The Poku failure already asks hard questions of the Ibrox board and its manager.

One of the more amusing sagas of last week revolved around Kwame Poku, the Peterborough winger who was, according to reports, all but signed by the club from Ibrox—until he wasn’t.

I wrote about this last week when The Daily Record decided to ask Barry Fry if we had made a bid for him. We’re looking for a player on that side of the pitch and yet we had somehow overlooked a global superstar available for a knock-down fee.

There was excitement at Ibrox. A done deal, said the usual suspects. A certainty. A player committed to Ibrox and who had turned down over a dozen other clubs, with the transfer machinery over there just starting to roll into gear.

Then the whole thing fell to bits, with the player instead unveiled at Loftus Road. Queens Park Rangers instead of the Glasgow club which kids on it’s Rangers. And just like that, the Ibrox club went from smug to snubbed in the time it takes to refresh a Twitter feed. QPR even took a wee shot at them over it.

The reaction to this has been muted.

The media has reacted to it as though in the huff. His name dropped out of their stories earlier in the week just before the news emerged from England that he was set to snub them. I understand the media’s reticence to talk too much about it. It’s the same week in which another of their targets, Josh Mulligan, signed for Hibs.

This is all very strange, because we were all told not long ago that the player was Russell Martin’s man, a priority target. A wide option with goals and assists in him. A perfect replacement for Cerny. He was in the League One Team of the Year, no less. A key part of the summer rebuild. And now? A cautionary tale in how to lose a transfer without making a sound. The Ibrox club haven’t just missed out on a player. They’ve made themselves look amateurish. Again.

There’s something almost poetic about it.

If you believe the hype, they had the deal in the bag. It was all moving in the right direction. Poku wanted the move. Cross-border compensation meant he could be had for a fee that wouldn’t even make a dent in the alleged £20 million war chest the media keeps insisting is there.

And yet the club managed to bungle it in spectacularly quiet fashion. These Americans who are supposed to be elite operators just couldn’t make a convincing case, and it was all just allowed to die away on its own. No statements. No clarification. Just the player posing in the blue and white hoops of QPR while fans of the Ibrox club try to convince themselves he wasn’t that good anyway.

Let’s be clear: this isn’t just about one player.

This is about what it says. About the process. About whether Russell Martin is actually being backed. Or whether this is just more of the same from a board that replaced one which had become increasingly synonymous with delay, dithering, and dysfunction. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

Because this was the easy one. This wasn’t a £12 million tug of war with Ajax. This was a young winger from England’s third tier who had a decent record and should have seen the move to a club playing in Europe as a no-brainer. There wasn’t even a fee to get tangled up in, and so he’d have had re-sale potential.

And still, the Ibrox club didn’t get it done.

You must wonder how Martin feels about that. He’s a mild-mannered guy, or at least he seems that way. But even the calmest of men would be forgiven for asking a few pointed questions when one of his top targets slips away with barely a fight?

Did QPR offer a fee they didn’t want to match? I read last night that’s it less than £1 million, and you’d think the billionaires from San Franscisco could afford that.

Did they underestimate the other clubs in the race?

Did they think a nod from their director of football was enough to scare off the likes of QPR? If so, they’ve badly misread the room.

Timing is everything in football. Especially in June.

The club from Ibrox is on the verge of European qualifiers which could define their season, financially and reputationally. The rebuild was supposed to be well underway by now. Instead, they’re scrambling to replace the players they’ve lost while explaining to the manager that, no, he won’t be getting the winger he wanted. It’s not exactly what you’d call backing him to the hilt.

If anything, it reeks of a board either asleep at the wheel or unwilling to put their foot down on the accelerator.

The truly hilarious part is that this happens every year. A player gets linked, fans get excited, media lap it up, and then—poof. Gone. Usually to a club with less of a transfer kitty but more competence.

And then comes the rationalisation. The mental gymnastics. “He wasn’t that good anyway.” “We’ve got better.” “It’s not a loss, it’s a blessing.”

Except that it is a loss. Because the Ibrox club are not in a position where they can fail to close deals like this and pretend that everything is fine. Not when their European campaign is weeks away. Not when every penny counts. Not when the manager is trying to instil belief in his own vision.

It raises a deeper question too—what kind of project is being sold here? Is this the bold new era that was promised? Is this the board learning from past mistakes? Because from the outside it looks like more of the same: half-baked negotiations, a lack of urgency, and the manager left to piece together a squad with whatever’s left once the dust settles.

If Poku was truly a top target, this is a disaster. If he wasn’t, then what were they doing leaking to the press that the deal was all but done?

At some point, someone has to take responsibility for not closing out a deal they should have had wrapped up days ago. This wasn’t a tough one. This was basic execution. And they fluffed it. Which leads us to the inevitable conclusion—either the board doesn’t believe in Russell Martin’s plan, or they’re simply not competent enough to deliver it. Either way, it’s not a good look.

So yes, the club from Ibrox missed out on Kwame Poku.

But what they really missed out on was a chance to show that this time, finally, they know what they’re doing. That they can act with intent. That when they identify a player, they can actually get him. That they’re serious about giving their manager the tools to do the job. Instead, they’ve given him another reminder of what happens when you believe your own PR and forget to finish the paperwork.

If this is backing the manager, you’d hate to see what sabotage looks like.