Last week, an ex-Ibrox coach drove a sledgehammer through their “trading strategy.”

So, here at the start of the week, the talk of the town, as far as Celtic goes, has been about the number of players we’ve been linked with—some of whom have allegedly slipped out of our grasp because we’re not willing to pay over-inflated transfer fees for guys who simply aren’t worth it.

This is exactly why you have alternative targets. This is why you go for more than one player at a time—something we appear to be doing on the right-hand side of the pitch. If so, then that’s all to the good, because we can’t afford to get sucked into one of these stupid auctions. We don’t have the time for that.

Some clubs learn these lessons the hard way. I think Brøndby probably has, in terms of the fee they got for Kvistgaarden, which we talked about yesterday. Other clubs who’ve tried to drag Celtic into auctions are similarly going to suffer. Motherwell may be one of them, in relation to Lennon Miller.

For some clubs, getting bitten once is enough.

They never forget. But for others, they keep making the same mistakes over and over again. And one club in particular—the one across the city—just can’t stop doing it. And the reason they can’t stop doing it is because they spend far too long looking over the fence at what we’re doing and trying to copy it.

Earlier in the window, they had a deal virtually done for Cyriel Dessers who was going to AEK Athens—until the Ibrox club jacked up the price in an attempt to squeeze a few extra quid out of the Greeks.

The Greeks walked away. And although there was some talk that the deal might still be resurrected, the AEK boss made it fairly clear they’ve moved on. But far worse for the Ibrox club has happened in relation to Igamane.

That was a deal meant to do two things.

First, it would show they had a sustainable transfer trading policy. Second, it would give the manager enough cash that some members of the board could pretend he’d received the bulk of the so-called £20 million investment. Igamane was wanted by Lille, and most people assumed the deal would go through.

But Lille did what any sensible club would do—they baulked at the size of the fee the Ibrox club was asking, reportedly somewhere in the region of £15 million.

The French club decided there was no way they were going to pay that, and they made that plain by turning to alternative targets. As any club would do. As we ourselves reportedly did when Rapid Vienna try to hold our feet to the fire.

That doesn’t leave the Ibrox club with anywhere to go, because despite a lot of chatter about English clubs being interested, nobody’s actually made a bid for the guy. So that interest isn’t as apparent as the media was hoping it would be—and in fact, it might not even be real at all.

They were already in a mad scramble to try and get something over the line here, because the economics of it are obvious.

They’ve signed a bunch of players. They’re still trying to sign players. And they’ve yet to get one of these so-called “saleable assets” out the door. The need for that is obvious—in terms of FSR compliance, avoiding another multi-million pound loss, and as proof that their so-called strategic pivot is actually working.

But because they see Celtic realising huge sums for players, they fall into a familiar trap. This was expected. On this blog, we predicted it, pretty much to the letter. But what none of us could have predicted was the intervention of someone who, from the Ibrox point of view, was about as welcome as a visit from Freddy Krueger.

Under normal circumstances, when a media personality talks about a footballer’s valuation, most of us roll our eyes.

As regular readers will know, I was severely pissed off when Pat Bonner attempted to issue his own valuation of Nicolas Kühn. I think that played into a public perception of what the club valued him at. We got slightly more money than Bonner and others had predicted, and with sell-on fees, add-ons and clauses based on appearances, we’ll probably end up with about what we expected.

But unless an opinion like that goes viral and gets repeated widely, it’s usually worthless. When it becomes dangerous for the club involved is when the person doing the talking isn’t just a pundit, but someone who knows more than the average man on the street.

Clubs won’t usually listen to pundits when they’re thinking about buying a player. But what directors will listen to—and what managers will be urged to consider—is when the commentator is a former coach at the club, who’s seen the player up close and personal, and then goes on the radio and absolutely trashes the valuation. That’s exactly what Billy Dodds did on BBC Radio Scotland last week.

Whatever you think of Dodds as a pundit—or even as a coach—this is a guy who’s been a manager, who’s worked in a dugout, who’s watched players in that capacity. And when he makes a claim like that, people should sit up and take notice.

This is someone who watched Igamane at close quarters last season. Someone who could dismiss the media noise and see what was actually there. Worse still, he’s telling the club itself to get real.

Who would know better than someone who was inside the walls? Who watched the guy on the training pitch and in competitive games? Who knows his strengths and weaknesses—and who clearly knows that he’s not worth anywhere near that kind of money?

Every club out there who has any interest in the player will now have heard what Dodds said. And that’s the problem for Ibrox—because many of them will listen.

Just as interesting as what Dodds said is why he said it. Maybe he was just being honest. Maybe he was asked for an opinion and gave it.

But it might also be something else.

It might be the words of a man who thought he and his colleagues deserved a chance to prove themselves to the new regime—only to be chucked out and left to rot. And now he’s setting fire to the curtains on his way out the door.

If that’s the case, then look out for more interventions—maybe not on this specific subject, but on others, from Neil McCann and Barry Ferguson.

If this is about their unceremonious dumping, it won’t be the last we hear. And once that club finds itself in a sticky patch during the campaign, these guys might be inclined to put a little blood on the walls.

That’s going to be an interesting dynamic, especially in a media environment where so many ex-Ibrox players know each other, and where the general consensus was that Ferguson and his team had done enough to merit at least a short-term chance.

What’s clear is that this is a rotten start to their selling strategy.

Dodds’ intervention has taken something that was already difficult and made it virtually impossible. And although they still have a few players they might be able to drum up interest in—like Igamane, like Raskin, like Diomande—the truth is, nothing should sell quicker, or better, or easier than an up-and-coming star striker.

That’s how this guy’s been marketed: a superstar in the making. And if they’re overvaluing him, they’ve got no chance of getting an eight-figure fee for anyone else.