Life after Walter

[markrangers]

Breaking News​

Walter Smith has left incredibly left Rangers just 1 month after leading Rangers to a league and cup double in the 2008/2009 season. As he left for his car he said this to the journalists who had gathered there. “I’ve decided that I need to leave Rangers on a high and with the money problems currently gathering at the club and I need to leave and allow somebody else to take the club forward”. This comes just 2 days after Alastair Johnstone had announced he was talking to potential buyers for the club. The favourites for the job are Ally McCoist, Slaven Bilic, Billy Reid and current youth coach Mark Kirkwood who is 18/1 to get the job.

Rookie gets Job​

There was shock and dismay outside Ibrox today as Chairman Alastair Johnstone announced Mark Kirkwood as the new manager of Rangers. Message boards are being filled with Johnstone bashing threads but Kirkwood could not be more excited about the challenge, he said “I’m honoured to been given this challenge of managing of the club I’ve supported all my life and I’ll do my absolute best to get Rangers success.” When asked what kind of football he will look to play he responded with “winning football”. With the future of the club up in the air and with no transfer budget made available and with no more wage budget he will have to be very clever in his transfer dealings.


P.S I'm using a created database where Rangers are up for sale just like in real life at the time but nothing else has been edited before I'm accused. Also I'm actually in March 2010 in the save but I wasn't sure how much I would get into it before I would start a story but I am into it so I thought I would start off the story now.

 

[scotland forever]

GOOD LUCK COME ON THE QUEENS ELEVEN lol

 

[markrangers]

Pre-Season​

With no money available I knew I needed to do something as the squad I currently had was no where good enough to challenge a full season for the SPL and compete to some degree in the Champions League. First of all was to sell Da Marcus Beasley for 800K to try and raise something. I used this to sign Marco Verratti for 350K but with having no experience with him previously I decided to sign him a year later to give him a full year of first team experience before coming to the rigours of the SPL as well as Alejandro Rocamora(Inspired by the Cultural Leonasa story). Those were the only pieces of business due to financial problems and my reluctance to break up my squad but Rhys McCabe, Kane Hemmings, Gregg Wylde, Kal Naismith, Kamil Wiktorski and Stephen Stirling were all sent out on loan to various clubs around Scotland.

Results:
Rangers 3-1 Reserves
Viitorul Ca 1-4 Rangers
Unirea Craiova 4-1 Rangers
FC Arges 1-3 Rangers
Rapid Buc 2-0 Rangers
Spartak ZV 0-3 Rangers
Indjija 0-9 Rangers
Borac 0-5 Rangers
Rangers 2-2 Sampdoria
Unirea Urziceni 0-2 Rangers
Rangers 1-2 Arsenal

[FONT=&quot]It’s always my policy to have 10 to 12 preseason friendly’s to make every player gets plenty of game time and is in to condition for pre-season. Overall it was a half decent pre-season [/FONT] [FONT=&quot]with some really good wins but with some poor results like Unirea Craiova where we just didn’t turn up. August report coming up.[/FONT]

 

[glasgowrangers53]

Good Luck mate Do us Proud!

 

[markrangers]

August Update​

This was the month a consortium indicated their interest in buying the club while a tycoon was also floating about but nothing came of it. My league campaign also started and I would find out who I would be up against in the Champions League. I also decided that I wanted to bring in my own assistant and after Ally agreed to leave I brought in Ezio Sella, an assistant who I have always used and one I can trust. Anyways here is the results from our games in August

Rangers 4-1 Falkirk
A pleasing opening day win with a pleasing goal coming from youngster Shinnie as well as a hat trick from Naismith.

Hearts 2-2 Rangers
A poor performance but pleased to come back from 2 down but we had to improve if we were to put together a challenge.

Rangers 2-0 Hamilton
A comfortable victory where in all honesty we could of had 5 or 6 and we also played some extremely attractive football, our best performance so far.

In other news our Champions League group was drawn and we were drawn with Chelsea, FC Porto and Wolfsburg. A very difficult group to get out of and we would have to play very well to be able to compete with them with no investment being made into my current playing squad.

 

[markrangers]

September​

It was time for us to start getting into our groove and picking up wins early on to set the platform for the challenge while we opened our Champ Lg account. Our takeover also went through right at the end of this month with the consortium lead by London businessman Colin Gardiner taken over, he also considered my future for a while as he wanted Walter Zenga but he kept me on. Here are September’s results:

Motherwell 1-2 Rangers
A really scrappy win in a really scrappy game but a win is a win.

Rangers 0-0 Porto(Champions League)
A good start to the campaign, they did everything I asked of them, they were stuffy, hard working, hard to break down but just couldn’t find a goal on the counter.

Kilmarnock 2-2 Rangers
A truly horrible performance and game, each player really needs to have a good long look at themselves, defensively they were an absolute joke.

Rangers 2-0 Livingston(League Cup)
Pleased to get through, we played some good football and really should of had more goals.

Rangers 1-0 Aberdeen
Again a very scruffy game, we need to improve our performances big time if we are to win the league but defensively we were better than we had been in previous league games.

Chelsea 1-0 Rangers
Wasn’t expecting much out of this game and was pleased with how we played and we only lost due to an wonder goal, on any other night we might of come out the other end with a result.
So September was a mixed month with some pleasing performances in the Champions League without great results but had some awful performances in the league but came out with 7 points from 9 from the games. A true champions attitude perhaps?


Also I'm just about to start my October report, is there any recomendations on how to improve this story and make it easier to read as this is my first story?

 

[glasgowrangers53]

September​

Also I'm just about to start my October report, is there any recomendations on how to improve this story and make it easier to read as this is my first story?

Make It Colourful and try something like
Rangers (3) v Celtic (2)

ScreenShot

and the scorers under it for the lazy people who cant be bothered clicking on the screenie.

 

[markrangers]

Cheers noted, hopefully I'll come back with a better update, havn't started it yet because of the football but it will be here tonight, when your talking about Screenshots, what kind are you wanting because remember I can't give you league table because I'm actually in March in the save, just started the story late and I'm not going to continue the save until the story has caught up.

 

[ianhall65]

Make It Colourful and try something like
Rangers (3) v Celtic (2)

ScreenShot

and the scorers under it for the lazy people who cant be bothered clicking on the screenie.
[/B]

I think it's ok the way it is and it's a good story so far keep it up mate

 

[markrangers]

October​

This was going to be a month in which we would start with an Old Firm game in which we could stamp down our mark, our Champions League campaign would begin to take shape and we would know what stage we are at, we would also take on Hibs in the League Cup quarter final as we look to progress, and also when I was given my new £15m transfer budget from the new owners as well as an increase in my wage budget, here’s the results as usual:

Rangers 1(Miller85) Celtic 1(Crosas 68)
A poor performance in which we didn’t really press Celtic enough, but I was pleased with the late leveller and we could of actually won it in the end but wouldn’t of deserved it

St Johnstone 0 Rangers5(Novo 2, Boyd 18, pen 62, 72, Lafferty 82)
First time we actually clicked on every level, played some wonderful football and scored goals, was very impressed with every player and sets us up nicely for Wolfsburg. First sign on the kind of side I could build.

Wolfsburg 0 Rangers 1(Naismith 49) (Champions League)
A famous victory for the lads, we could of been 3 or 4 down at HT but we scored on the counter early on the second half and held on after that, a fantastic smash and grab victory and exactly how I want the team to play in Europe

Rangers 0 Hibernian 0
An awful game with no chances created, the team were very tired after chasing the ball for 90 in midweek and just didn’t look up for it at all, the result had undone all the good play and hard work in the St Johnstone and Wolfsburg results.

Rangers 2(Fleck 32, Boyd 42) Hibernian 0 (League Cup)
A good win to take us to the semi final but we were very poor in the second half whereas we were fantastic in the first, pleased to go through however and we play Aberdeen in the semi final.

Dundee Utd 1(Daly 2) Rangers 1 (Boyd 28)
A very poor performance and we were lucky to get a draw out of this one, we just didn’t turn up and already it looks like we may lose the title because of draws.

Overall another mixed month, only 1 win in the league with 3 poor performances out balancing the one fantastic performance while again an impressive Champions League performance proving we can compete at this level as well as progress in the League Cup. With two months until January I will be looking at potential targets as well as looking at positions that need to be strengthened.

 

[markrangers]

November

​

With the current inconsistency in the team I decided to try and bring in some new players to freshen up the squad as well as letting players leave the club, I confirmed that Nicolas Frutos(ST) would join in January from Anderlecht for £5.75m and Craig Conway(AM RL) would join from Dundee Utd for around £575k. Pedro Mendes would also leave for Stoke in a deal worth £4.9m, he had a very poor start to the season and with me beginning to rebuild the squad I decided it was right he left the club. I also would use a new tactic for this month which I had devised where the team rather than consistently attack teams in the league would try and pass the ball about quickly until the other team tire and gaps would open. Here’s the results from the month

Rangers 4-2 Wolfsburg
Played 4-1-4-1 in this match instead but it didn’t matter as the team were absolutely fantastic from start to finish, Wolfsburg couldn’t cope with the speed of our counter attacks and again a blueprint of how I want our performances in Europe to be like. Goals from Novo, Boyd, Wilson and Naismith with Gentner and Hasebe scoring for Wolfsburg.

Rangers 3-0 St Mirren
This was better than the St Johnstone performance, we absolutely dominated from start to finish and the football was by far the best we played so far, they could barely get the ball of us and our passing football today was better than attacking football. Great start to November so far. Goals from Whittaker, Davis and Boyd

Rangers 3-0 Kilmarnock
This was just as good as St Mirren. We could of had 4 or 5 more goals and played some wonderful passing football, looks like my tactic change has worked an absolute treat so far but admittedly we’re playing poor teams but it so far looks like it may give us an edge over Celtic. Goals from Novo, Boyd and Fleck.

Porto 1-0 Rangers
Played 4-4-1-1 and it backfired big-time, we never pressed Porto anywhere on the park despite what I told them, we conceded midway through the first half and were never getting back in the game. If Porto had scored 3 or 4 more we would have had no complaints. We also lost Boyd for 5 to 7 weeks in this game due to a hernia. Goal from Falcao

Aberdeen 0-3 Rangers
Back to the earlier tactic in the month and another 3-0 win which we are beginning to rack up now. We played poorly in the first half however but in the second half we came out like a team possessed and passed it for fun around them and then the gaps opened up big-time and could of had around 5 or 6 goals in the second half we played that well, truly dominated them in the second half. Goals from Fleck(2) and Novo.

Our best month with our best performances in both the league and champions league. The Porto game was a disappointment but a win against Chelsea at Ibrox would be enough to take us through if there was a winner in the other game but at least Europa League was guaranteed, and if we start to show consistency in the league, it will be ours because right now no team is able to live with our fast pass and move football.