Whoever Ibrox Is Competing With For Their January Target, It Sure Isn’t Celtic.

There is a mad report today which links Celtic with a move for a Ghanian youth player. Ibrox has sent scouts to watch him, and they have him tabbed a January target.

Clearly, they are in for the guy.

Clearly they are making moves to sign him.

The link to Celtic is not strange. This is a familiar media tactic when their club is on the hunt for some unknown.

The aim is simple; to create a “Celtic snubbed” story from nowhere and to pretend that we’ve missed out on some superstar.

In fact, this one is a really poor attempt because there’s something in the story which renders it ridiculous from the off.

The guy is a centre back. Quite how the hacks thought they would get away with trying to turn this into an arms race between Us and Them over a player in a position where we could not possibly need another footballer I do not know.

We have never been less lacking in cover at central defence. We have occasionally had a surfeit of players in a certain position – central midfield looked very bloated at the start of the campaign – but I cannot recall us ever have seven central defenders including two signed for decent money who can’t even get onto the pitch. That’s new.

Lagerbielke, Nawrocki, Carter Vickers, Phillips, Kobayashi, Scales and now Stephen Welsh is fit. That’s seven. Seven centre backs.

Why in God’s name would we be looking at another one? I think we’ll be sending Phillips home and Kobayashi out on loan in January because these guys won’t be playing regular football. Welsh might be lucky to play as well.

There are going to be plenty of transfer stories between now and January, but we should be especially attuned to those which link us and Ibrox to the same players. This one is just barmy, and there’s no chance that we’re after this guy.

If Ibrox are competing with someone for his signature it sure isn’t us.