That’s the loanee count up to three, and whilst I am not terribly pleased by that development I am actually very pleased at the quality of our latest signing.
Mohamed Elyounoussi is a fantastic football player, a twinkle toed genius who will terrorise defences in Scotland and give us an extra edge in Europe.
He is better than any of our current options wide left.
I feel bad for Sinclair in all this, as I’ve said already.
But we’ve got a better player here, and if he’s fit he should start tomorrow.
I am always wary of giving too many players debuts at a ground like Ibrox, and would probably not want to see the right back start … but this kid should definitely be unleashed. His very presence in the team will unsettle them, especially as Gerrard will expect to be coming up against Mikey Johnson again and will have planned accordingly.
I remember this guy a year or so back, terrorising Manchester City in Basel.
He scored one and set one up that night in the home team’s memorable 2-1 win.
It may have been the night Premiership clubs started sniffing around him, and although I know we were looking at him we had no chance once the EPL crazy money started getting thrown about.
It isn’t ideal that there’s no release clause in this deal, in case we want to keep this player beyond the terms of this deal, because he’s one of those footballers who is worth breaking the bank for. He will add something to an attack which is already very, very strong.
There is one advantage to loan deals and it’s this; if you do your job right you can bring in a quality of player that a club like ours just cannot ordinarily afford. This is one of those times when I think we’ve done the business right.
This guy is not a project footballer, not some young development talent we’re heating up for his club … this is a top player who’s going to be a huge asset in this campaign and in terms of the overall shape of this window he’s yet another signing which is above and beyond anything the Ibrox club has managed to do or is able to.
This is a strengthening signing … this could be a game-changer.
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