The long suffering Sevco fans must be wondering what they did to deserve this campaign. I could tell them it was five years of sectarian singing, denying the Death of Rangers, pretending that defrauding the tax payer ain’t no big thing or a host of other nasties, but they don’t do self-analysis and the whole question is more about self-pity than anything else.
All I know is that it ain’t getting any better for them.
Today there are some developments on the Sevco transfer front. Quite a few of them, and not a single one promises anything good.
Billy Gilmour, “teen sensation”, who few people had heard of until The Daily Record started touting him as the new Charlie Adam (tongue firmly in cheek, as you can probably guess) has left for Chelsea. The club says it did everything it could to keep him; the mooted £500,000 development fee suggests different. Had Chelsea actually made them an offer like that Dave King’s eyes would have lit up like a pinball machine and he’d have snatched at the hand offering the cash like a Doberman going for a steak cutlet.
In truth, Sevco will have been lucky to see half of that money, at least in the here and now, but the very possibility of getting it will probably have assured that when they made their efforts to keep him they didn’t try terribly hard.
Nevertheless their fans are pretty spiky about this one, and it’s not the only transfer story that’s bothering them today.
Clint Hill has been refused a new deal, and if you thought that would be greeted with relief you’d be dead wrong. Hill has surprised everyone, critics like me included, by turning in solid but unspectacular displays for most of the season. He wouldn’t get into the Aberdeen first team, or the one at Hearts probably, but he’s not entirely useless, and compared to the other centre backs they have on the books he’s Maldini.
Senderos has been told he can go, and that hasn’t surprised a living soul as he was perhaps the most useless footballer ever to get a full-time contract with a Scottish club. A complete liability, a total waste of money, a guy who was only here on holiday and barely got off the beach. But Hill was reliable and could do a job for them. That has stunned a lot of their supporters. Those not voicing their displeasure have been dissuaded from doing it because they believe this fits into a plan, and that it meant Bruno Alves was on his way to the club.
Alas, in another transfer blow he appears to have ruled that out. He prefers playing out the last year of his career in Italy, to the amazement only of the Daily Record sports desk and Pedro Caixinha himself. Whatever he was told about the “draw” of Ibrox, it no longer applies without serious financial weight backing it up, and a good team to play in.
Alves is at the fag end of his career, like Hill, and that they thought to replace one with the other was pretty desperate stuff. That they’ve not even been able to manage it is worse. Their fans liked the sound of this one. Now they are left with the Qatari league player who was on loan from a club in Kuwait. Exciting times at Ibrox alright.
On top of this, it’s been suggested that the club has been snubbed in an attempt to sign Christophe Berra, who Ipswich have released on freedom of contract. He has opted to move to Hearts, who he played for once before and is known to support. Nevertheless, this is an astonishing snub if true, and no-one would have raised eyebrows if Sevco had gone for that guy. He’s a very good player with bags of experience, and would have been a cut above their current options.
As they chase Qatari league footballers and sweat over deals for the likes of Kenny Miller it is astonishing that a Scottish international has slipped through their fingers at a time when they are desperate, and all the more incredible that he’s gone to Hearts instead.
Emerson Hyndman has also left Ibrox, which is a blow as they had recently named him their young player of the year and had held out hope of getting him on an extended deal. When a loanee who’s been at your club for only a few months can scoop an award like that you’re in hard times. There had been some suggestion they’d try to get him on a longer term deal – similar to what we did with Patrick Roberts originally – but that’s now been dashed.
The hits just keep on coming at Ibrox right now.
I’m loving it.