Admin Mark II?

And now, the end is near

And so I face the final curtain 

My friend, I'll say it clear 

I'll state my case, of which I'm certain 

I've lived a life that's full 

I traveled each and ev'ry highway 

And more, much more than this, I did it my way

Every day, the website of The Scotsman runs a wee article on its sports page called 'Rumour Mill'.  Essentially a ripoff of the BBC's 'football gossip' page, it refers to the significant Scottish football stories in both its own paper and others.  In here, you usually find the same old claptrap that you get from all Scottish media outlets - that is, condescending rubbish that panders to the Old Firm.

What you don't normally get is a reference to a blog.  You certainly don't get a reference to the blog of Phil MacGhiolla Bhain, the Irish journalist.  Plenty of you will be aware of Phil, whose love of Celtic and Ireland, and hatred of Rangers and unionism, are pathological to a point that I, and plenty others,  find rather uncomfortable.

He was also one of those, like the famous Rangers Tax Case blogger, who prophesied the doom of Rangers in 2012, well ahead of the game.

And over the last few weeks, he has been pontificating (sorry, unfortunate word to use here!) his predictions of apocalypse at an increasing rate once more.  His tales of how Rangers Mark II are heading for the rocks are entertaining and amusing, but are they true again?  After all, there was not a peep from the Scottish press suggesting, as he has, that CEO Graham Wallace is on the brink of resigning, how attempts to cut costs are being thwarted, that pleading with various banks and investors to provide credit has met on deaf ears, how Rangers will run out of money by the end of February!

But of course, the papers took months to pick up the scent last time as well - too many hacks, of course, make an easy living out of copying down whatever any prominent Rangers figure says as if it is gospel, and are far from keen to bite the hand that feeds them.  Succulent lamb, and all that.  Now, as far as I can tell, The Scotsman is the first to take any sort of baby step forward - albeit with several uses of the word "alleges".

Yes, there were times, I'm sure you knew 

When I bit off more than I could chew 

And through it all, when there was doubt

I ate it up and spit it out 

I faced it all and I stood tall and did it my way

What do we know for certain?

We know that, according to former finance director Brian Stockbridge, the cash raised from last year's IPO was due to run out by the Spring.

We know that Rangers lost £14 million in 2012-13, with a wage bill of £17 million, more than half of which went to non-playing staff.

We're pretty damn sure that the playing squad's wage bill won't have dropped much from last season's total of £8 million, given plenty of new signings were made.  And we know the players were asked to take a 15% pay cut last month - a request they flatly rejected.  If the wage bill is similar to last seasons, I'd reckon that would save about £600,000 between now and the rest of the season.

We know that a bid for Lee Wallace in January from Nottingham Forest was rejected - a move that you'd think would be at odds with the situation I'm hinting at.  But there have been rumours that Forest weren't offering enough money up front for it to be worth Rangers' while to sell their prize asset.

To put it bluntly, how can Rangers not run out of money?

All the while, the share price is dropping to the floor - you can now buy a hundred shares in the club for less money than a matchday ticket at a top flight game.  Not a big deal for the folk who were in charge when the shares were issued, as they got theirs for just a penny each.  But the punters who bought theirs for 80p+ per share have already lost two-thirds of their money.

Don't worry, some say.  Another share issue will save them!  But who in their right mind would invest the sort of money required to get a significant stake, given that so many shares are in the hands of...er...whose hands, exactly?  The hands of mysterious, nameless figures hiding behind the names of companys from Jersey, the Isle of Man and elsewhere.

And as for a white knight coming along - well, if Dave King, convicted of 42 counts of tax fraud by South Africa, is deemed a fit and proper person to run a football club, then we should all just pack it in.  And that's if he ever puts his moolah where his eating orifice is...which he never has, despite all the apparent opportunities in the recent past.

I've loved, I've laughed and cried 

I've had my fill, my share of losing 

And now, as tears subside, I find it all so amusing 

To think I did all that 

And may I say, not in a shy way, 

"Oh, no, oh, no, not me, I did it my way"

Rangers have indeed been doing it Their Way.  New club or not, the same path of reckless overspending appears to be leading them in the same direction, towards Destruction City.

L.