Celtic’s Belgian midfielder has the right pedigree to succeed. Raskin plays one good game in ten.

You know what a good intelligence agent studies? Patterns. They look for signs. They watch how things move in a certain direction—how people, countries, or companies behave over and over again. Celtic bloggers? We also study patterns. And one of the most predictable patterns in Scottish football is the media massively overhyping certain Ibrox players after just a handful of good games.

The latest player to get the treatment is Nico Raskin. His so-called “impressive” performances include a couple against us and one halfway decent showing in Europe against Fenerbahçe. Based on that, he’s got a Belgian cap. Based on that, Ibrox fan sites are now claiming he’s a better footballer than Arne Engels. Plenty of people in the mainstream media are happy to go along for the ride.

Talk of him being worth £30 million has already been well covered by my good friend Eric Knott over on Read Celtic, and we discussed it last night on the podcast.

This is nothing new.

They’ve done it before and before and before with other players. We read all this nonsense about Morelos, about Kent, about Aribo, about Kamara. We read it about Tavernier. We read it about Goldson. We even read it about Raskin once before. Lately, we’ve heard it about Jefte, with claims Chelsea want him, and about Igamane, with the suggestion that all the top clubs in England are sniffing around him.

Every single one of those players has, at one time or another, been touted by the media as being worth £30 million. And that figure? Pulled straight out of thin air, based on one thing alone—the high fees Celtic have commanded for players like Dembele, Tierney, and Matt O’Riley. The logic is laughable: “If those guys are worth £20 million, then the Ibrox player must be worth £30 million.” It’s so predictable. And it’s the reason their transfer strategy has failed time and time again.

This is what they do over there. A player has a couple of good games, they slap an insane price tag on him, and any club that was actually interested just walks away. At £3-4 million, some of these guys might represent decent business. At £5 million, they might be seen as an investment—one that may or may not pay off. Anything above that, and it starts to look like you could do better elsewhere. Once you hit an eight-figure sum, it’s crazy talk. At £30 million? No one sane is paying that.

When the time comes to sell their best players, they need to generate profits that allow them to invest in new ones. But clubs don’t take them seriously when they hear those numbers. They see the fees being artificially inflated. They understand why it’s happening—it’s all about trying to match what Celtic have done.

What hasn’t dawned on the people touting this rubbish is that, for £30 million, there are dozens—if not hundreds—of better footballers out there.

You might argue that there are better players out there than Matt O’Riley, but he had two key advantages that Nico Raskin simply does not.

First, O’Riley had already played in England and had already been on the radar of top clubs. Secondly, in an era where Brexit is forcing clubs to make tougher decisions on signings, O’Riley is a unique case. He plays for Denmark but is actually English, meaning he counts as a domiciled player and doesn’t need a work permit. That’s a major selling point in the current market.

He also had the benefit of working under a top manager who helped develop him into an exceptional talent. There’s no doubt that Brendan Rodgers was the best thing to happen to O’Riley’s career. That’s not to say he wasn’t playing well before Rodgers arrived, but Rodgers took him to the next level. And who knows if he’d have succeeded under Ange, given the rumours that they didn’t exactly see eye to eye?

As for Engels, he’s been growing into this team before our very eyes. Over the past few months, we’ve watched him develop into a player who is going to be a major asset next season. Meanwhile, Ibrox sites were recently boasting that Engels cost as much as their entire midfield.

Well, yes, and the league table reflects the difference in quality. There isn’t a single player over there who will fetch the kind of fee Engels will one day command. His pedigree speaks for itself—he arrived at Celtic via the Bundesliga, and he’s at a club with a track record of developing and selling top players. That’s why it’s a no-brainer. That’s why it’s good business.

Raskin has a couple of strings to his bow. He works hard. He runs all day. But so does Daizen Maeda, and we all know Maeda is a far better player. Raskin makes as many mistakes as he makes key passes. When he’s put under pressure, he loses the ball too easily—he lacks composure.

That alone makes some of these comparisons laughable. But what’s even more ridiculous is that this is just the same old story on repeat. They do it over and over and over again, to the point that people outside Scotland just ignore it when the next Ibrox player is hyped to the max.

Raskin is in a decent run of form. So what?

Players go on purple patches. They have good runs of form. That does not automatically mean their transfer value skyrockets by 500%. This is a peculiarly Ibrox thing—hyped up by a media desperate to generate sellable assets where there are none. We know it. Other clubs know it. Because at the end of the day, the Daily Record reader isn’t the audience they need to convince.

The latest Trinity Tims podcast is out now.