Every now and again—actually, all the time—the media attempts to hype up players at Ibrox. And without fail, it ends in embarrassment. It’s almost cringeworthy to see just how far they go in pushing these absurd narratives about how outstanding some of these players are.
Every time I read one of these articles, I find myself rolling my eyes and wondering what it is they’re seeing. Or, more accurately, what they think they’re seeing.
Broadly, there are two types of Ibrox “superstars”: the ones still at the club because no one will buy them, and those foolishly picked up by other teams—either for a modest fee or on a free transfer at the end of their contracts. Note the emphasis here: there are many who simply aren’t wanted, and the few that are picked up do so at relatively low cost.
Now, I’ll get to the two exceptions soon enough, but first, let’s marvel at how they’re currently talking up the squad. Let’s compare the hype with what we’ve seen from previous years, because these stories are always the same.
Who makes up this current Ibrox “golden generation”?
The Brazilian left-back signed from Cyprus, a player poached from Hearts on a free, another SPFL player from Aberdeen—also on a free—and a striker from Morocco who hasn’t even been fit and has yet to score a goal. Yet just weeks ago, you’d think they had a world-class finisher in their midst from the way the media were carrying on.
Add to that the Albanian winger, and the guy signed last season who has been shifted around every position—defensive midfielder, central midfielder, right winger, right back, centre back, left back—you name it. They still don’t seem to know where his best position is. You would think by now they’d have figured out what sort of player Sterling is, but no.
These are the players we’re being told will challenge Celtic for the title. This is the fantasy they want to sell us, the latest in a long line of them.
But if you judge the present by the past, the story is quite different, isn’t it? We’ve heard this ludicrous hype before—about players destined to bring in tens of millions, players who were supposedly going to run Celtic into the ground. And where are they now? Nowhere near those lofty claims, except for two exceptions that I’ll touch on shortly.
Take Ryan Kent, for example. This past weekend we found out that Fenerbahce had torn up his contract after just over a year. God only knows what they had to pay him to get him off their books, but they preferred that to keeping him around. This is the same Ryan Kent the media once told us was worth more than Callum McGregor.
At one point, they convinced themselves that he was an incredible talent.
I never understood that. And for a while, I questioned whether it was just me—was I missing something? Were Celtic fans missing something? Was there a spark of talent buried beneath layers of mediocrity that we just couldn’t see?
I never truly believed that, but our media can sometimes make you doubt yourself.
They speak with such arrogance and confidence that, despite knowing better, you start questioning your own judgment. But the more I watched him play, the less I saw. The more I tried to understand, the more baffled I became.
Because, of course, we were right all along.
Ryan Kent is an overrated footballer. Liverpool must have been laughing their heads off when they got £7 million for him, watching the Ibrox club spend that kind of money on someone who offered so little in return. And now, as some of their fans talk about bringing him back on another inflated wage, I can’t help but laugh myself.
You all know how I feel about Kieran Tierney potentially returning to Celtic. I’ve said it before—I hope it never happens. He’s not the same player he was, and we wouldn’t be getting back the player who left. If I thought there was a chance he’d stay fit and contribute, I’d be all for it.
But I know better.
His situation is different from Kent’s, though. Tierney was genuinely a top talent. The same can’t be said for Kent, who wasn’t even that good when he was there the first time around. Which really says it all about the current state of the Ibrox squad, doesn’t it?
The fact that some fans are genuinely debating whether or not he’d improve their team is a damning indictment of where they’re at. They’re clutching at straws, hoping that a player the Turkish club couldn’t wait to get rid of will somehow be their saviour.
This brings us back to Alfredo Morelos, another so-called “world-beater” who did absolutely nothing after leaving Ibrox—again, on a free transfer.
He and Kent were the crown jewels of a team hyped because they made a European final. The media convinced themselves they’d make tens of millions from those players—Tavernier, Goldson, Kamara, Aribo, Kent, Morelos—but none of them fetched a big transfer fee. Two left for free, one went for a bargain-bin price, and yet one more – the captain – still hangs around.
The few who did leave for money barely commanded any resale value, which points to two failures. First, the money they’ve missed out on because these players simply weren’t that good. Second, the damage to their credibility as a selling club. Neither Aribo nor Kamara are going to be worth the sort of sums the Ibrox fans once salivated over.
Teams that spend big on players expect quality.
More often than not, when Celtic sells a player, they go on to prove their worth. Even those who haven’t set the world on fire, like Odsonne Edouard, are still young enough to command another big transfer fee when they move again.
That brings me to the two exceptions: Nathan Patterson and Calvin Bassey. Patterson has been plagued by injuries since joining Everton, and Ajax clearly overpaid for Bassey. Still, Fulham seems to like him, and he might yet become a decent player.
But that’s two players out of how many?
The fact is, Ibrox doesn’t develop talent.
It just looks like they do because the media makes it seem that way. Twice in recent memory they’ve managed to convince clubs to spend big on a player, and one of those players was an injury-ravaged mess while the other was a defensive liability.
Their record on this is abysmal, and if Bassey succeeds, it’ll be despite his time at Ibrox, not because of it. Just like Ryan Kent, it’s all hype with no substance, and you cannot build a transfer policy on that with all the media hype in the world.