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Ibrox’s Tavernier Sales Pitch Is Laugh Out Loud Funny, And The Media Is Playing Its Part.

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There is a moment in Dumb & Dumber which always cracks me up; it’s a complete no-hoper’s idea of what attracts a member of the opposite sex.

It comes when Harry and Lloyd attend the wildlife preservation society function in Aspen in the hope of seeing Mary Swanson, who they have driven across America to meet. They clock her across the room.

Lloyd, played with relish by a rarely better Jim Carrey, tells Harry, played to perfection by a goofy Jeff Daniels, to go over and talk to her. “I’ll gonna hang by the bar,” he says. “Put out the vibe.” It’s that line, and what he thinks that means, that kills me.

And I thought of that this week when I read The Daily Record’s latest attempts at helping Ibrox shift James Tavernier, the “disappointed” captain, off their books, along with his mate Connor Goldson.

About how they might listen to offers.

About how they might sell. If the price is right.

Said price being an estimated £8 million for the pair.

This is Ibrox, putting out the vibe.

The truth is, they would probably bite the hand off any club who offered them half of that to get these two guys out the door. Tavernier is a busted flush, and everyone knows it. He can’t forever live off being able to take a penalty; you should be able to train any player to do that consistently.

The issue isn’t that he’s brilliant at it. The issue is the number of them that club gets.

On top of that, they need defenders who can actually defend, and that’s one of the reasons why both of these guys have their necks in the noose.

The other reason is much simpler; money. They need the cash they’d bring in and they badly need to get them both off the wage bill, as even now they are amongst the biggest earners in this league, along with their colleague at the back, Ben Davies.

Yesterday, I wrote a piece about how they are trying to copy our transfer policy, and about how they have been trying to do it for years. There was something I forgot to mention in that piece about why theirs has catastrophically failed to bear fruit.

One of Ibrox’s ludicrous traits is to over-hype these guys early, in the hope that it sparks an auction. What happens then is all too predictable.

When you are telling the media you’ve got a £20 million player, you ought not to be surprised when that player’s representatives come in to see the CEO and tell him that they want a wage rise commensurate with that importance to the team. And Ibrox, in its limitless stupidity, granted those wages rises again and again and again to players who simply were not worth it. No-one will tell me Tavernier, Goldson and Davies are amongst the top five best players in this league.

But they are amongst the top five best paid, and right there is one of the key reasons that they could never move these guys on. It’s one of the reasons no offers came in for Morelos or Kent, even when they were offering those players for knock-down rates in the final year of their deal … nobody wanted to take on those wages.

In the case of Tavernier and Goldson, there is almost no prospect of a sale to England, or indeed anywhere else in Europe. The only real hope they have is that Gerrard or some other manager over in Saudi decides to pay these guys even more exorbitantly, throwing around some of that sovereign wealth fund cash, or they, like Kent and Morelos, like Lundstram and Barisic, are going to see out their current deals and finally leave for free.

In the case of Goldson, it’s especially hilarious as a previous contract with the club had expired and they offered him another one when literally no-one else would.

Now they are reduced to trying to use the media to bounce Gerrard or others into doing a deal, and they grab onto any indication that this might be in the offing. Rumours are seized upon. Gerrard’s comments are scrutinised like evidence in a murder trial.

When Van Bronckhorst was briefly linked with a move to Saudi there was another flash of excitement from the media. He’s ended up at Besiktas, and the media has even tried to suggest that he might bid for both players from there. It’s the first job he’s had since leaving Ibrox; the likes of Banks, Jackson and Copeland seem to think he’ll dynamite it just as he settles into the gig by signing players who will get found out in that league every single week.

They are not even shy about floating the potential fees they’d “reluctantly” do business for … if they get an offer even close to the sums they are talking about they’d be no more reluctant than I would be if I was offered a night with Sophie Turner. They wouldn’t even stop to high-five each other before they had the pair of them on a plane with their one-way tickets.

Getting the Daily Record and others to talk these guys up … this is the Scottish sports media’s equivalent of “putting out the vibe.” It looks ridiculous and it sounds ridiculous, although the blue and orange tuxedos would go down a storm with the target audience.

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9 comments

  • Magua says:

    I fervently hope that both Tavpen and Globetrotter Goldson, are still at Ibrox for a long time to come. Both players will be remembered as Celtic legends.

    Hail Hail.

  • Paul taggart says:

    Maybe we should get somebody in to teach half off our bhoys how to take a penalty james

  • Fat mike says:

    Did you see the Romanian chairman’s comments today? (Paraphrasing) ‘when there’s anything to tell it’ll be through the clubs website, we won’t answer questions based on reports from headline grabbing outfits, they know who they are… one leak to many from the soothe sieve

  • Kevan McKeown says:

    Tbf he can hit a dead ball and that might improve his worth a shade. Goldson at a push, ye would get a colour telly and a 50 pence mixture. (40 in aldi’s).

  • scousebhoy says:

    we have scored some amount of goals against him down that left wing terrible defender they would be as well playing him in midfield if all he is there for is penalties and free kicks.

  • DannyGal says:

    Have either of them ever been near an England squad?

  • John Copeland says:

    Tic – tac sir ….

  • Johnny Green says:

    I remember them ‘putting out the vibe’ previously on a continuous basis for Morelos and Kent and they ended up with the square root of fk all.

    Does God really love a tryer?

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