"He didn't like it that I hated losing so much."..............
............."He asked me not to shout at certain players because it hurt their feelings.".........
......"I was astonished to be told that I shouldn't shout at certain players - staggered. Yet they were his rules, he was the boss, and I tried to abide by them at all times. I truly did. But we were in the midst of a season that needed turning around. I attempted to conform to what he wanted, but, if I am honest, I just couldn't. I should hold my hands up to that.".............
.........."The flak flew, and the whispering campaign got nasty. Before the French regime packed their bags and left, I even had to listen to leaked accusations from within their camp that I had celebrated the CIS Cup exit at home to St Johnstone when the manager chose to rest me. The truth is that I left the game just after half-time with the score still at 0-0 before Stevie Milne's two goals, because I couldn't bear to watch us struggle so badly, and I feared that the worst was coming. To accuse me of glorifying in my mates hitting such a low ebb at home to a First Division club beggars belief.".......
......."Le Guen stuck the boot into me in his press conference after the Motherwell match, claiming that I had been a bad influence and ws undermining him. It couldn't go on, he said. I heard this and boiled over with anger as my mind drifted back three months to September 2006 and something that bitterly disappoints me now, because it has been completely overlooked in almost every Le Guen v Ferguson debate. I was rushed back too early after having my ankle reconstructed in the summer. After just 45 minutes in the reserves, I was thrown in against Hibs away. It is always a frantic fixture, but if the manager selects me, I don't say no. That's not in my nature. Le Guen needed me, and so did Gers, so I played. I was 60 per cent fit, at the very most. I was nowhere near where I should have been, and I didn't play well. We lost, and I was slaughtered. The press wrote that Kevin Thomson had battered me, that it was the start of a new era of midfielders in Scottish football and that I was finished as a footballing force. For God's sake, I was only 28 at the time !
"Still, I could look myself in the mirror and know that I had given Paul Le Guen 100 per cent. More than that, I had put my reputation on the line when others wouldn't have. Four months on, I was being branded a captain in charge of a drinking culture at Ibrox and a man who wanted the club to be ruled by player power."...........
........."Some of the things that were levelled at me were very wrong, but you would have to ask him if it was part of his exit strategy from Rangers with the vacancy at Paris St Germain, his next club, beckoning."..........
........."Yes, if things were going wrong in a game, I'd drop deep and pick the ball up to try and make things happen. That's my job. I'm a midfielder and the captain. However, in Le Guen's eyes, the 1-1 draw with St Mirren at Ibrox just after Christmas marked the beginning of the end for him and me. He thought that I was disregarding his orders. Well, in my eyes it was down to interpretation - I was desperate to rescue yet another game that was running away from us, but he saw it as me undermining him.
"It depends on whose camp you stand in which was you see it, but one thing puzzles me: we never once had a blazing row or fallout. That is the God's honest truth. Yes, I came in after games and shouted the odds at players and screamed at the ceiling in frustration - even at myself. I was dejected at the way the season was going. We would come in after another loss or draw, and there would be no reaction. I just kept thinking, 'This is Rangers here, Rangers. Do something.'"...........
That's as far as I've read so far.
Free Forum Hosting
Important Announcement
First 
Return to General