A nice uneventful festive period at Ibrox then eh?

It would appear that our manager has cleverly managed to mask our persistently erratic form by having the barney to end all barneys with Rangers skipper Barry Ferguson.

Say what you want about his decision to drop the fans favourite, but no-one?s talking about the five points dropped to Inverness CT and St Mirren in recent matches anymore are they?

On the face of it, it?s an awful decision. With the team lurching from passable to pathetic, what do you do? Drop your best player and the one guy who always looks as if he cares? Risky to say the least.

It?s easy to see both sides of this argument.

Barry obviously feels that Paul le Guen is the wrong man for the Rangers job. He hates to see the club he loves failing so miserably and he has been more than forthcoming in his views.

Le Guen on the other hand, cannot have an agent provocateur as club captain and had to make an example of a guy who was, according to him at least, badmouthing him and defying his orders.

So who?s right here? Unless anarchy is to prevail, there can be only one answer.

There can only be one boss, and it should be the guy appointed by the chairman, not the club captain - however much he loves the club.

Powerful player clich?s have undermined Rangers in the past and it was obvious the same thing was happening again.

Look, I absolutely adore Barry Ferguson. I think he?s a brilliant player and a Rangers great. But if it?s true that he?s responsible for turning a faction of players against his manager and that he has wilfully defied tactical instructions in matches, he has to go.

That is unacceptable of any player, particularly the club captain, who should be helping his manager batten down the hatches instead of trying to get him fired.

Ferguson is highly unlikely to be offered a way back but if he wants to save his Rangers career, he should button his lip and get down to proving in training why he?s so lauded by the fans.

For Le Guen?s part, he has to think about why he keeps falling out with the players. This is the third first team player he?s had a public row with this season, and that in itself is not good enough.

He also has to look at the big picture, which has been obscured by this latest fiasco.

Several quality players are required to move this Rangers team on from utter mediocrity.

Dropping Barry Ferguson is obviously a pivotal point in Paul le Guen?s Rangers career.

But it is what he does to improve matters on the park in the wake of this decision that will decide his future.

Fans calling for the Le Guen?s head because he has dropped a popular player are missing the point.

If team performance improves dramatically in the second half of the season, all will be forgiven; if it doesn?t his adversary may well out-last him at the club.

This guy has me puzzled. A skinny Bambi on ice like stature is not one that is widely accepted as a typical footballing build yet this young man has seen his career rise and rise over the previous couple of seasons reaching a climax with his appearance as England’s new and only hope in the 2006 World Cup. I’m just wondering how all of this happened because as a footballer I really don’t rate him much at all. I was surprised that Sven decided to rest his hopes and dreams on the shoulders of Crouch and then failed to bring the sparkling talent that is Jermain Defoe.

It seems to me that Peter Crouch has just bundled his way into the Liverpool and the England team. The guy is plain awkward and I’m not just remarking on his frame, I’m talking about his general game. I’m astounded as to how he has infiltrated the top levels of the English game. In my view he pulls a spectacular goal out once every season and he’s back in the good graces with the Liverpool faithful and the England support. That plus a crap robotic dance of course! The fans, the managers and the media seemed to be sensing that Peter Crouch may not be the great footballer that they had made out pre World Cup but with a wonder goal from an over head kick at the weekend he has soared back into everyone’s hearts, and teams!

I’m not an England fan, I’m not a Liverpool fan but I am a football fan and Peter Crouch just annoys me. As a player I find few redeeming traits, he’s tall so he should be able to head the ball well but then so could I if I was seven foot. I’m just at a loss to establish what exactly he brings to a team. I am open to enlightenment. No-one questions his ability and that I find strange, the media have basically left him alone since the World Cup whilst other players have been put under the magnifying glass. Is it that he is an unquestionable talent or that no-one is interested?

Just when we all thought that the hard men of football were a dying breed never to return along comes Hossam Ghaly to re-affirm our belief that football really is a man’s game. The Spurs midfield dynamo lost four teeth and required stitches to his top lip after being caught on the wrong end of a horrific high footed tackle from Noe Pamarot in Tottenham’s clash with Portsmouth yesterday. The clash occurred in the first minute of open play and with a mouthful of blood and minus some teeth Ghaly trudged off the field of play to be looked over by the medical staff.

After a quick medical check up and with some stitches Ghaly incredibly rejoined the game proving that some modern day footballers can take a hit and remain standing. The tackle from Pamarot was a dangerous one and Martin Jol remarked after the game “He’s from Egypt and he’s a tough lad but I’ve seen the challenge again and it was cynical. His foot was head high”.

However Pompey manager Harry Rednapp disagreed whole heartily with Jol’s assessment of the tackle claiming, “Pamarot hasn’t got a cynical bone in his body. He’s the most laid back player I’ve ever met. I wish he was more aggressive at times. It was just a collision, a pure accident. It’s sad that the poor lad has lost a few teeth but what can you do?”

Harry in my book a collision is where two players bump heads or clash in a fifty fifty challenge not where one player leads with his foot at head level with sometimes disastrous results. However arguing over intent aside I think that Ghaly deserves to be commended for the manner in which he handled the situation. There were no calls for a red card and the youngster came back on the pitch in an attempt to finish the game despite the agony he must have been in. Yesterday was a good day for football when a young player’s attitude was to play on instead of lie down and make a meal of it. The English Premiership needs more of this attitude. Take heed Chelsea!