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Rangers


2018/19



Premiership - Win
Scottish Cup - Win
Scottish League Cup - Win
Europa League - 1st Knockout Round



Transfers


Overall Best XI




 
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Rangers

Now into my eighth season with Rangers (my longest ever with them) I actually don't think I've ever enjoyed a save so much. It has helped that I have been playing it in bursts as I've had a fair few times away from the game this year. I couldn't have started any better as somehow we tore it up in the first season and went on to win the treble! I didn't even add to the team until January but tbh there are a fair few players in the team from the start that you can do a lot with such as, Alfredo Morelos, Connor Goldson, Borna Barasic, Nikola Katic, James Tavernier, Ross McCrorie and Glenn Middleton. Middleton and McCrorie are class young players and perform amazingly right from the off and the same can be said for the rest of them. Lining up with a 4-2-2-2 seemed to work really well and I'm glad as I've always liked playing two striker as opposed to the 4-5-1/4-3-3 everyone seems to favour. Goals, goals and more goals that's what our success was down to. We only improved from there and now I'm halfway through my eighth season with them on schedule to complete the treble again and in the last 16 of the CL. I thought I'd share my team on here as a way of looking back on how the career has gone.


I went with the usual method of bringing in free transfers, bargain buys and potential wonderkids with the view to loaning them out and/or selling them to make loads of money. It's a method I've always followed on FM as I've always had success doing it. I've managed to bring in £1.2bn by selling/loaning players so clearly my team is very rich. When I got into the CL final and lost in the third season and then won the EL in the fourth season I was thinking this is going to be far too easy. So I decided to change my approach and start to develop home grown talent with the intention of fielding an almost entirely Scottish team with maybe a few UK based ones too. I think that was in season 4/5 I started that and now my team is very close to only Scottish players apart from a couple foreign ones. Although I wanted a home grown team I had spent years building and buying a team, or several teams, so it was going to be hard getting rid of all of the players especially since I didn't want to let them go for less than what they were worth. As such, I have kept a select few players over the years like Moritz Hollerieth, Erkan Eybil, Isaias, Vincent Njoku, Alfredo Morelos, Nikola Katic, Svetozar Markovic, Federico Zapata, Yuri Alberto, Alex Bielsa, Roberto Navarro, Matonense and Tourinho. Nowadays Alex Bielsa has Scotland as a second nationality whilst Navarro is less than a year away from the same. That being said I will probably accept decent bids for them unless I get the Scotland job(again) and manage to persuade them to declare themselves for us! Matonense is a really good winger but I'm not really fussed on him for some reason, even though he is amazing. Now Tourinho on the other hand, that's different, he has become a phenomenal player for me and arguably the best striker in the game too. I would be really surprised if he didn't win the Balon d'or this year. I rejected a £100m offer from Real Madrid for him last year as it had too many clauses in the deal and I expected them to come back in with another offer which I would no doubt have accepted. With my young Scottish striker Tony Herd picking up a couple month long injury I decided to just keep playing Tourinho this season and he has been unplayable, completely. So now I'm stuck with a dilemma.. Do I let him leave or keep him as a bonus foreign player? Who knows?! I've stuck his valuation at £200m as Real Madrid have been scouting and expressing interest in him all season so will see what happens I guess. In two more seasons both he and Matonense will also have Scottish nationality so there's that, although both have been capped by Brazil. Let's see where the rest of the season and the transfer window takes us eh?



Current season
Squad
Fixtures
League

 
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December-March

A major topic I spoke about last time was that of Tourinho and my uncertainty of what to do with him but alas we have another transfer window gone and he's still here as Real Madrid look to be going down their usual long and drawn out transfer process. I was shocked that Tourinho didn't win the Ballon D'or and only made the bench for the World XI, his stats were considerably better than the rest as well. Tony Herd earned the European Golden Boy award though so that was some good news. Now to Europe; I mentioned previously about hoping to avoid Barcelona in the 1st knockout round of the Champions League, did we do that? Nope! I decided that this time I wouldn't treat them so kindly by switching our play like we had done last year, no, we went for it with our usual 4-2-2-2 attacking system. In the first leg it was starting to look like a mistake after 30 mins but we managed to pull one back and make it a respectable scoreline. The follow up tie went so, so, so well for us, we battered them and had a 3-0 lead up until they pulled one back which looked likely to send the tie to extra time but we were awarded a very dramatic late penalty and Tony Herd stepped up to put us back ahead, then following up with another to completely kill them off and sealing his hat-trick. Surely one Spanish giant would be enough though? No? Ok.. Real Madrid next!

We got another nice youth intake this year and have a great young wonderkid youth through our affiliation with Columbus Crew in America; Reese Camm. He has all the potential in the world and has great current ability for a 16-year-old too. His only downside is that he has no flair whatsoever, yet all his other technical, mental and physical stats seem to be really good, we shall see how that fares in game. We got another youth through an affiliate, another young goalkeeper! We have a plethora of those it has to be said. Still, a decent pick up through our partnership with Socheux. Interestingly Celtic dismissed another manager in their hopeless quest to topple me at the top and this time Roger Schmidt was shown the door. Schmidt came in and started really well, played some good games against me and also led Celtic to a first 2nd place finish in 3/4 years but failed to convince the board. Next in was a very close friend of mine, Robbie Stockdale, I brought Robbie in as our reserves assistant manager in 2019 and then gave him the Scotland under 21's managers job during my stint in charge there too. He was with us for six years before making the move to Nottinham Forest to become his own man, he was doing a decent job there too. Now he fancies a crack at me? Going to be gutted getting him the sack! On the plus side another of my former colleagues replaced him; Michael Beale taking up the job after his recent dismissal by Sheffield Wednesday.

Domestically we are absolutely flying as we extend our unbeaten run to sixty-six games. We are just six games shy of beating our previous record of seventy-one games unbeaten. With just seven games left of the league campaign I'm hoping that we can secure a second invincible season under my leadership of the club. We have come close to a further two invincible seasons but had one pesky defeat in each of those campaigns. We sailed through three Scottish cup ties and Hibernian lie in wait for us in the semi finals. Hopefully another domestic treble en route to Ibrox as we have already secured the Betfred Cup by beating Celtic in a thoroughly spectacular game in which we came from behind to win. I also must reserve a special mention for that Aberdeen result, wow! Interestingly Tourinho became the second striker to bag a hat-trick that game yet he actually only came on with twenty minutes to play, a glorious feat.


 
We continued exactly where we left off in the league as we won five out of our seven remaining games and kept clean sheets in those games too. We drew the other two to take our tally to the season to six draws but once again we have an invincible season in what was our eighth straight league title. Unfortunately we succumbed to a penalty shoot out defeat to Hibs in the Scottish Cup Semi Final meaning we fail to reach the Scottish Cup final for the first time in my eight years at the club. After seeing off Barcelona in the last 16 of the CL it was time to face off with their fellow Spanish giants Real Madrid! We got off to a flyer as we beat them 4-0 at home the return leg wasn't so straight forward however. Despite that, we played out an incredible game and possibly one of the greatest ever Champions League games as we lost 5-3 on the day which of course meant that we were 7-5 victors on aggregate! Next up was PSG and if I'm honest, after beating those two, I probably underestimated them a little bit and went **** for leather against them in both ties, evidently it wasn't to be for us as we we trounced 6-2 on aggregate. So near, yet so far once again as we almost reach the final of the Champions League. It's becoming clear that my biggest challenge will be trying to conquer Europe with a fully Scottish team. Had I kept up with my previous method of signing every good wonderkid I could then I know for a fact we'd have at least 3/4 more EL/CL wins. However, I think I'm probably happier that we're struggling to achieve that European domination as it's keeping me motivated with the save. I'm now going into my ninth season and I still have a real purpose, with real goals to achieve. Also, I haven't mentioned this yet but I have another long term goal in this save and it is to break the long standing club records held by Sam English, Sandy Archibald and Ally McCoist. In order to do so I will need a player of mine to score 252 league goals, make 514 league appearances and score 45 league goals in a season. Our main man Tourinho shattered Alfredo Morelos' record of 47 overall goals in a season for us with his 51 goal haul. I will post a screenshot of the record breaking Tourinho below alongside his and the clubs stats and awards for the season, of which there are many.

 
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Rangers 2026-27 Preview

As we set about our latest season I was already really happy with my team so I didn't really have to make any additions to the team. Which doesn't mean I didn't bring anyone in does it? We brought in two young Scottish prospects who will mostly play with the reserves although they will be used sparingly in the first team for us. I am really happy with the players that I have in my squad this season once again. We have a blend of youth and experience even if our squad average age does sit at twenty-two, our players around the age of twenty-two have probably played a hundred games or more and so are actually experienced.

We do still have our main man Tourinho as we fielded absolutely no calls about him which is a bit weird but perhaps our £200m valuation of him is a tad off putting for some. I did allow Matonense to leave for Man City for a fee a little lower than I would've like to however we added in a clause that'll see us receive 50% of his next transfer fee. Both Navarro and Bielsa now have Scottish nationality so I'm not too fussed about moving them on for that reason. I would like to sell Navarro though, I bought him six seasons ago as a wonderkid with a view to selling him on for a big profit and so I put up with his £140k p/w wage but now I still have him on that and I really don't want to pay him that wage. Still, I'll play him until we get a decent offer I guess.

I still have a bit of a headache with our goalkeepers as they all have similar ability however, it is becoming clear that Ali Wilson may be the man with the most potential abilty in him and so he may be our most frequent #1 although the other two will still play 10-15 games. I am happy with almost all of the other positions in the team apart from maybe our forwards. I, of course, have no problem with Tourinho as his record speaks for itself although he is less likely to play than Bobby Docherty and Tony Herd due to their home grown status. I'm quite concerned with Herd though, I've been using him as one of my main strikers for four years and his ability hasn't quite shot up as much as I'd have liked. He is the player I want to break the league goalscoring and appearance records with the club and so far he his 111 appearances and 67 goals so he is on the right track that way I guess. Docherty is a terrific pressing forward and I have no issues about him at all and Mick Crawford needs more development, training, tutoring and game time before he can be judged.

We had a bit of a backroom staff restructure this season too as I allowed my long standing assistant, director of football and head of youth development staff leave after their contracts ran down. Pep Clotet had been a great assistant for six years and Krystian Speakman done a really good job as our head of youth for the same period of time. Mark Allen was actually in place before me and so he leaves after nine years with the club and will be replaced by the highly reputable Monchi. Our other two replacements came with just as high of a reputation as Monchi, Zsolt Low previously held the assistant managers position with PSG and a couple of the Red Bull franchise clubs, and Max Balster was key to nurturing the talent at Schalke for seven years as their head of youth too. I feel quite bad letting Speakman and Clotet leave as we built up a terrific rapport over the years but I just felt it was time to step everyone up to that elite level and hopefully we can do that by bringing through a higher calibre of player than ever before. Having sold quite a lot of my foreign contingent that were out on loan I am hopeful that next season I won't spend even half as much of the time dealing with transfers and agents! We loaned out another eight players that are foreign so there should be just those to deal with next season. Then any other offers I have to deal with won't be as tough as I won't be going out of my way to sell them and so I will have the upper hand in negotiations. Number nine lets be having you!

 
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Rangers: September - December

With everything in place for the club to do well once again in the upcoming season we got stuck in to the task of trying to win as much silverware as we could once again. In the league we were absolutely flying as usual as we won ten games on the bounce, conceding just once in the process. Celtic put an end to that winning run although not the unbeaten run. I feel like Celtic maybe put us off of our game though, as in that very same month we struggled massively in the League Cup Final to Hibs. We went behind in the game and for the first time in a very long one I actually changed our shape from a 4-2-2-2 to a 4-2-3-1 but although we did pull one back extremely late to take the tie to ET Hibs subsequently scored an extremely late goal of their own as they sunk us with an 118th minute goal. The domestic treble dream was over once again.

In the Champions League we played fairly well as we won four out of six games. We were hammered by Bayern Munich in the first tie but revenged that defeat in the follow up game. After absolutely annihilating RedBull Salzburg 7-1 the first time we somehow managed to lose 1-0 to them in the second game which was extremely disappointing. Dynamo Kiev seemed to be a complete mismatch for us as we easily dispersed of them with a ten goal to nil haul over the two games. To my absolute joy, finishing second must have done us some good as we were handed a favourable 1st Knockout Round tie with another RedBull Franchise; Leipzig this time! Zsolt low didn't know what to make of it all.

Amazingly we have managed to keep twenty-one clean sheets in our thirty games this season. Although annoyingly we've sorted of felt the pinch at the other end as our strikers aren't quite scoring as much as I'd have liked them too. It became clear to me that Ryan Gauld, Callum Paterson and Scott McTominay aren't as good as the other players in their positions now and we'll likely let them leave, perhaps on loan. Well, Paterson and McTominay anyway. Gauld has been incredible for us since joining for less than £60k in 2020, particularly in the following season. As a result, I will likely keep him as a squad player and also use him to help develop the youngsters vying for his position! I have been really impressed with the development of Tony Herd after previously doubting him. He seems to have knuckled down in training and is finally listening to the advice from his mentors as well as starting to adopt their approach. He hasn't quite scored as many as I'd like, neither has Bobby Docherty but hopefully they can kick on in the second half of the season.

Unfortunately Adam Morrice damaged cruciate ligament damage in his knee and was ruled out for seven months. I'm really hoping that the injury doesn't set back his development too much! With the absence of Morrice and the declining abilty of Gauld I decided that our new midfield rotation duo will be 16-year-old's Jack McMaster and Reese Camm. Craig Johnson will also get some game time when we can allow it, he will be our bench player for the season too. It also became clear that Ali Wilson should be our #1 goalkeeper and Mark Murray should be his understudy. With that in mind I still decided to give Liam Begg ten games before we reach the winter transfer window and we can look to loan him out for the remainder of the season. I will also be looking to loan out Mick Crawford and bring Shogo Nakamura back from his loan at Falkirk as he isn't playing enough games there.
 
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Rangers: January - June

It's fair to say that this has been my most disappointing season in a long time. Firstly, losing the Betfred Cup to Hibs and then the Scottish Cup semi-final to Hearts followed up by a Champions League quarter-final knockout by Man United. Somehow though, we managed to go another season unbeaten in the league which now stretches back to three years, we were beaten on the third fixture of the 2024/25 season meaning we have gone 111 games without defeat. Quite remarkable when you consider we're not that formidable of a force in all of the other competitions evidently.

Our clean sheet record didn't quite follow us into 2027 but fortunately we managed to find our shooting boots! After again moaning about the development of Tony Herd he's finally kicking on and has become my best player this season. He managed to add an incredible 23 goals to his 12 goal haul in the first half of the campaign as he finally found his place in the team. I reckon it was the shift in role for him as we started to utilise him as a complete forward due to his all round statistics which seemed to bring the best out in him. He improved so much so that he was the top goalscorer in the league, was the FW Player of the Year runner up, Players Young Player of the Year, FW Young player of the year and was in the Team of the Year alongside Bobby Docherty and Jamie Dair. Tourinho had a bit of a stop, start season for us through injuries and also due to me playing Herd and Docherty together nine times out of ten. Reiss Nelson and Robert Navarro had particularly good seasons for us but with a couple of teams interested in the pair I'd be happy to sell them on for the right price. In saying that, I think I've yet to come across a really high potential Scottish winger to date and so it might be best to hold on to them for now.

I was really hoping to have been more successful in Europe by this point and to go out on away goals to eventual winners Man United was really infuriating. Particularly because we dominated them in that first league but just couldn't put the game to bed and of course they went on to grab that crucial away goal like you'd expect from a Jose Mourinho team. Interestingly we have lost to the two eventual winners in the past two years! We have got to do better next year though as it's the one success I haven't been able to achieve thus far. I expect to be at the club for another 10 years though as I'm starting to feel like I want to overtake Bill Struth in the hall of fame and surpass his 18 league titles with the club. If I do that and become the best in the country then and only then will I be satisfied with my career with Rangers. Well, that and the other club records we want to try and break too. Ross McCrorie has accumulated a lot of games for us but I don't reckon he's the man to break the record due to his ever advancing age, at 29 he's maybe just a couple of years too old as he'd need to play every league game for the next 7/8 years or so.


Records to beat
Sandy Archibald - 513 League appearances
Ally McCoist - 251 League goals
Sam English - 44 League goals in one season
Bill Struth - 18 League titles


Current
Ross McCrorie - 232 League appearances
Tony Herd - 146 League appearances
Tony Herd - 96 League goals
Alfredo Morelos - 32 goals in one season
 
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Rangers: Pre-season, August & Transfers

Heading into my tenth season with the club my hunger for success with Rangers was yet to fade. If anything it was growing stronger as we crumbled in all competitions bar the League last year which is unacceptable. You can't annihilate everyone in the league and then falter against those very same sides in other competitions it makes no sense! We must achieve a domestic treble this season and I will honestly be seething at anything less than European progress too, which means at least making the final of the Champions League.

I am extremely happy with the squad at my disposal this year too as this was the final year where we had still to sell unwanted players that were out on loan to other clubs for years on end. We now have no unwanted 'foreign' players at the club and have a full squad of Scottish nationals or with Scottish citizenship at least. We have this throughout all three of our squads and we have a number of exciting prospects across all three squads too. We added another couple of bright young lads to the team as well as bringing back former loanee and Celtic youth graduate Willie Craig for an absolute bargain fee. Considering the fact that he signed for Manchester City for £20m just three years ago and played really well on three separate loans shows City's ineptitude there. If I could've added anything more to our team it would be bringing in a couple of Scottish wingers but there seems to be a bizarre lack of quality wide men around at the moment. With the sale of Reiss Nelson, who was signed on a free and sold for £60m, we now had an open slot on the left wing which we had to fill but with no quality replacements around we had to get creative. So, Billy Gilmour will be retrained as our right winger, Robert Navarro will retrain as our inside forward on the left wing and best of all, we can fit another of our quality centre midfielders into the line up as a result.

I have started to learn more and more about the group and the most important thing of all is the amount of players who seem to crumble in the big matches or appear to hate playing in them. Now, as you'll have noticed, we have a strong rotation with our squad year on year and so we have decided to create a preferred eleven for the league and a preferred eleven for other competitions. This will allow the players that relish playing in the big games to do so and the other players to play without pressure in the League where we're never really troubled. Where possible we will try to allow similar amount of game time for all players within the rotation system. I believe, or hope, that this could be the key towards our progression in cup competitions. Furthermore, as a precaution we have worked on a third formation for the first time in my tenure and will look to use a 4-5-1 system when playing teams most likely to counter-attack us. We have suffered from this in recent years so it was the next logical step to find a way to prevent those teams from opening us up. We were drawn in the 'group of death' alongside Juventus, Manchester United and Ajax so we will be utilising this sooner than anticipated.


Records to beat
Sandy Archibald - 513 League appearances
Ally McCoist - 251 League goals
Sam English - 44 League goals in one season
Bill Struth - 18 League titles


Current
Ross McCrorie - 238 League appearances
Tony Herd - 152 League appearances
Bobby Docherty - 147 League appearances
Tony Herd - 97 League goals
Bobby Docherty - 92 League goals
Alfredo Morelos - 32 goals in one season
Christopher Burns - 9 League titles
 
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Rangers: September - December


With our revised plan of action for our challenge in all competitions it was time to see if our carefully selected sides suited their respective competitions. The League has been a pretty easy ride for us these past few years, it stopped being a challenge a long, long time ago, in fact, I can't even remember if we were ever challenged in the league. We made a blistering start to the season by outscoring anyone and everyone within sight. Bobby Docherty and Tony Herd are firing on all cylinders and challenging each other for the Golden Boot with both players already reaching twenty goals for the season. We have scored five or more goals on eight occasions so far this season, I am loving it. Unfortunately our run of 121 games unbeaten finally came to an end when we fell to a 1-0 defeat to Hearts in a game in which we were completely lacklustre. We were looking like we were going to follow that up with a defeat to Livingston but for a 90th minute screamer from Jack McMaster, our star man that day. We bounced back spectacularly in our next game against Ross County though and normality was resumed once again. In a month which saw us beat Celtic 6-1 we could still only finish with a draw as we yet again failed to beat Hearts, this time a 1-1 draw seen to that. With Hearts challenging us in our matches this season you would think that it would be them that's trying to fight us for the title but no, it's their rivals Hibs. When we went those two games without a win Hibs were really on our tail until we beat them once again, had it not been for our two victories over them we'd really be in trouble and in actual fact it's still pretty close due to their game in hand.

Having been drawn in the 'group of death' in the Champions League we really had to be careful not to over think about our opposition too much and build up a fear of them as that could spell disaster. Instead we carefully selected players we thought would present us with the best chance of progressing in the competition. We absolutely could not have got off to any more of a flyer than we did at home to Ajax as we thrashed them 7-0, we just battered them from start to finish, simply. In the return leg it was much the same as we scored four without reply. Next up was Juventus and when we went 1-0 down inside 10 minutes I really feared the worst. Oliver Burke and Tourinho allayed those fears though when they both scored inside two minutes to put us ahead. The win wasn't to be though as Juventus equalised with twenty minutes left to play and after Robert Navarro stupidly got himself send off having only come on as a sun ten minutes previous. Manchester United were seemingly the best team in the group, as they should be given they are the current holders, but that didn't stop us from nabbing all three points on the day. They got their revenge in the return tie though as they beat us 2-0 which meant we were joint 2nd in the group on ten points and Juventus were 3rd on eight points. We went into the final game against Juventus knowing that we only had to draw the match to finish 2nd. We won 1-0 and saved ourselves from the agony and dread of a late goal by the Italians. Group D couldn't have gone any better for us and if you look at poor Ajax down in fourth you'll see how lucky we were not to be the whipping boys that they so clearly were. We were handed a Last 16 Knockout Round tie with German club Hoffenheim and I'm excited about our chances of progressing as a result.

It was par for the course for us util the final in the Scottish League Cup as we dispensed of Queen of the South, Hearts and Dundee en route to the final. Our victory over Hearts coming in the cup this term as opposed to in the league and being knocked out of the cup like in previous years was a bit of a relief. This set up a fourth League Cup Final with Hibs in my time here, we have won on two occasions and lost on one, we've also faced them in the Scottish Cup Final too with us being victors. When Hibs scored in the 30th minute I was thinking 'oh no, not again'. So we ramped up the tempo and went **** for leather to grab an equaliser which duly arrived after the hour mark through left back Jamie Dair's wonder strike. With the game tantalisingly close and both sides failing to break the deadlock we headed to penalties. When Alex Bielsa missed his penalty my heart sank but thankfully Ali Wilson was able to save the next two penalties to send us to victory! One in the bag now!

As previously mentioned our strikers are in blistering form with Docherty on 20 goals in 24(4) games, Herd on 23 in 24(3) and also the injury prone Tourinho managing to accumulate 17 goals in 15(2) too. Young Paul Wilson has also impressed by scoring 4 goals in 2 Champions League games! The goals are more spread throughout the team asides from that although a special mention has to go to Ryan Gauld. With injuries to a couple of players we called upon Gauld out of the blue and he's only went and scored 8 goals in 4(3) games including a double against Celtic! He has left me with a bit of a headache as in that form he should be getting a game but then with his advancing years and the potential we have in the squad it makes more sense to play the youngsters. However, we know we have a more than able deputy.


Records to beat
Sandy Archibald - 513 League appearances
Ally McCoist - 251 League goals
Sam English - 44 League goals in one season
Bill Struth - 18 League titles


Current
Ross McCrorie - 252 League appearances
Tony Herd - 168 League appearances
Bobby Docherty - 163 League appearances
Tony Herd - 109 League goals
Bobby Docherty - 98 League goals
Alfredo Morelos - 32 goals in one season
Christopher Burns - 9 League titles
 
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Rangers: January - June

I was really hoping that my tenth season in charge of Rangers would see us lift the illustrious quadruple, ambitious, I know. With the unity of our team and the stature of club that we have become it should never be entirely out of the question. That being said, it wasn't to be for us this season. However we did manage to win our first treble in four years, our fourth in total, which I was buzzing about nonetheless. For a good period of time there Hibs were looking like being our rivals to the title this season but much like the others before them they fell way short as they fell 21 points behind us. Having already secured the Scottish League Cup and the League, the next target was the Scottish Cup. Winning the Cup this year would see us overtake Celtic as the record Scottish Cup winners. After annihilating Falkirk in the Quarter Final it was Ross County next for us and I bet they weren't excited to hear that given our results over them this year. We did keep it respectable though as I didn't want their new manager and our recently departed reserves coach Peter Lovenkrands to be too embarrassed. Victory was ours in the final as we got the job done against the other mob from Edinburgh, Hearts, with a 2-0 win. The Champions League continues to elude us as we were narrowly defeated by Tottenham in the Quarter Final after scraping by Hoffenheim in the round previous. I guess it's just a case of us still having to fully develop our lads before we can make a serious case for winning the damned thing. As you may have guessed by now, with us being the lucky charm and all, Tottenham became the third team in successive years to go on and win the trophy.

It was a great year of development for the club as a lot of our youngsters have really kicked on and improved this season. Tony Herd and Bobby Docherty get all the plaudits and awards as strikers and with the campaign both players have just had it can definitely be justified. However, the progress of Jamie Dair has been tremendous as he's laid on goal after goal for his teammates, our 7-0 win over Falkirk is a great example as Dair laid on four of Docherty's five goals in that game, Docherty ending his goal drought with five goals was incredible to watch too. Martin Finnie stepped up from the youth team when a few injuries hit our defence and as a result he has improved massively after taking his chance. The increase in game time given to Reese Camm and Jack McMaster in the centre of the midfield has allowed their game to move up another level too, particularly McMaster who has scored fantastic goals consistently for us. Having previously moaned about the lack of young Scottish wingers around I was embarrassed to find that, actually, we have a left and right sided option at the club who have great potential. With O'Halloran only making five sub appearances for Livingston in his loan spell there I decided to recall him and also to promote Mark Rankin from the reserves. With these two prospects needing game time and a couple of our wingers starting to age we increased the rotation on the wing to three players per position. Surprisingly we had no complaints from the older players there who must have realised it was time to let the youngsters get their chance. Willie O'Halloran absolutely excelled and got ten goals in ten games whilst Rankin also impressed. Jamie Brown and Steven Wright were also given a bit of a chance too. The former was promoted from the reserves due to Paul Wilson's complaints about first team football which he still failed to get on his loan to Ajax, go figure. Annoyingly we had no players with any great deal of potential in our annual youth intake. A bitter blow but one we can manage as we have all the means necessary to attract the best young players around to country to our club and our scouts will be busy finding those players.

Despite our obvious dominance at the top of Scottish football it is quite clear that the best of the rest is pretty open these days. Celtic finished a lowly 6th under their new manager Paulo Foncesca after Robbie Stockdale jumped ship to Southampton midway through the season with a glowing reference from myself. As well as that they haven't won the Scottish Cup in six years or the League Cup in three so there are very difficult times at that club indeed. Evidently it is the Edinburgh clubs that are fighting it out for the best of the rest however they have moneybags Livingston to contend with as well as Falkirk who have started to do well recently. Whilst at the other end of the spectrum Aberdeen managed to stave off relegation as they came close to their third relegation in five years. I'm happy to see them all fight it our for every other position in the league as they won't take our spot I will make sure of it. I will be here for another ten years and as a sign of both my and the boards commitment we were able to shake hands on a deal that'll make me the highest paid manager in the world, ahead of the long serving Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho and Tottenham manager Diego Simeone.


Records to beat
Sandy Archibald - 513 League appearances
Ally McCoist - 251 League goals
Sam English - 44 League goals in one season
Bill Struth - 18 League titles


Current
Ross McCrorie - 268 League appearances
Tony Herd - 181 League appearances
Bobby Docherty - 175 League appearances
Tony Herd - 120 League goals
Bobby Docherty - 100 League goals
Alfredo Morelos - 32 goals in one season
Christopher Burns - 10 League titles
 
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Rangers: Pre-season, August & Transfers

With all the hustle and bustle, wheeling and dealing of our past summer transfer windows I was really looking forward to just loaning a couple players out, sorting my own squad out and maybe bringing a couple of youth players in this year. Apparently the other club managers didn't get that memo as I was inundated with offers for my players from start to finish. Firstly Tourinho then Jason Henry next it was Blair Thomson and then Alex Bielsa and Robert Navarro. I finally got a bid worth accepting for Tourinho and so off he went to negotiate with PSG in a deal that would earn us £120m up front. Poor little Tourinho must not have been getting enough money though as he only went and rejected them didn't he? I was seething with rage at him, we had been negotiating with clubs for years for him and only now had someone been willing to pay our asking price and he outright refuses to go? Worst of it was that more clubs started bidding for him once again but their offers around the £40m mark were simply laughable considering what we'd just been offered. PSG were done their bidding on Tourinho for the summer though and it was with reluctance I finally agreed to let him go to Chelsea for £80m, I'm not happy that we couldn't break our record fee received for him as we really should have. However, we will also get 50% of the fee involved in his next move, should he make one. We've benefited from those clauses twice already this season as we got £15.5m Enrique Fernandez move from Newcastle to Man United and got £11m from Matonense move from Man City to Borussia Dortmund. When Tottenham came bidding for Alex Bielsa I was reluctant to sell but considering the talent we have stocked up in the midfield I relented and accepted the £35m but, again, inserted a 50% of his next fee clause in the deal. Robert Navarro was running out of contract next summer and was on £150k p/w so it made sense to move him on particularly as he was extremely inconsistent and didn't like playing in the big matches for us. The best bit about our dealings in the market this year is that even if we did let a couple players move on we didn't have to replace them at all as they're replacements were in our squad already, patiently waiting for their opportunity.

We had an extremely busy pre-season but also a highly productive one as we set about playing our affiliate teams and showing them who's the boss. We won twelve out of thirteen which was a great boost of confidence for the lads going in to the new season. Ross McCrorie was delighted to receive a testimonial match this year too and our captain thoroughly deserved the spectacle that ensued. We couldn't have gotten off to a better start domestically either as we ran riot on the opening day of the season against Aberdeen and Mark Rankin got a remarkable five goals on the day too! Jack McMaster could only manage the four from midfield in the next game as we saw off St. Johnstone in the League Cup rather easily, Motherwell will be our opponents in the Cup next. We won our next two games just as comfortably but having played a game more than us Celtic sit top of the table with four wins from four. We will face off with Juventus, again, Porto and Leicester in the Champions League and that is a draw which I think will suit us in terms of progress.


Records to beat
Sandy Archibald - 513 League appearances
Ally McCoist - 251 League goals
Sam English - 44 League goals in one season
Bill Struth - 18 League titles


Current
Ross McCrorie - 271 League appearances
Tony Herd - 183 League appearances
Bobby Docherty - 176 League appearances
Tony Herd - 121 League goals
Bobby Docherty - 100 League goals
Alfredo Morelos - 32 goals in one season
Christopher Burns - 10 League titles
 
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Rangers: September - December

After losing what was left of the foreign contingent at the club and also the 'star men' we were set for a very different season with everyone now pulling in the same direction and no one thinking of their next move. As the season has progressed that has become quite clear as the team have been putting in great performances collectively and therefor we have had a very high number of players scoring for us, sixteen in actual fact. The slight downside to that is that we only have one player with more than ten goals and it is neither Bobby Docherty and Tony Herd surprisingly! In actual fact it isn't even a striker! Mark Rankin emerged from the reserves to become a first team player last January and he has been excellent ever since. We have been unfortunate with injuries these past few months as the likes of Docherty, Herd and McCrorie were sidelined for weeks at a time. Another player who has excelled in that same period of time has been Willie O'Halloran who has even been crowned European Golden Boy for his efforts. In the absence of Herd and Docherty Shogo Nakamura and Ruaridh Burns have emerged as first team players with both men grabbing eight goals each and the former grabbing three CL goals too. Things are looking pretty good in our first team at the moment. We have Ross McCrorie, Oliver Burke, Ryan Gauld and Glenn Middleton all now in their senior years of 29 or above but despite that we have ready made replacements for all of these players at the club for when their time comes to an end with us.

Having been drawn Juventus, Leicester and Porto in the Champions League Group Stage I wasn't too sure how it was going to pan out for us as all of those sides have real quality within their teams. Things got off to as bad a start as we could've imagined as we were beaten by Leicester in the first game and we could only muster up a 0-0 draw with Juventus in the next game too. At that point we were bottom of the group and looking like a team out of their depth however we bounced back emphatically to win the next four with relative ease. Progress was ours as we topped the group with Leicester in second place, Juventus in third and Porto in last place. We will be facing Red Bull Leipzig in the Last 16 Knockout Round, something we also done two years ago and emerged 7-5 victors on aggregate. We had an easy run at the Scottish League Cup too before facing a tough Livingston side in the final. Having went behind the them we managed to turn it around to win the game and the Cup for my sixth time. In the league things have been motoring along nicely but for that unexpected defeat to Motherwell a couple of weeks back. That was a real disappointment as we were running riot and winning every game but I guess you can't have all of the luck all of the time eh? We sit top of the league by a seven point margin and with two games in hand as well.


Records to beat
Sandy Archibald - 513 League appearances
Ally McCoist - 251 League goals
Sam English - 44 League goals in one season
Bill Struth - 18 League titles


Current
Ross McCrorie - 282 League appearances
Tony Herd - 192 League appearances
Bobby Docherty - 184 League appearances
Tony Herd - 125 League goals
Bobby Docherty - 106 League goals
Alfredo Morelos - 32 goals in one season
Christopher Burns - 10 League titles
 
I haven't been on FM in ages due to holiday, work, relationship, life etc. Oh and my mouse was broke and it's took me this long to replace it! So I will be updating this over the next couple of days hopefully and hopefully it can still garner a bit of interest.
 
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Rangers

Domestic Success
Since arriving at the club it's fair to say that we've enjoyed almost total domination domestically as we stole the title from Celtic, despite their prolonged reign, in my first season at the club. We've won the league in all eleven of my years at the club and in our most recent season we've taken our domestic treble tally to five under my stewardship. In most recent years we have managed to do that whilst producing some of the finest Scottish players to grace the game. To have a wholly Scottish team and dominate so well as an achievement that I am so proud of as it's not an easy feat. However, all of this has hampered our European success as we were making great strides on that front as we managed to make the final of the Champions League Final in just my third season here and we bounced back from defeat in that final to win the Europa League the following year. It was around this time that we felt that we weren't being suitably challenged so we decided we should try and help our nation as well as our club by producing and developing our own home grown players. This meant that we started to phase out the foreign stars that we had unearthed and as hard as it was to let those players leave, seeing Scottish lads coming through the system finally getting and taking their chance made up for it tenfold. In recent years we have been getting closer to that elusive Champions League trophy as we've reached two quarter finals and a semi final in the past three years. And now;


Road to the Champions League Final
Finally we make the Champions League Final again! It has been a long slog these past few years as we've came close several times but kept falling at the last hurdle or two but now the Champions League trophy is in our sights. Funnily enough our CL campaign couldn't have gotten off to a worse start as we failed to win in either of our first two games against Leicester and Juventus. However, we went on to smash both of them and Porto in our next four games as we rattled in eight goals without reply across our final four games in the group stage. We then got off to a brutal start in the last sixteen against Red Bull Leipzig as we succumbed to a 2-0 loss in the first leg. Yet again though, we bounced back and smashed them four nil in the return tie which shocked everyone I think, including myself. We were then paired up with our group stage opponent's Leicester again but this time they put up a **** of a good fight as they bounced back from 1-0 down to go 2-1 up then it was 3-2 to us before the broke our hearts with a 93rd minute equaliser. The return leg turned to an all our slugfest 1-0, 1-1, 2-1, 3-1, 3-2, 3-3, 4-3, 5-3, 6-3 & Finally 6-4, a truly magnificent Champions League Quarter Final. Liverpool proved a much sterner test for us and involved us having to play a bit more cautiously at time, despite that we took the lead with 25 mins to go however Liverpool equalised just minutes after to set up a tense Semi Final. We got off to a blistering start in the second leg as Gregg Middleton put us in the lead after 3 minutes and we looked to be in control of the match until the 35th minute when Oliver Burke decided to go crazy and get himself a red card after a needless lunge. At that moment I thought it was all over for us and Liverpool would go on to smash us. They didn't, when Burke was dismissed we immediately took Ruaridh Burns off for Willie O'Halloran to allow us to play a 4-4-1 essentially, added to that we got a little bit tighter and played a bit more cautiously. With every Liverpool attack I feared the worst was going to happen and we would be resigned to nearly men again but thankfully nothing ever materialised and we scraped through. We are finalists! We will face Tottenham in the Final but the big question is; Is this our year?
 
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