One of the biggest criticisms during June was that the club were silent on what they expected to do during the summer transfer window. With Celtic's management wheel of fortune drawing even greater tabloid coverage than a John Leslie home video, you'd be forgiven for forgetting who actually won the league title just a few short weeks previously. Rangers were given little or no column space and the support demanded action from our chairman. When he finally raised his head above the trenches and gave his interviews, did his words satisfy our thirst for details? On the whole many wrote off what we were told as more smoke and mirrors from a master illusionist. We'd heard the threats of a new fiscal responsibility before and promises that our future lay in the development of our own players sounded somehow hollow. Murray isn't the master showman that Florentino Perez is but then Murray never had to charm his way into office. As much as I believe Murray to be accountable for a great many ills at our club, can we criticise him for telling us the things that some may not necessarily want to hear? The need to raise £3million in January hasn't magically disappeared and very few questioned exactly when it would raise its ugly head again.
Its a little clearer on the park. Walter Smith repeatedly tells us that we don't have the players to play with pace and flair and that despite his best efforts, he couldn't find such players within our reach. We spent over £2million on Lee McCulloch: Tamas Hajnal, selected in the 07/08 Bundesliga team of the year and a regular Hungarian international cost £1million. Nicolae Dica, a promising left-footed attacking midfielder with a penchant for dead-ball efforts and experience of the Champions League languished in Italy following a £1.5million move to Catania. Even Marius Nicolae, representing the SPL at Euro 2008 in lieu of any Rangers involved in the tournament, cost half of the money spent on Andrius Velicka. The players are there and modern fans with a real knowledge of football from as far afield as Eastern Europe and South America, as well as our European and Scandinavian neighbours, will no longer accept a club with no real professional scouting structure. We write off the less glamorous targets as not being “Rangers class”, a rather vague term that offers no clues as to its meaning, when what we really mean is that they're not the class we were accustomed to during the 90s. If we accept that we must be financially restrained then we cannot expect to sign seasoned internationals from the biggest leagues. That doesn't mean we cant find gems, rather that we must look harder to find them.
The way we play is largely dictated by the players we have at our disposal but again I just can't accept that improvements cannot be made. Watching Barcelona last season was an absolute joy but even the best of players can be made to look amateurish if they don't play as a team with a strong idea of both their own role on the park and that of the players around them. Too often we look like 11 guys who have met up for a kickaround in a public park – told little more than “yer shooting that way pal” by the guy who owns the ball. Such summer games are the stuff of legend from our collective childhoods but in the professional ranks we need communication, movement and tactical discipline. Is it too much to ask that a player can trap a ball, look up and know that he'll have the option of a pass to at least 2 others in blue shirts? Xavi and Iniesta may have god-given skills but they control games by playing neat little triangles covering no more than a few yards in midfield, retaining possession and making the opposition chase them. If our players can't do the basics well then what hope do we have? We make excuse after excuse for players who either fail to develop or who cannot maintain any kind of athletic conditioning. Murray tells us that so far Auchenhowie has cost £25million to build and maintain. Its about time we started using such a valuable asset to its fullest.
And the same can be said of our under-performing youth development system. John Fleck is a talented prospect who may well go all the way in the game. Unfortunately for Rangers that's all he is right now – a prospect. We'd all like to see him get more first-team exposure but at what cost to his long term future? Are we resigned to accepting even the most modest bid to ease our financial concerns? Would Fleck justify a bigger fee than James McCarthy despite lacking his exposure in the grown-ups game? Would he be given the time to develop not afforded to players such as Stephen Hughes and Ross McCormack, 2 former Gers who have gone on to have successful careers away from the club? The weight of expectation at Ibrox will always be heavier than at clubs like Hibs but surely if West Ham can bring through a succession of talented youngsters in the English Premiership then it isn't beyond Rangers in the more modest SPL?
We support are a fickle lot. We chastise a chairman for not speaking to the press then crucify him when he does. We complain that our side plays football without flair and ambition yet make endless excuses to justify mediocre performances. Any potential signing is written off as being a nobody and damn any poor fan who suggests the club look at a lesser known player: What could a mere supporter know about real life football outside of the realms of a popular computer game? When we sold Alan Hutton we were criticised for lacking ambition: reckless spending in the wake of a European fiasco will see us continue to operate in the bargain basement because we cannot reconcile our ambitions with our financial realities, We're broke and we know it, except when our chairman begs for caution and our manager categorically states that we're in no position to spend – then we're demanding the purchase of a £2million player. Ferguson was a drain on resources during his under performing, injury-ravaged 2nd stint at Ibrox and yet we refuse to accept that no replacement is coming. We ask that kids be given a fair chance but would we be any more accepting of our poor performances in domestic cup matches, long written off by some fans, if they were delivered by a crop of youngsters getting their first real chance of 90 minutes at Ibrox?
Pre-season is a natural part of a club's preparation for the coming season but perhaps its time for a pre-season for supporters? A time when we can decide once and for all what we actually want from the club and, more importantly, what we're willing to do in order to achieve it. Will we continue to buy the red tops who live on the lies they print? Will we sit enraged at the phone-in pundits who criticise us time and again whilst ignoring the transgressions of our neighbours? Can those who decry the “attention-hungry, self-aggrandising” volunteers at the RST complain about our club if they offer no real alternative to Murray's continued ownership?
Rangers and the Gers faithful are largely self-handicapping. We exist in an insular world where we are the people and where no-one loves us (we don't care). The truth is that fans across the globe, from Ebbsfleet United to Barcelona, are having a real say in how the whole of the footballing business is run. Sevilla, Sao Paolo, Ajax and PSG – clubs of stature in the world game during seasons gone by – accept that in order to compete in the modern footballing world they must cast their nets further, develop more youngsters and hope to supplement their income with the sale of a home-grown gem or two. The blueprint for the future of Rangers as a dominant club in the SPL and as a meaningful player on the European and world stages already exists – its out there right now in the pubs and clubs where fans meet over a pint and on the parks across the world where kids are taught basic skills, discipline and professionalism. In the 60s Stanley Baxter asked “parliamo Glasgow?”: In the noughties its time we asked “parliamo football?”