Did Chris Sutton Really Suggest We Copy Sevco’s Transfer Policy?

Today some internet sites are suggesting that Chris Sutton has said Celtic should copy Sevco in the way they go about player recruitment.

The notion makes me laugh.

For many reasons.

First, I read what Sutton actually said, as opposed to what these outlets think he said, and he’s certainly not suggested anything of the kind.

Whatever else you might say about Celtic’s transfer policy, we’re not the ones saying we won’t be held to ransom by Brentford and St Johnstone.

We’re not the ones subsisting on cheap deals, loans and free transfers.

Sutton doesn’t think we show enough ambition, and neither do I, but the notion that in the same breath as he’s pointing that out that he’s suggesting we trawl Accrington Stanley and the like for players at the end of their contracts … I think not.

There’s a lot of optimism gushing out of Ibrox at the moment, including some wonderful stuff about these future prospects being looked at by clubs like Arsenal, and about how a player they’ve given only a five month contract to will “set Scottish football alight.”

It’s all bizarre and hilarious in equal measure, the kind of stuff we’re used to from this slobbering media which got all similarly gushy about the players they are now telling us aren’t SPL class.

I don’t know whether they have short memories or if they think we do, but these kind of press reports just heap ridicule on them.

Sutton’s comments do bare some scrutiny, however.

Because he did say that club need to sign “better players than what they’ve got” and he did suggest that Crooks, one of the two Accrington players Sevco are going to sign was a decent player and that “might be the way to go.”

And I laugh, I have to admit.

I laugh at the notion because if we did sign a footballer from the English lower leagues and tried to pass that signing off as “better than what we’ve got” I wouldn’t be writing a laudatory article on it and nor do I believe that Sutton himself would be praising such a deal.

I’d be screaming blue murder and he’d be questioning our ambition ever more loudly.

And rightly so.

Except that many people are getting gooey over one player; Jamie Vardy.

Before I go on, forget this notion of “late bloomers” and players who don’t ping on the radar of big clubs.

It does happen but it’s rarer than hens teeth.

The scouting systems are almost fool-proof.

Talent shines through, always.

Vardy is the big story at the moment because he came from amateur football, where he was playing when in his early 20’s.

But who was the last player to do it?

Ian Wright.

How many years ago was that?

So was Vardy some kind of undiscovered gem, then?

Actually, no.

Vardy’s goal-scoring record has been exceptional since he was a youth player, and he’s improved at every level he’s played at.

His first senior club was Oxford, and his scoring record there was better than a goal every 1.5 games … but he was only there for one season.

At Fleetwood, where, again, he only played 30 odd games, he was even more impressive, and it’s whilst he was there that he was watched by a number of clubs including Celtic and, as it turns out, Rangers.

Vardy didn’t slip through the net.

He was being monitored from the minute it became clear that his Oxford scoring exploits weren’t a fluke, and after he’d proved he wasn’t a one season wonder it was a matter of time before someone made a move for him with serious cash.

Over 30 clubs expressed interest in him during his single season at Fleetwood, and many of them put down offers.

Our interest spiked in January 2012, during a window when his manager refused to let him go although he had numerous concrete offers including one from Blackpool, who offered £750,000 for him. It’s not a lot of money … but he was scoring goals at a very low level.

In the close season, he signed for Leicester for £1 million, which was a record fee for a non-league footballer.

He was only 24.

A player still developing.

All this “late bloomer” nonsense is just that.

The player he clearly was, and which clubs had identified, better developed once he swapped part-time football for the professional grade, but it was there.

Leicester have done well to hang onto him as long as they have, and in no small part his form is a consequence of playing in a good team – top of the EPL and not just as a result of his goals – with a damned fine manager.

His success story is not the rag-to-riches tale some would have you believe, and it in no way vindicates a lower-league footballer signing policy.

Even if Vardy is what people say he is – a guy whose talent only blossomed in the last few years – the idea that we would, could or should re-structure our strategy to target non-league players “just in case” … it’s arrant nonsense.

I’m sure Chris knows this.

In the same article he’s talked about the team needing experience, something I’ve long argued is a big part of the problem at Celtic Park.

If reports that we’re trying for Steven Fletcher are to believed then that’s a step in the right direction, and a far better proposition if he’s fit.

You can’t have it both ways.

Either Celtic needs to get serious about signing “Champions League quality players” – which I agree with – or we need to stick to the present policy of “buy young and cheap” and sell for big bucks.

We can mix and match a little if need be, utilising both, but in neither one of them should we be going for unproven players at England’s non-league teams purely on the off-chance we “discover” the next Jamie Vardy.

Chris is one of the finest players that I’ve ever seen in the Hoops and he loves the club with passion.

His ambitions for Celtic are the same as ours.

But he ought to think sometimes before he talks.

Because the media loves headlines like this, and indeed anything to make it look like Sevco are on track.