Ibrox Fans Embarrass Themselves Over Non-Existent “Trip To Rome” For The Mooch.

Ibrox fans in and outside of the mainstream media have had a bit of an embarrassing day today, after a social media post from The Mooch sent them into paroxysms of delight and speculation which turned out to be absolutely groundless.

He posted a picture of the Colosseum on Instagram and rumours swept the country that he was in Rome to watch Roma versus Feynoord tonight, on “transfer business.” Cue much insanity and desperate clinging to hope over who his “targets” might be.

The Mooch has told the media that he likes to get to know his signings first. Another page from the Ange Postecoglou book of management that one. Do you think he intends, at any time, to bring an original thought to the table? That’s a conversation for another day. Suffice to say that it was this remark which prompted the most fevered thinking.

An Ibrox fan site – Rangers News – went for broke with its pleading headline, which the writer must have come up with whilst half mad. “Michael Beale in Italy but £52m England pair surely out of Ibrox reach.” This guy clearly thinks he’s due a Sherlock Holmes Award here. The two players in question are Chris Smalling and Tammy Abrahams.

If you’re currently laughing yourself into a hernia, Football Scotland (more from them later, I assure you) posted their own speculative nonsense, with their possible shortlist of “four players.”

They are as good at counting as Barry Ferguson and his four-man Player of the Year list, which had five names on it. Football Scotland’s has three of them actually playing in tonight’s game … and Lewis Ferguson, who plays for Bologna. Head scratching moronic nonsense from them, as per usual, but outdone completely by Aiden Smith of The Evening Times.

He helpfully provided a list of every player at the two clubs who is out of contract at the end of the campaign, with 33-year-old Smalling one of the names on that list. But before Ibrox fans get excited about the prospects of their club signing this young thruster, Smith’s Evening Times colleague Chris Jack spiked the celebrations when he clarified something.

Beale, of course, is still in Scotland and has been all week. Because he has a game to prepare for on Sunday, against Aberdeen, and is not, as the speculation suggested, wandering around Rome wondering how to get a Papal Blessing.

We all know that club and those in its slipstream inhabit a parallel reality. They prove this to us time and time and time again. But honestly … the sheer level of delusion it takes to believe in some of this nonsense defies all belief and rationale.

No wonder that so many of us consider The Banter Years one unbroken string, lasting almost as long as the current Ibrox club has been in existence.