Ibrox Links With McBurnie Are Hilariously Ignorant And Dumb. I Hope They Sign Him.

Amongst the stories which have tickled my funny bone this week was a cracker from last night, linking Oli McBurnie with a move to Ibrox.

There are many reasons why this is a story too ridiculous to take seriously … but some folks are and I am amazed by it whilst being reminded that there is never any idea too daft to find purchase amongst their fans.

This story is in part being pushed by the media. Mark Pirie of The Daily Record thinks it solves “one key issue.”

In actual fact he’s 100% wrong; it doesn’t solve the issue that he thinks it does, and indeed would only land Ibrox with one more player in a position where they already have enough of them. He does meet their standards though; he would be an expensive punt who doesn’t actually score goals. So in theory he will fit right in there.

For openers, this idea is quite mad for the money he would cost alone. Sure, he’d be available on a “free” but what does that mean when his agents would demand a seven figure sum split between them and the player for picking them over other clubs? His salary demands would be insane, because the money he’s on right now is insane.

He would certainly tick the box for “staunch” but this is another mad thing they do, believing that this is some quality which elevates you as a footballer. If I had a choice between two players, one who “got Celtic” and one who was simply better at the job I would choose the guy who could play over the one who knew The Fields Of Athenry every day of the week.

Their club is mad. We all know that. A high profile “true believer” is just the sort of signing you can see them going for, and one who can’t find the net certainly fits the current pattern. So I can get why some people think this might happen.

But here’s what Pirie wrote in his piece.

“It was claimed south of the border back 2021 that McBurnie was a target for the Ibrox side in Steven Gerrard’s reign as manager, and rumours are swirling again that the (club) fan could make a move to the club at the end of the campaign. And the fact he has played for Scotland could work in his favour if he is to make a move to Ibrox …”

Pirie thinks because he’s played for Scotland that it will help with the thorny issue of European registration.

What an idiot that man is, what a clown. He works in the media and doesn’t know the meaning of the term “home grown player.”

McBurnie has never spent a second of his football career in Scotland. He’s a product of an English youth academy, he was born in England and every moment of his time in the game has been spent there.

Home grown? Yeah, he could fill out an English team’s European quota if any side which signed him was ever good enough to qualify for Europe.

(The signing him part in the first place is the giveaway there.)

But he doesn’t come close to qualifying in Scotland.

Playing for the national team doesn’t count. You need to have spent three years at a club in a domestic association from the ages of 15-21 to qualify. McBurnie played youth football at Leeds. He made his career debut for Bradford.

This is simple stuff; this is ABC stuff and a Scottish tabloid journalist who writes about football for a living doesn’t know that.

Neither does Craig Moore, who he quotes in the article as actually admitting “I’m not sure this works …” which surely puts him high up on the shortlist to the be Ibrox’s next director of football.

Most amazingly, this is a club which clearly needs to spend money – which they don’t have – sorting out its defence, and this is the stuff they are focussing on. There are reports today that will try to sort out a permanent deal for Sima in the January window … where is the money from that coming from?

These people are absolutely out to lunch.