Hello everyone and welcome to my newest thread on the FM-Base "Taking on the World...", in this thread my aim is simply to work my way into the Hall of Fame while hopefully taking on the best of the best, be it domestically or in Europe..It's gonna be an extremely long-term save with a variety of clubs as I'll probably look to manage across several leagues over the years.
For those wondering about the 'Fortuna' and 'Managerial Rollercoaster' threads, I'm currently staying at my Sister's new house and will be for the next month or so as it's closer to my College meaning I can save money (Very important with University coming up in Summer). While I remembered to bring my laptop with me (Contains my College Work), I don't have the up-to-date versions of those files as they're at home on my desktop but I'll probably be continuing those saves within the next few weeks!
But with that out of the way, let's crack on with the thread!
It may strike up some controversy from any Celtic fans on these forums but I've decided to start the adventure with Rangers Football Club, I'm sure you all know a lot about this age-old club but I'll happily provide some information for those who are less informed.
Who are Glasgow Rangers?
'The Gers' are a Scottish Football Club that are based in Glasgow, the Club was formed back in 1872 and are one of the original 10 clubs that formed the basis of the Scottish Football League, they remained in the top flight for the entirety of their history until the 2011-12 season when the Rangers Football Club PLC underwent liquidation.
Under a new corporate identity they were granted access back into the 4th tier of Scottish Football (League Two) for the start of the new season. They have since been promoted twice following back to back title victories.
The Club currently play their Home Football at the Ibrox Stadium and have done since it's completion back in 1899 (as Ibrox Park), it has since been renovated several times. The Ibrox is the 3rd biggest stadium in Scotland, but has faced its share of disasters with the 1902 collapse disaster and the more renowned Ibrox Disaster that took place back in 1971. When all of the renovations were completed in 1997 the ground was renamed to its current name, Ibrox Stadium.
Their training facilities are located in Auchenhowie and are known as 'Murray Park', it officially opened in 2001 following **** Advocaat's proposal back in 1998. On 14 June 2012, after the Rangers Football Club PLC entered liquidation, Murray Park was sold along with other Rangers' assets, in a deal worth £5.5m, to The Rangers Football Club Ltd, a consortium led by Charles Green.
The Old Firm...
Rangers share a fierce rivalry with their Glaswegian counterparts Celtic known as the 'Old Firm', this rivalry extends outside the pitch and has been a contributing factor in Political, Social and Religious divisions in Scotland. It has since been labelled one of the 'Biggest Rivalries in Club Football'...
Rangers and Celtic collectively have won 99 Scottish League Championships (Rangers 54, Celtic 45), 69 Scottish Cups (Rangers 33, Celtic 36) and 42 Scottish League Cups (Rangers 27, Celtic 15), a taste of what the rivalry means to the two clubs involved.
Rangers though have won more league titles and trebles than any other club in the World.
To this day, there have been 400 meetings between Rangers and Celtic with Rangers having won 159, Celtic 145 and 96 drawn matches. Some argue that with the current position of the two clubs financially that it's only a matter of time before Celtic take the upper hand in the fixture statistically.
Club Honours
Since their founding in 1872, Rangers have won a huge total of trophies that includes 54 league titles, 33 Scottish Cups and 27 Scottish League Cups. Along with this, Rangers have also won the now 'defunct' trophy known as the 'European Cup Winners Cup' which came following a victory over Dynamo Moscow of the Soviet Union. Although they have not won a major European trophy (Unlike Celtic who won the Champions League back in 1967), they did finish as the UEFA Cup runners-up back in 2007-08.
So, what's the aim?
With Glasgow Rangers my aim is firstly to get the Club back into the top flight of Scottish Football, this goes alongside the job of clearing the small amount of debt still left at the club. Once this has been achieved I eventually hope to get 'The Gers' back into European Football and one day fingers crossed we can dethrone Celtic once more.
In another sense, I've not started my 'Manager' with the best of licenses, so pending the future finances of the club I'm hoping to move up to the point where I can qualify for the better badges in a bid to further my Managerial career. Here's a look at how things currently are:
You can see here, Continental C licence and a playing experience as a 'Professional Footballer' at National level, these pretty much sit at the mid-way point in both categories so I'm hoping I haven't made things too easy for myself early on.
As for attributes, well there's a bit of everything...I prime myself on being attacking, disciplined and having a good outlook for the younger players so that's why I've shaped my attributes as they are. The 10 adaptability may not seem necessary but who knows, maybe I'll move abroad one day!
Some Other Stuff...
I'm not very knowledgeable when it comes to Scottish Football (Despite living in Inverness for 4 years) so if there's any Scottish fans out there please feel free to lend me a hand! To any Celtic fans out there, I can only apologise for my team choice but it's a game after all..Besides, it's a challenge!
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Having arrived at Rangers I had a look around the place, it's a club full of history and truly has some fantastic facilities. These are the kinds of facilities we'll need if we're to step back up to the top-flight. The finances aren't brilliant here due to the recent mis-management, but we have a good squad, especially thanks to the link with Newcastle United.
The first thing I really noticed was that the backroom was very quiet..Lots of key coaches were missing including an Assistant Manager, this was top of my list..Replacing the Staff.
Squad wise we have a lot of strength in depth besides one or two positions, but I'm happy with the team and believe that we don't need a lot of investment this year, so I'll be looking to protect the finances.
Results
I'll be the first to admit that our pre-season results weren't great..I was thrown straight into the action and without an Assistant Manager it was difficult to know who to play, what formation to play..All of the important factors were missing. But I'm not too disheartened as pre-season isn't important, it's just a chance for me to familiarise myself with the Club.
Staff Changes
Plenty of new faces in the backroom! Paul Montgomery and David Geddis have joined the Clubs as scouts while Kyle Russell and Barry Wilson will be responsible for running the Under 20s squad. Finally, to give myself some much need assistance I've hired Steve Kember as my new assistant manager, there's still more work to be done in terms of staff, but this is a great start!
Transfers
In terms of incoming transfers we only have Jack Grimmer on the list, the young right-back will provide the defensive width we need while also providing some much needed competition for Mbabu and Foster. A cheap signing too as we look to protect the clubs finances.
The only outgoing player is young striker Ryan Hardie who has joined Clyde on a season long loan, the 17 year old has a lot of potential to grow into but lacks the current ability to feature ahead of Miller, Vuckic or Boyd. But we'll monitor his situation throughout the year.
Tactics
Once the transfers were finalised and I was familiarised with my team I developed the tactics that we would be using over the coming year, the instructions are still in the developmental stage but here's a look at the core formations.
Formation #1: 4-2-3-1
The first of the two tactics is a basic 4-2-3-1, this formation allows the attacking players to become more involved in the game while allowing our full-backs to focus more on the defensive phase of play. The club lacks a defensive midfielder which is the reason behind the choice of a 4 line formation, but I feel we'll be one of the best teams in the league this year so an attacking approach is one we should be looking to adopt.
Formation #2: 4-2-4
Now, the 4-2-4 is an experimental formation I'm going to be trying but I've developed it with the intention of using it when we're on the back foot or looking for that key goal late on. The 4 attacking players allow us to have more strength in the opposition areas while sacrificing a bit of strength in the middle of the park. I'm not sure how frequently I'll be using it as the 4-2-3-1 is my preferred formation.
I was't too familiar with this competition when I took over at Rangers, but I'm somewhat certain that it's similar to the Johnstone's Paint Trophy in England with teams in the divisions below the Premier League participating in a Cup competition. For the first match we were drawn against Scottish Lowland League side 'Spartan's, I believe they're the highest seeded non-league team..
To my delight though we came out on top, my first competitive win in charge of Rangers and one that saw club Veteran Lee McCulloch claim an impressive brace from set-pieces, Harris Vuckic (On loan from Newcastle United) also bagged a brace with Robbie Crawford scoring the final of our 5 goals. The game was a close affair at 2-1 until Spartans player Michael Herd was dismissed for a second bookable offence, from here we simply dominated the non-league side in what was an impressive attacking performance.
For the second round of the Training Cup we'll be taking on fellow Scottish Championship side 'Queen of the South' at the Ibrox, I'm happy to get a home draw and hope we can go one further than Rangers last year where they finished as Runners-up.
Finally, we took on League Two side East Fife in the Scottish League Cup 1st Round, I wasn't too sure what to expect going into this game but off the back of an impressive 5-1 victory I was hoping for a repeat performance.
You don't need to get your eyes tested here, central defender Lee McCulloch really did bag a hat-trick! The 36 year old defender scored two goals from corners before converting a penalty late on, a brilliant display from the Captain as he now has 5 goals in 2 appearances..36 isn't only his age, but the amount of goals he's going to score this season at this rate!
But we've been handed a toughie for the 2nd round, away at Hearts..It's going to be a tough game but if we play good Football I don't see why we can't come out on top!
The Opening Month...
Here's a look at how our schedule shapes up for the first month of the competitive season, we face 4 league matches against Dumbarton, Hearts, Queen of the South and Livingston while also playing Queen of the South and Hearts in the Cup competitions..It's not an easy start but I'm full of confidence, and so are the players!
Following our back-to-back cup victories we now headed into August where we would begin our domestic campaign in the League, with expectations of winning the league we needed a positive start, although I have to be the first to admit that pipping Hearts to the Championship is going to be an extremely tough task, but we believe.
The Scottish Championship...
As you can see we've made an impressive start to the league campaign, this began with a 1-0 home victory over Dumbarton where Newcastle loanee Shane Ferguson scored the only goal of the game. Two late red cards saw us end the game with 9 men but fortunately we were able to hang on for the victory.
Following our victory over Dumbarton we headed to the Tynecastle Stadium to take on Hearts in what could be an extremely important fixture come the end of the season. Unfortunately, despite Shane Ferguson opening the scoring we were unable to hold out for the win and slipped to our first defeat of the season, we played well but lacked the quality on the day.
We bounced back in superb fashion with a 4-1 home victory over Queen of the South, Remi Streete, Jack Grimmer and Fraser Airs (2) finding the net as we breezed to a comfortable three points. I'm pleased with the players ability to bounce back following such a disappointing defeat only a week earlier.
We finished the month with a 5-2 win over Livingston, plenty of goals and plenty of action for the traveling fans. I'm just a bit upset at the two goals we conceded as the lapse in concentration could affect us in future fixtures, we have to play for the full ninety.
Top of the league! It's very early days but if we keep this momentum going I don't see why we can't stay there.
The Petrofac Training Cup
An impressive 3-1 win against Queen of the South means we progress into the 3rd round of the Petrofac Training Cup, Law and Zaliukas (2) with the goals on the day while Ian Black was dismissed shortly after half-time for a lunging tackle.
We now face the task of playing Hearts (again) away from home, hopefully we can progress further and bring home the trophy, but this is sure to be one of the toughest tests we'll face on our way to the Final.
The Scottish League Cup
Massive result coming from Tynecastle Stadium as we managed to thrash Hearts with a 6-0 victory! We were leading the game 5-0 heading into the half-time intermission with a fantastic 'out of the blocks' performance. Attacking Midfielder Dean Shiels bagged a hat-trick following his superb performance with Fraser Aird and Shane Ferguson (2) completing the rout. Ferguson has been a fantastic addition to the squad and has certainly helped bring the best out of our attacking players.
Following the thrashing result we now take on fierce rivals Celtic in our first 'Old Firm' of the series, it's going to be an extremely tough game for us to win but hopefully the atmosphere can play a part as we look to shock our Glaswegian counterparts.
How September Shapes Up...
4 out of 5 of our matches in September are played away from the Ibrox, these include trips to Hearts, Hibernian and the mighty Celtic..It's gonna be a tough month but we'll certainly be looking to build on our solid start to the season.
Having started a month with an impressive 9 points from our opening 4 games we currently sit top of the table, but with another game against Hearts and an Old Firm derby just around the corner, can we keep the momentum going?
An unbeaten month in September as we claimed 7 points from our 3 matches. We started the month with what I consider to be two dropped points against Alloa, we dominated for the full ninety but were unable to take any of our chances while Alloa were more than comfortable to sit back and absorb the pressure.
Following this result we picked up a comfortable 3-0 win over Cowdenbeath at the Ibrox, Shiels (2) and Zaliukas picking up the goals on the day.
We then ended the month with a super 2-1 win away at Hibernian, Shiels once again bagging a brace to bag his 4th and 5th goals of the season while securing the three points..
Despite the good month we've now slipped to 2nd in the table behind surprise league leaders Raith Rovers. We face the current leaders for our next league fixture but it's very surprising to see Hearts and Hibs doing so poorly.
The Petrofac Training Cup
An impressive performance once again saw us beat Hearts at Tynecastle Stadium in a cup fixture, we played brilliantly, Law and Gallagher picked up the goals while Zaliukas saw red for a high tackle after 70 minutes. The team really pulled together following the dismissal as we tightened up defensively to secure the clean sheet and the victory.
Following the win against Hearts we will now face Dumbarton in the Semi-Final of the Petrofac Training Cup, having beaten Dumbarton once this season already I'm definitely hoping we can overcome our opposition again allowing us to once again reach the Final for the 2nd consecutive season. The other Semi-Final involves Hibernian and Raith Rovers.
The Scottish League Cup
The Scottish League Cup saw us take on fierce rivals Celtic in what would be my first Old-Firm..I was excited but hopeful at best when I considered our chances of progression.
Sadly it wasn't to be..We played valiantly and did very well to reach extra-time against 10 man Celtic, but our endeavor hit a wall when Moshni was dismissed after 100 minutes, from here the Celtic dominance came to be all to powerful for tired legs as they romped to a 4-1 victory.
As you may know the Old Firm is renowned for being a fierce rivalry, and this game was no exception as two players were sent off for late challenges, the game itself contained plenty of fouls and was a very hostile affair.
As you can see Stefan Johansen and Bilel Moshni were both dismissed int he latter stages of the game while plenty more yellow cards were dished out by the referee. Stokes (2), Crawford OG, Griffiths and Boyd finding the net on the day.
October is Next...
Some big games coming up in October as we take on top of the table Raith Rovers in what could be a very important fixture come the end of the season, we also take on Dumbarton in both the Training Cup and Championship while facing League whipping boys Falkirk at the Ibrox Stadium.
