Champions League Draw (by Mick Statto)

Rangers were handed a favourable draw in this season's Champions League. From the top seeds Rangers were given Sevilla, from Pot 3 VfB Stuttgart and finally Champions League newcomers, Unirea Urzeceni from Romania. Sevilla was the best possible team to come from the top seeds which included the English clubs, AC Milan and current holders Barcelona. Sevilla have amassed just over 100 Uefa coefficient points and this placed them in the top seeding. However, Sevilla are really a Uefa Cup team, not a Champions League team. They got 56 of those points winning the Uefa Cup in 2006 (versus Middlesbrough by 4-0) and 2007 (versus Espanyol 2-2* pens). Last year they came fourth in their Uefa Group, though it should be said they beat VfB Stuttgart 2-0 in one of their home matches. In their only previous Champions League campaign in 2007-08 they qualified for the last sixteen before losing to Fenerbahce. Rangers played Sevilla in the first round of the European Cup-Winners Cup in 1962 winning 4-0 at Ibrox and losing 0-2 in Sevilla.

The Romanian side have never even ventured into Europe before. They were promoted to the top league in 2006-07 and came 10th. In 2007-08 they climbed to 5th position and finally last year they won the league. They are certainly a team that is progressing under their manager and former Chelsea man, Dan Petrescu, but how far have they come? Not far enough to make an impact on this group.

Rangers are familiar with VfB Stuttgart whom they meet in their first fixture. They have played them twice in the past decade (2003 and 2007) winning both Ibrox matches by 2-1. Rangers lost both matches in Stuttgart 0-1 and 2-3.

Rangers versus Spanish Clubs in Europe

P 16 W 4 D 3 L 9 (all wins at Ibrox)

Rangers versus German Clubs in Europe

P 43* W 16 D 13 L 14 (one win in Germany versus Vorwarts Berlin (DDR) in 1961)

*includes ECWC Final 1967 versus Bayern Munich

Rangers have met Steaua Bucharest from Romania three times winning in 1969/70 and losing in 87/86 and 95/96.

Loan deals to Swindon Town

Ben Hutchinson and Simon Ferry have joined English League 1 side Swindon Town on loan.

Champions League Draw

Rangers were given a fairly straightforward draw in Champions League Group G. The number one team in the section is Sevilla, but they are not as good as the Uefa Cup winning side of 2006 and 2007 that amassed their coefficient points. From pot 3 Rangers were paired with VfB Stuttgart. Given Rangers' excellent record against German sides, they should at least win the head-to-head against them. Finally from pot 4 Rangers were given CL newcomers Unirea from Romania. Full draw and dates of matches opposite under Uefa competitions.
CL Group G: Sevilla, Rangers, VfB Stuttgart and Unirea.
A review of the group will follow soon.

Rangers in Pot 2 for Champions League Draw

Fiorentina scored a late equaliser in Firenze against Sporting to ensure their place in this season's Champions League. But more importantly, their away goals win (3-3) moved Rangers into pot 2 of the Champions League draw. This means Rangers will avoid teams such as Real Madrid, Juventus, Lyon and Internazionale. At OFF, we have been speculating on the best and worst possible draws.
Best possible: Sevilla, Rangers, Bordeaux, Debrecen (Hungary) or Nicosia (Cyprus). Debrecen have the lowest Uefa coefficient ever of a CL entrant.
Worst possible: Barcelona/Arsenal, Rangers, Atletico Madrid and Wolfsburg.
Mick Statto thought there should be a third category, the boring: Manchester United, Rangers, VfB Stuttgart and FC Zurich. Rangers have played these teams too often.
Incidentally, VfB stands for Verein fur Bewegungspiele which means 'club for the community'.
The draw takes place at 5pm (GMT) tomorrow.

Celtic out of Champions League

Arsenal 3, Celtic 1 (5-1)

Arsenal removed Celtic from Europe's premier competition by winning handsomely at the Emirates. However, there was a good deal of controversy about their opening goal. A neat move on the edge of the box saw Eduardo (the Brazilian-cum-Croatian) over hit the ball towards Artur Boruc. Boruc went down to collect the ball whereupon Eduardo dived. The Spanish referee, Gonzalez, who made a glaring error in the Scotland-Italy match in 2007, awarded a penalty kick. Television proved conclusively that the 'Croat did a Borat' to con the ref. Eduardo outfoxed Boruc with the kick. Celtic had the ball in the net a few minutes later but the flag for offside was raised correctly.

The 3000 or so Celtic fans in the 59,960 crowd were in good voice throughout but saw Arsenal finally score a 'proper' goal when neat footwork from Bendtner helped set up Eboue who scored from 12 yards. Arshavin came on after that and scored a third to wrap the whole tie up. In the very last move of the match, Loovens lofted in a crossfield ball which Donati dispatched with aplomb. Celtic now enter the inaugural Europa League. The draw is at 12 noon (GMT) on Friday.

Celtic: Boruc, Hinkel, Loovens, Caldwell (O'Dea 46), Fox, McGeady (Flood 60), Brown, Donati, Maloney (Naylor 60), McDonald, Fortune

Sir David Murray steps down as Chairman

Sir David Murray has announced today that he will be stepping down as Chairman of Rangers FC. He said that he had intimated to the Rangers board last October that this would be his final year. Murray purchased the club from Laurence Marlborough for £6m in November 1988 taking control of the boardroom from David Holmes. (Murray briefly handed over the helm to John McLelland in 2002.)
Most of the talk on the phone-ins this evening was centred around attempting to define his legacy. David Edgar of the Rangers Supporters Trust said that whilst Murray's spending power had ensured the nine-in-a-row era, he had also presided over a financial crisis this decade. In 21 seasons as Chairman, Murray saw Rangers win 14 championships to Celtic's seven. However, Celtic have dominated the SPL in the past ten years. Rangers can no longer afford the big money signings of the Advocaat era. When Celtic started spending larger sums under Martin O'Neill, Rangers found it harder to keep pace. In the past 12 months Rangers have been pruning their squad to a lean 20 players. Now that there is no reserve league in Scotland (what an astonishingly bad decision) Rangers are hoping to bring youngsters through.
What do you think? Was Murray's tenure 'simply the best'? Or was nine-in-a-row largely down to Celtic's biscuit tin mentality?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/r/rangers/8223058.stm

Scotland Squad for September

George Burley has announced a 25 man squad for the forthcoming final matches of Scotland's Group 9 campaign. The matches, against Macedonia and Holland, are both at Hampden. There are nine Old Firm players in the squad and the main surprise is the return of David Weir in defence. Burley has stated that Weir (and goalkeeper Gordon) will play.
The nine players are:
Alexander N, Rangers (G) 2 caps
Brown S, Celtic (M) 15
Caldwell G, Celtic (D) 32 (2 goals)
Maloney S, Celtic (F) 14 (1)
McManus S, Celtic (D) 17 (1)
Miller K, Rangers (F) 41 (11)
Naismith S, Rangers (F) 1
Weir D, Rangers (D) 63 (1) First cap 1997 v Wales at Rugby Park, 0-1
Whittaker, S Rangers (D) 0

Match Day 2

Celtic 5, St Johnstone 2 (by Johnny Steen)
Celtic managed a comfortable 5-2 victory over St Johnstone and scored some finely worked goals into the bargain. This effectively was Tony Mowbray’s first win at Celtic Park after losing to Dinamo Moscow and Arsenal. Aiden McGeady’s performance was so impressive that Saints boss, Derek McInnes, said afterwards that he ‘wished [McGeady] were Scottish’. In fact, Celtic only have three Scots in the side; Caldwell, Brown and Maloney. It was Maloney who was the real tormentor of Saints carving open their defence down the left hand side before crossing for Fortuné to score from 12 yards. Then an excellent move down the right involving Hinkel and McGeady culminated in a fine cross for Maloney to head home from close range. Just as things looked straightforward for Celtic, Gary Caldwell misjudged a headed backpass to Boruc. Collin Samuel latched on to the ball, bore in on goal and then stroked a great right foot drive low past Boruc. Caldwell has been exposed quite a few times in recent weeks (Norway in Oslo and Arsenal last week) and this third error met with groans from the Celtic crowd. Nonetheless, Samuel still had a lot to do to score and on many other occasions any centre half in the country might just have got away with the error.
Celtic had the match won early in the second half with two goals in a minute. First, Maloney with a neat run and shot and then Fortuné finished a McGeady move. The fifth goal was largely as a result of poor awareness by Saints. Danny Fox was allowed to collect a corner on the edge of the box and was given all the time in the world to cross over for McDonald to score. There was still time for one more sublime piece of football and it came from St Johnstone’s ex-Chelsea player Jody Morris. He danced through a couple of Celtic defenders in the box before stretching a leg out to toe poke past Boruc.

Hearts 1, Rangers 2 (by Mick Statto)
We like our numbers here at OFF and must thank Kevin Thomson for providing an interesting statistic. Last week he entered the fray with 13 minutes of the match against Falkirk to go. This week, he left the match with 13 minutes gone! A lunging tackle by Thomson on Hearts’ Ian Black was met with a straight red card from referee Craig Thomson. The game was played at a hectic pace as Hearts tried to set aside their European disappointment against the ten men of Rangers. It was Hearts who took the lead in the first half with what was an uncharacteristic blunder by Rangers’ goalkeeper, McGregor. The Austrian, Witteveen, shot low and hard from about 12 yards. McGregor had the shot covered and got both hands to it but did not secure the ball which squirmed over the line as he tried in vain to scramble back.
Walter Smith took Fleck off at half time and replaced him with Steven Smith. Smith provides great crosses from set pieces and it was one of his free kicks that brought Rangers level. The free kick was whipped in to the penalty spot area of the goalmouth at tremendous pace and Lee McCulloch glanced the ball past Blanogh in the Hearts goal. Rangers sensed that they could win the game and Smith made yet another timely substitution. On 88 minutes and 41 seconds Kris Boyd entered the field. On 89 minutes and 41 seconds Kris Boyd had blasted a penalty into the right hand corner of the net to secure the three points. It was also Boyd's first goal at Tynecastle as a Rangers' player. It is not as simple as that though. The penalty award was dubious in that many thought Bouzid’s infringement of Naismith was just outside the box. However, television on this occasion was inconclusive. This was a fine victory for Rangers and one many of their fans may not have foreseen at half time. SPL table