Thank goodness it's the summer-time, I could do with a holiday!
I don't think that it is an exaggeration to say that I've had the hardest season that any Rangers manager has ever had. It was a hell of a ride, but, against all the odds, we managed to win the Scottish Third Division! I know, I'm still pinching myself too! It's a really tough league - nearly all the players are so good that they even manage to work at another job all week instead of training - but somehow we managed to come top, even though I couldn't spend more than £800,000 on a single player. I even won the prestigious Third Division Manager of the Year award, which is such a high accolade that no Celtic manager has ever managed to win it.
I'm particularly proud of the campaign because of the disadvantages my players have had to overcome. They've come in for a lot of unfair criticism from idiots who claim that they weren't trying hard enough, or that they were lazy. Listen, I make my squad come in bright and early at 10am each day, and some days they work so hard that they don't get home until midday. I can't think of many other professions where people have to work as hard as that. I can't think for the life of me why Fran Sandaza claimed he was unhappy here. It's not as if I asked him to do anything unreasonable, like breaking a sweat.
Ian Black, in particular, has come in for a really rough time of it, but people don't understand what he's been up against. When he played in the SPL, he could go out onto the pitch, instantly recognise the best player on the other team, and kick him. But in the third division, it takes him a while to work out who the other team's best player is, and, by the time he's realized, an opposing player has kicked him instead. I kept telling referees all year that it wasn't fair on Blackie, but they wouldn't listen.
I had to work with really scant resources this season, and the Second Division will be a million times harder, so I've drafted in lots of reinforcements. Obviously, the trick to winning the Third Division is having a Brazilian central defender, but that won't be enough on it's own for us to succeed at a higher level. To do that, we'll have to bring in a Honduran central midfielder as well. This boy Peralta is just what we need - he can go and kick whoever looks like they are going to kick Blackie. Then Blackie will have more time to work out which opposition player needs hacked. It's a foolproof plan.
I completely agree with everyone who says our defence was our achilles heel last season, so I've solved the problem by bringing in another striker and another attacking midfield player. You see, our defence can't be bad if we don't play any defenders! Big Lee McCulloch keeps telling me that the team need to be more organized - in fact, the way he tells it, you'd think it was my job to tell the players how they should play, rather than just picking them. At this rate, next he'll be claiming I should be coaching them as well! But, in order to keep him happy, I've already sorted out the formation for the year ahead:
My tic-tacs by A. McCoist
Things are looking up for us, I think, especially now that Walter is chairman. I gave him a call and asked what his clever plan for running the club was, and he told me "We'll pass it to Laudrup or punt it to Hateley, and if that doesn't work we'll play 5-4-1 and try either to nick an away goal or take it to a penalty shootout". I don't know anything about how to run a football club, but that all sounds like clever business-speak to me.
Besides, Walter has promised me one more new signing - apparently he's pulled some strings and managed to get a club legend to return! I can't wait to see Daniel Cousin pull on the blue shirt again!
Here's to another great season.
Ally.
(as imagined by Narey's Toepoker, before anyone gets litiginous...)
No comments:
Post a Comment