AS RANGERS TAKEOVER HYPE FADES, MONEY TALKS, AND THE NEW OWNERS ARE SUDDENLY VERY QUIET
- BY LIAM CARRIGAN
- Jul 10
- 3 min read
It’s all about levels. That’s the recurring theme of Scottish football these days.
While Celtic get slated by some for (allegedly) only bidding £3.5 million for a player who, if reports from his homeland are to be believed, never wanted to come to Scotland anyway, across town there’s been a lot of noise, a lot of movement, but little of any consequence coming out of Ibrox.
After the Rangers Takeover, Are They Any Stronger? Are They a Bigger Threat?
Whilst it would seem Celtic have been more active, in pursuing new signings, Rangers have, so far anyway, got more deals over the line.
However, look at the profile of players they are signing, and look at the profile of players Celtic are getting linked with. Like I said earlier, it’s all about levels, and we are operating several levels above them.
Rangers have, with the exception of Lyal Cameron, who they signed on a free from Dundee, operated exclusively in the English transfer market.
Notably, the two players with the greatest market value Max Aarons and Nasser Dijga are loans, from Bournemouth and Wolves respectively.
Now, both of these are decent players, but do they actually enhance the overall level of the Rangers squad? I’m not so sure.
Ironically, Rangers' most expensive signing of this close season so far, and probably the most money they'll spend on one player all summer, is their mandatory purchase, following an utterly ineffectual loan spell, of winger Oscar Cortes.
Going the other way, despite the press doing their utmost to artificially inflate the values of players like Hamza Igamane, Mohamed Diomande and Cyril Dessers, the reality is Rangers would be lucky to get a combined £10-15 million for the three of them.
They might get another £5 or £6 million for Nico Raskin, but any interest in him seems to have gone quiet lately.
Celtic meanwhile have agreed a deal to sell one first team player and move on a couple of squad players for more than all of that. And with the greatest of respect to Nicholas Kuhn, in Benjamin Nygren we may have already found a suitable replacement, and for a fraction of that £17 million transfer fee.
Again, it’s all about levels.
We can quibble over who Celtic sign, and who we don’t. However, look at the clubs we are dealing with, and look at where business is being done from Ibrox.
We’re talking about players from Napoli, Rapid Vienna, Kawasaki Frontale. Meanwhile they’re buying from Luton and Peterborough.
Now, I’m not saying we should write them off completely, indeed recent experience tells us how dangerous it is to do that. What I am saying though, is that they are operating within a very restricted and regimented framework, that is several levels below where Celtic are trading.
I think the way in which the £20 million for Igamane story was basically laughed out of the room by everyone except their own board and supporters speaks to the reality in which this version of Rangers now operates.
One more time: it’s all about levels.
I have said all along, that if this Rangers takeover happened, and I’m still surprised it did in all honesty, then extreme austerity was the only way it could work.
We’ve even seen the usually positive, Pravda-esque writings of the likes of Keith Jackson taking on a more realistic tone in recent days.
Just this week, he spoke about new Rangers manager Russel Martin being “on a hiding to nothing”.
That’s not exactly the kind of “no surrender” rallying call the Ibrox incestuals have come to expect from their selected stenographer at this time of year.
As it was in 2020, Celtic’s biggest challenge next season won’t come from the denizens of Ibrox, it will come from ourselves.
They will only be competitive if we allow them to be. If we strengthen the team as we should, and the manager gets the players playing to the level we know they can, then the Championship shouldn't even be close.
However, we all know that, when it comes to Celtic, our biggest failures usually emanate from failure to build on a position of strength.
We should absolutely blow that mob away next season, but we also need to be cautious and make sure we get our business done properly, regardless of what they do.
