If you’ve ever read Football “Insider” – no laughing guys, this is a serious point – you’ll know that Noel Whelan is not exactly the sharpest tool in the box.
Which is saying something when you consider some of the other blunt instruments – Frank McAvennie, Alan Hutton – that particular box contains.
They are never going to get together a decent team for a quiz show.
Today the Ibrox club completed the free transfer signing of John Lundstram from Sheffield United.
That’s been on the cards for months now, and they got the deal over the line in no small part because the player idolises Gerrard, being from the same part of Liverpool.
He’s not a bad signing, but not likely to elevate them much above their current options in that area.
What it might do, of course, is make it palatable to their fans when they sell a couple of players.
There’s always a little sleight of hand going on over there.
Whelan thinks Celtic will be kicking themselves over not going for.
Really? Is this the stupidest thing you’ve heard so far this week or what?
If we thought there was a player there who would have enhanced our squad, and who was available free of charge, we would have moved for him. Clearly we either knew he was going to end up at Ibrox regardless or we just didn’t think he was good enough to play a part in our new team. Whatever the reason, we were never interested in finding out.
There’s certainly no question of us having been snubbed, and there will certainly not be any regrets amongst those at Parkhead that we didn’t make a move ourselves. His status has not been a secret.
Everyone knows he was available for free.
His agents advertised that to both Glasgow clubs and we took a pass, that’s the fact of it.
But honestly, if this is the kind of signing the club had wanted to make we wouldn’t have messed about, we’d have just gone and done it.
Don’t let anyone tell you we were ever interested in this or in any way in the race, because it’s simply not true.
Whelan is simply doing what everyone who writes for that publication – from Kieran Maguire down – does on a regular basis; he’s talking through his backside.