Celtic Did Not Allow A Great Scottish Talent To Get Away. The Club From Ibrox Did.

I had no idea that Bill McMurdo was the agent for Lewis Ferguson until I read that online last night. The reason I read it is that McMurdo is boasting about how well his player has done since moving to Italy and he’s predicted that he will be the subject of a massive bid, and get a massive move, in the summer with AC Milan and Juventus allegedly interested.

That sounds a little bit pie-in-the-sky to me, but I wouldn’t utterly rule out a move to a decent club for a decent fee. He’s a talented player and it’s good to see a young Scottish kid – another one, after Aaron Hickey – move over there and smash it.

McMurdo pondered that neither of the two Glasgow clubs made a bid for Ferguson before he departed. He cost Bologna £3 million. When you consider some of the rancid junk Ibrox squandered money on at the start of this season, and the pot of gold we spent on players, either side could have taken that punt no bother at all.

Celtic passed because Ange had his plans already in motion and we’d brought in O’Riley and Hatate and he wanted Aaron Mooy. Would Ferguson get into our midfield right now? No, he’d be with David Turnbull on the bench every week.

As decent a player as he is, we have a certain style that Ange signs players to suit, and it’s just not clear if he’s the kind of footballer who would fit into it. In some ways that a pity because at some point we do need to take a look at what’s on our doorstep and try to find the next Armstrong or Christie or Turnbull at one of the other clubs.

But he wasn’t it, and so I am fairly comfortable with the idea that we didn’t lose out on anything, it just wasn’t a signing that particularly interested us.

Ibrox on the other hand … what in God’s name were they thinking?

Ibrox spent the bulk of £3 million on Rabbi Matondo, a name which I assure you will come up in quizzes in years to come and leave people absolutely flummoxed. He will be lucky to see his second anniversary at the club before they cut him loose, as his former club did, for a fraction of what they signed him for. Ibrox gave him a four-year deal.

Lewis Ferguson would have anchored their midfield for the better part of a decade. Coming from the family he does, he’d have run through walls for them. He would have made them better in the short term and grown into a captain and a leader of the club in the medium to long term … and it will be regarded as a disaster for them that he never did.

Bringing us into this isn’t all about deflection; he’d have been a fine signing and he’d have enhanced the squad although maybe not right away, and only if he had the patience to wait and develop his talent in the way David Turnbull currently has to, although where that would have left him is just one of the many questions we’ll never have to answer.

But part of it certainly is about deflection, because they were the club who should have moved for him and their fans will wonder about why they never did for years to come, and they will watch him in the way Celtic fans once watched John McGinn and wonder what might have been. Even more than what McGinn might have given us, they will be haunted by what Ferguson could have given them. It is a shocker that he isn’t part of their team preparing for this final.

Their much lauded Director of Football should be asked about that at every fan meeting from now until he packs up his pencils. Because this is a failure on his part on every level.

That they never even picked up the phone to make a bid is extraordinary, especially when you consider that three of their most dependable midfielders, all of whom “get the club” in the way Ferguson does are now way past their best and heading for the knacker’s yard.