Today The Daily Record predicted that Arfield would be the first of what they reckon will be about eight signings over in La La Land. Chris Jack in The Evening Times said something even more extreme, and his own take on it was oddly, and hilariously, specific.
Nowhere in either demented offering does either the Record’s hacks nor Jack make any suggestion as to where the money for a complete football team rebuilding job is coming from. Even if you’re buying £2 million players – squad filler for Celtic – that’s a budget busting £16 million plus. Where are they getting cash like that from? It’s £10 million more than King’s little share scheme will raise, if it ever even gets off the ground.
Honestly, these guys believe in Magic Money Trees more than left wing politicians do.
(Wee joke for my political friends there. I meant, of course, more than right wing politicians during a banking bail-out!)
Jack’s article – hilariously entitled “(Sevco) must foot the bill for Steven Gerrard’s Light Blues rebuild this summer” – actually ends with the following lines;
“Moving players on and clearing the decks could prove easier said than done in the coming weeks and the Caixinha experiment will continue to cost (them) for some time yet. The bill for Gerrard’s rebuilding work must be met, however, if Premiership foundations are to be laid at last at Ibrox.”
I find Jack amusing, as I’m sure you can tell.
What I find most amusing is his sudden understanding of how bad the Ibrox squad is, because it wasn’t that long ago he had a very different tune in his heart. In fact, he tipped them to beat us at Ibrox, Hampden and Celtic Park the last three games, so he clearly once had a lot of faith in their team.
Up until about two weeks ago, actually.
And now he thinks the manager needs to rip it up and start again, although he has offered exactly no blueprint as to how it should be done or what the resources to do it are coming from. Instead it’s all “must” this and “must” that.
He forgets, or perhaps he just doesn’t care, that the club itself does not have the wherewithal to spend that kind of cash.
So where’s it coming from?
He’s not all that bothered, which is an easy attitude to maintain when it’s other people’s money, right?
His plans are actually quite detailed, like someone sitting in front of Football Manager to start a career game, having used the in-built editor first to gift himself nearly bottomless resources to do the job. And he’ll need them for the transfer plan he lays out in the article.
“Gerrard should be looking at four centre-backs, cover at full-back, three midfielders, a couple of wingers and at least one striker. And that is just for starters,” he wrote.
And whilst you are pinching yourself and counting it up (that’s at least – AT LEAST – eleven signings) think about how absolutely away with the fairies you need to be to think that’s an answer or viable in any way, shape or form. The guy really is on another planet.
Jackson and his colleagues at The Record are just as bad though, with their talk that Arfield will be the first of eight players in the door.
They haven’t bothered to enquire as to where the money is coming from either; like so many at the moment they haven’t got much further than the inbuilt assumption that because Gerrard is there “money must be coming in from somewhere.” You just know if arrived at Ibrox in cash in cardboard boxes from the back of an unmarked van they’d applaud wildly and not bother to check as to where the heist had gone down.
This is what passes for our media.
No wonder a guy like King thinks he can do as he likes.
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