"I hope he goes on to prove me wrong but he won’t."
No you dont you literally said the other day that you hope that we lose against Dundee United to get him out quicker.
These are some of the grumblings we heard about Gerrard.... right before he led us to an unbeaten campaign and number 55.
GvB got us to a euro final, then qualified us for the champ league and has not been backed. It screams of what Celtic used to do, get champions league and sit back and count the money , which in turn opened the door for us to bounce back again and stop them getting 10.
I think the board see the money coming in on the back of Gio's success and see no need to further invest in the team. Thats not how you continually evolve and progress a team, thats how you stagnate and get left behind.
posted on 20/9/22
comment by St3vie (U11028)
posted 1 day, 22 hours ago
Anyone else think McGregor could have done better when United scored yesterday?
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wasnt a howler but he should have done better and Im sure if it was Mclaughlin it would be plastered all over the papers.
FWIW i think as things stand Mcgregor should be our number one but lets not kid ourselves, Mclaughlin would have been slaughtered for that.