Today a sterling example of why I believe the media and the club at Ibrox are both as deluded as each other; the £10 million price tag Sevco has allegedly put on the head of Alfredo Morelos, a guy who, as I said on this site, has done no more than score goals in the SPL, and all but two of them against teams in the lower half of it.
These stories are pitiful. It will not surprise regular readers to know that they originated with Chris Jack, who masquerades as a journalist but is, in fact, little more than a trumped up fanzine writer with a NUJ card. His work is toe-curling at the best of times; today everyone who was involved in promoting his “journalistic career” should be hiding behind a locked door, beneath a blanket, in a house with all the shades drawn.
The media’s valuation of sub-par Sevco players is truly hilarious at the moment. That and the way the club itself is trying to artificially inflate them. Let’s wait to see how this ends, but I can take a stab at predicting it just now; that price tag will last only as long as it takes for Morelos’ agent to demand a wage consummate with it.
Then expensive trousers will fill with something other than hot air.
Sevco has forgotten how this stuff works. They’ve forgotten that these kind of valuations do more than sell newspapers and inflate the egos and pipedreams of idiot fans. They forget that there are knock-on effects. Take Jason Cummings, for example. A deal in principle might be in place to sign him in the summer, but what if he scores more goals than Morelos in the second half of the season? Forest would increase their asking price accordingly.
The player himself very clearly isn’t worth all this hype, as anyone who’s watching him knows. Louis Moult was a more formidable striker and scored goals in big games. No-one, at any time, suggested he was worth an eight figure sum. They’d have been laughed at.
Anyone who thinks Morelos is ought to be.
As I’ve said before, this is about Dembele.
This is about our French Under 21 international and the constant swirl of press chatter about him. I’ve written about Moussa over the weekend; I think we’re seeing the last of him at Parkhead. I wrote that with some anger, but also with regret because whilst I may have issues with the way the club behaves in its weakness on these matters, and with the greed and mercenary attitude of the modern game, I am in no doubt at all as to the kind of player he is and what we’ve currently still got on our hands.
Dembele is worth the kind of money we’re demanding.
He’s proved it on the big stage, and he was already known in England before winding up at Celtic Park. I have to constantly point out here that we didn’t luck upon this guy, he had major interest in him before we signed him and it only increased after his Champions League displays.
There’s one other thing; if Moussa doesn’t want to leave Celtic the club has no need to sell him. If offers come in and he turns them down we won’t push him out the door. Do not pay a blind bit of heed to the nonsense coming out of Ibrox on that score. If they get an offer for Morelos – and I don’t mean the one they say it would take; I mean one third of it – they would bite the hand off the club that made it and have him gone in two seconds flat.
We are a solvent football club which can keep on its lights without soft loans. They are, to quote Phil, a loss-making company without a credit line from a bank. The idea that they could withstand serious pressure to sell … I need only say two words; Nikica Jelavic, who Rangers valued in the eight digits and reputedly “resisted” a £6.5 million bid for … only to let him go five months later for £5 million. That was just before the roof fell in.
Or if that one’s too rich for your tastes, try Barrie MacKay.
I trust I don’t have to remind you that the “£6 million man” went for a fraction of that. Their board has done a sterling job of blaming Pedro for that amongst other things … but only the colossally stupid can have failed to realise that the agreement would have been rubber-stamped above his head.
But colossally stupid is the target audience for nonsense like what’s in the papers today.
When Morelos leaves Ibrox he’ll go for a fraction of what they say they’ll be “holding out” for.
That’s not speculation. It’s a fact.
They would take £3 million right now and not even have the good grace to look embarrassed about it.