Sevco tonight named their European squad, and it does not include Jermaine Defoe.
He is one of Scotland’s best paid players, if not the best paid.
And he is not going to feature for them in the Europa League Groups.
What an admission of absolute failure.
Where does Defoe fit in at Ibrox now? Behind two expensive purchases up front and the snarking Morelos, who was supposed to be well out the door. Yet he earns more money than any of them, and has more than a year of his contract left.
This is Sevco’s financial stupidity neatly summed up. They gave an outrageous contract to a player who was edging into his late thirties when everyone knew it made not one bit of sense. They are now said to be on the brink of offering a massive deal to player who has had more than a dozen long-term injuries.
This is Kranjcar all over again, another footballer with plenty of natural ability but who’s history of unfitness should have had them running a mile.
He has played 18 games in the past two years. If you really want some insight into why Sevco are sniffing around him, consider this; their final signing of the window, Zunga, has played only nine games more than that in the same timeframe.
Oh yes, he too has had an injury ravaged time of it.
You get the feeling Sevco is pressing ahead trying to sign two players to fill one slot because neither can be relied on to stay fit … it’s an expensive, and stupid, way to do business but the alternatives would have involved properly scouting someone and paying a transfer fee for him.
Wilshere, because he’s got a famous name, doesn’t need to be scouted.
Their fans will drool over it and put his record of long-term absences aside.
Give them their due on one thing at least; these Peepul know their audience very, very well.
But this is just nonsense, it’s the kind of mad strategy that only those disconnected from reality would pursue.
Wilshere, as I said today in the Celtic piece, would offer nothing.
This is a league where the game moves fast, where the tackles are fierce and where one third of the top flight teams plays on plastic; that’s not an environment where a player who likes time on the ball and has dodgy ankles will be anything other than an expensive drain on the cash reserves.
Sevco has no cash reserves.
Previous stupidity – like the signing of Defoe on that wild contract – have well and truly taken care of that.