As Sevco Descends Into Infighting, Questions Arise Over Van Bronckhorst’s Say Over Signings.

If we were in the position the Ibrox club is in right now, not playing well, behind in the league, with rumours everywhere about dressing room splits and the board openly at war with itself, every single element of the club operation would be being questioned.

There are at least two obvious areas where they need to be put under proper scrutiny; their finances and their football department. We will get to the finances a little later tonight, in light of the club’s PR tactics in denying that they are being paid less than Celtic for Australia, a claim which I believe to be manifestly false and will be proved to be.

But the football department is where my interest lies at the moment, and it’s been sparked by Van Bronckhorst telling the press that Ramsey will be on the bench on Thursday night. Now, we know this guy isn’t 100% fit and won’t be anytime soon … but surely the best way to get him up to fitness is to play him once in a while?

If this were Celtic the media would be looking at their January transfer business and asking a very basic question; how much was Van Bronckhorst involved in the decision making? The club brought in four players. He didn’t seem to have any involvement with that process. If he did you’d think he’d have got footballers he could actually use.

Yet none of them are regular starters. None of them look like holding down a first team place even in the short term. Three were clearly signed to get them through the campaign and add to his options; in that, they have failed dismally because none has presented him with a viable challenge to the players who he relies on every week.

I find it hard to believe that any of these guys were Van Bronckhorst signings, and the thing is the two “blue chip” loanees must have cost them a pretty penny. The Manchester Utd “wonderkid” would not have been allowed to leave cheap. We know that Ramsey is costing them a small fortune. Right now, that is money squandered.

The reason this is so obvious to us is that we have seen this picture before. We know how it works. We’ve witnessed this happen at our club, leaving us with players the manager quite obviously does not want. It paints a picture of major dysfunction, with people treading on the toes of others, where the left hand often doesn’t know what the right hand is doing.

It is a sign of a club in a profoundly nasty situation.

When we signed Marian Shved in a recent January window it stood out because the manager basically disavowed the signing during a press conference.

He was Brendan Rodgers, of course, and he was to leave the club within weeks of that statement. Van Bronckhorst hasn’t disavowed these guys … but he’s not playing them either.

That strongly suggests they were someone else’s flight of fancy.

Boy oh boy, that club is in a bad, bad place right now.