Ibrox Is Hilariously Offering All Its Duds To Every Club With A Few Quid In The Bank.

The news from Celtic Park continues to drip out so slowly that most people are just chasing rumours. It is dull and dreary stuff. We’ve got a friendly tomorrow. Not one new signing will be available to the boss for that game.

It’s a low-key game. Not worth panicking over? We’re mere weeks from kicking off the next campaign. We leave for America soon. When do people think we should worry?

That’s not the subject of this piece, much as I want to have another rant over it.

We can bang our heads against the wall or we can look around at what else is going on. A lot of the sites are covering the complete lack of news from Parkhead with mounting frustration. That’s an appropriate response. Not hysteria. Mounting frustration.

To pretend that this is tenable deep into next week is for the birds. For now, the club is just about getting away with it. Just about. Not for much longer, but in the meantime we can certainly look around at what’s happening elsewhere to cheer us up.

And as ever, Ibrox offers us plenty of reasons for hilarity.

Later on today I’m going to talk about the horror show with their stadium. We’ve had some major updates over the last couple of days when it comes to that, although none of them are official word out of the club. It is clear though that some of what we are hearing is on the nose … and they should be worried.

But their efforts to offload their rubbish are, in their own way, even more shambolic. Yesterday the news broke that they had asked an agent to get shot of Tik-Tok-Todd. And how do we know that? Because the agent was supposed to message someone at Italian club Lecce … and that agent sent the email to the wrong person. So, what was supposed to be a covert effort – it’s doubtful Cantwell was told that this was going on – ended up all over the news.

Today they’ve embraced the full embarrassment to get the word out that he’s available and they are looking to offload him. So is Dessers, who they are offering to all and sundry. But one league comes up over and over again in these reports, and it is hilarious how much hope they have invested in it; the Saudi Pro League talk is everywhere.

They have offered four players – four that we know of – to the Saudi Pro League teams; Goldson, Tavernier, Dessers and now Cantwell. Don’t be surprised if there is soon talk about Hagi going there, or Lammers if they can’t flog him to a side in the Dutch league. It is true that sides in that league have signed players from the SPFL and ex SPFL players as well. It is true that they have gone for a number of over-the-hill footballers in their 30’s.

But they have not, at least so far, signed any over-the-hill footballers in their 30’s from the SPFL. So that rules out the two highest paid players in Scotland. There is a reason all the talk has died down over them. It was never realistic to begin with.

Every player over there who they think they can flog is being touted with a move to that league. It’s as if they’ve looked at the players that league has signed and think to themselves “this lot will buy anything, and they have money to burn. But they have overlooked several key points which the media is trying to pretend aren’t obvious.

First, these clubs want to win things. Sure, some of them make signings like Gerrard buying Jack Hendry, but he purchased him from a Belgian League team at age 23, so that looked like a potential investment with some upside.

When they sign players over 30 these aren’t SPL stragglers, these are high-profile footballers who can raise the standard, and the global footprint, of the league itself as well as the clubs … those are PR signings as much as they are about improving the quality of the teams, and those players are sufficiently talented that they do.

So Saudi Pro League signings are a mix of experienced superstars and players who are young and with huge potential upside – Benfica to Celtic to Saudi is not ridiculous; Jota would certainly have left us to join a decent club in a high-profile league. The Hendry signing is likewise explicable. All the more experienced players are sufficiently known that you can understand why they have been brought to play in the league.

Each side is limited to ten foreigners. Every one of those places which is filled with a lesser footballer is a waste of a slot which could be used to enhance the profile of the teams themselves. Not a single one of Ibrox’s player ticks either of the boxes above.

Yet the media would have you believe that it’s their clubs who are ready to offer Ibrox “big money” for its assortment of duds.

Even their “two for the price of one” offer to Gerrard for Goldson and Tavernier has failed, which is why they are now trying to flog Dessers and Cantwell instead.

They have replaced the English clubs are the preferred source of rumours for them, but the media is having no more luck advertising Ibrox’s “stars” there than they are having anywhere else.

But I have to say, it’s amusing watching them try.