They may have been outdone by Celtic, but the last three Ibrox bosses have all spent big.

There’s nothing like hard numbers to collapse an entire tissue of lies. And one of the most pervasive lies in Scottish football over the last few years is that Celtic are just too financially strong, that the Ibrox club has been outgunned, and that they simply haven’t had the money to keep up with us. Only part of that is true.

We are richer. There is no doubt about that. We have more money to spend. There is no doubt about that. But they have spent plenty under their last three managers.

It’s ridiculous that their club has been pleading poverty all this time. When you look at how much they’ve actually spent on transfers over the last three or four years it’s easy to see why their debt levels are so high. And you have to marvel at the people over there who keep talking about how they haven’t been able to compete with Celtic. They have certainly tried. They have certainly pushed the boat out.

Van Bronckhorst spent £11.7 million. He’s the only one who actually saw some players leave for decent money. And if you want to talk about an Ibrox manager being undersold, it was definitely him.

He was cleaning up the mess left by others. The Great Steven Gerrard left that club in one hell of a financial mess. And Van Bronckhorst won them a major trophy and got them to a European final. His reward? He was sacked within months. This Ibrox board and their fans have no patience, no respect, and no regard for anyone. They want instant success, and if it doesn’t come, heads have to roll.

I didn’t think Van Bronckhorst was much of a manager. I didn’t think he was that effective. But at the end of the day, his record stands up better than most of them. There’s an argument that it’s even better than Gerrard’s because look at what he did in such a short time. It’s probably fair to say he worked a minor miracle.

Even if he’d been there longer, he wouldn’t have stood in our way. But he did get them to a European final, which hugely boosted the profiles of some of their players. Calvin Bassey attracted a large fee based solely on that game, and that was all down to Van Bronckhorst. So, if any of them got a raw deal, it was him.

Michael Beale, without a single major sale, without bringing in any real money at all, was allowed to spend £18 million in 12 months.

The next time that club pleads poverty, remind them of that. £18 million in 12 months. Almost all of it was debt. Almost all of it was money they didn’t have, but they spent it anyway. Because that’s what they always do. It’s crazy. It’s insane. It makes no sense. And to have spent that and still be so far behind Celtic? That’s ridiculous. There are almost no successes among his signings.

Let’s also remember that Clement spent his entire tenure at Ibrox moaning about how little he had to spend compared to Celtic. And yet, in his short time in charge, he spent nearly £17 million. That’s an astounding sum on top of Beale’s £18 million. And the signings? Almost completely disastrous. Two-thirds of that went on just three players—Diomande, Bajrami, and Oscar Cortes. Do any of them look worth the money? I think they’ve been awful signings. Almost all of them have been.

What’s worse, Clement hasn’t significantly improved any of the players he inherited. That’s 16 months down the drain, along with a fortune.

Some will say, “Yeah, but Celtic have spent more this year in the last two windows than all three of those managers combined.”

That’s not quite true, but it’s not far off.

But here’s the key difference: we’ve posted profits in every window. Some of the players we’ve signed have already gone on to be exceptionally valuable. And let’s not forget, we had a wasted summer when all eight of our signings turned out to be underwhelming, and a senior staff member lost his job because of it.

As true as it is that we’ve spent almost as much in one season as those three managers combined, you need to consider that they weren’t just up against Celtic. Yes, their records against us have been poor. But none of them were sacked just for that. They were sacked because they couldn’t consistently beat everyone else.

And when you look at the money those three managers spent, it’s staggering. Each individual has spent cash which amounts to the annual football department running costs of a club like Hearts or Aberdeen—not their transfer budget, but their entire operational budget. No manager at any other club in Scotland, apart from Celtic, could dream of that kind of spending.

It’s inexcusable for anyone at Ibrox to plead poverty. It’s beyond belief that they have the audacity to claim they’ve been financially outgunned when they compete in a league where the average club barely spends a penny on transfers.

Hibs ran up debts of £7 million last year, and the media had a collective meltdown. But you don’t see that money on the pitch because it wasn’t spent on huge transfer fees or massive wages.

Yet, if you look at Ibrox’s debt figures over the last few years, you can see exactly where every penny went—straight into a black hole of failure. It’s all there, in their playing squad, on paper, and on the training ground every day.

That’s the real disaster over there.

Coaches who can’t improve players, so they spend more money instead. Van Bronckhorst gets a little leeway because at least he brought some money in. But his own signings were poor, and he couldn’t improve his squad either. That club has brought in a ridiculous number of signings in the last three managerial reigns and yet they still cry about how they’ve been financially outgunned? It’s nonsense.

They’ve had a net spend in the tens of millions while we’ve run sustainably. They’ve spent vastly more than any other Scottish club—100 times more in some cases—while still getting beaten by them.

They need to get over themselves. They need to stop whining and wallowing in self-pity. And they need to face an uncomfortable truth—if they hadn’t overspent, if they hadn’t splurged more than £30 million above and beyond what they’ve earned in transfers, what kind of state would they actually be in?

Better financially. But on the field? Disastrous.

And if the Americans who’ve taken over intend to run the club on a break-even basis times are about to get a whole lot tougher. Because the next Ibrox manager might actually learn what being outgunned in the transfer market really looks like.

Photo by Serena Taylor/Newcastle United via Getty Images

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