Have you noticed the talk out of Ibrox this weekend over them wanting to keep Josh Windass? You will recall, I’m sure, how he was one of the players they were dying to get rid of at the start of the month. A tentative offer had been submitted for him, and when the club tried to play hardball over an extra couple of hundred grand it was hastily withdrawn.
They tried to spark a media-inspired auction in his services. Nobody was biting. Their asking price – around £750,000 – is seen as laughable south of the border. The idea that they might get upwards of £1 million is seen as pretty risible.
The club has moved now from a posture of offering him to all and sundry to pretending they want him to stay. At least until the summer, when they hope the second half of the season produces form. The hole in the theory is that Jamie Murphy has been signed to play in his position and his game time will probably be limited as a result.
What a mess that club has got itself into during this window.
They have five strikers on the books going into the second half of the campaign, and they play one up front just as we do. Bringing back Joe Dodoo from his loan spell was nonsensical. Signing Cummings on loan before they had got shot of Herrera was just madness. When Kenny Miller is fit there’ll be a three-way fight with him, Morelos and Cummings for the starting slot. Even on those days when they go with two up top, people won’t be happy.
Russell Martin was brought to the club as the white Pedro Alves. He has exactly the same footballing traits, nothing to write home about. What a shame that Alves hasn’t yet left, what a shame that the offer from Italy would necessitate a major cut in wages which only a mug would be willing to take, which means either that he’ll turn the move down on Sevco itself will have to take up the shortfall. The Record says he has to consider his international prospects … of course he does, but they already look dead and buried. The move to Ibrox has wiped them out.
Their policies in this window have made zero sense, but who says anything at Sevco has to make the slightest bit of sense? Their club is a joke, and their new midfielder, who’s been in the country two minutes and has yet to play a single game here, is already mouthing in the media about how “the gap has closed.” Incredible, right?
If you think the Morelos to Bristol City story is a coincidence, or just talk, guess again. The Ibrox PR machine is working overtime to spark interest in even their first team players … because it’s the only way they stand a chance of keeping on the lights.
There is a cast of thousands over there now and the difference between their situation and ours is that their club wants to get all these guys off the wage bill whilst we just want players like Kouassi and others to get games prior to returning.
Over the next ten days you’ll see things over there move into full-on desperation mode, as the financial implications of such an over-bloated squad become ever clearer. Nothing they have done over there makes a fraction of sense. It was always going to end badly.