Newspapers carry stories about murmurings of discontent. Letters pages show “concern” from Rangers fans all because we haven't bought a “big name” player or splashed out mega millions in doing so.
The one thing PLG coming to Ibrox has shown me is that a large proportion of our support simply cannot handle prudency in the transfer market.
Now whether this is down to Murray not giving PLG “decent” money OR as I suspect more to do with the way PLG works is not the point iIwish to debate.
We have been spoiled for near on 20 years of multi million pound signings.
We have had periods of unrivalled dominance over the East End abusers.
We spent money as if it was going out of fashion from Souness to Smith to Advocaat and even to a certain extent McLeish.
We now have a manager who for the first time in 20 years is NOT a reckless spender.
He has a degree in economics and knows the value of money.
He has a strict signing policy of targetting potential and youth rather than the so called finished article.
He has all the qualities that had many fans drooling when we were first seriously linked with him.
Comments were appearing about his ability to nurture young talent and sell it for millions.
Great with youth and will give it a chance etc etc
We now find ourselves in a VERY VERY enviable situation by having PLG as our manager and yet large chunks of our support simply cannot handle his methods.
Ironic and embarrassing that the very ideals we preached for and demanded from Murray are now the very ideals which are splitting the support.
In over 20 years of reckless spending did we ever make a European Final let alone win anything of note?
Did we get 9 in a row by spending millions or were we simply lucky that Celtic went through the most unstable financial position in their history. Culminating in near bankruptcy.
Also it was a time when stadia had to be upgraded to meet the requirements of the Taylor Report so our rivals didn't have the cash we had. Thanks to the foresight of Mr Waddell we already had our all seated stadium.
So my summary on the matter is this.
Do we want a return to the boom and bust days of Souness,Smith and Advocaat. Get ourselves in to serious debt chasing the dream with (and I will admit) the first manager I think is actually capable of doing it.
Or do we preach the caution we stated on here a few short months ago.
Do we persist with the policy of identifying youth and potential and being prudent with our money instead of reckless.
Or is it simply that our noses are out of joint because the mhedia spin says Celtic have spent millions in the market and we haven't. Ironic that considering all our dealings have been effectively “low key” we are still bigger net spenders than Celtic this year.
I suspect that a lot of our fans simply cannot let go of the halcyon years of huge transfer fees,big name signings and ultimately failure in Europe. Sometimes on an embarrassing scale considering the money we spent.
Only a few days ago figures were being bandied about that Austria Vienna wanted £900,000 for Papac. We have got him for around £450,000.
We have also sold Namouchi for £450,000.
That is effectively one player with no future sold and one with a future bought for the same price.
That in my eyes is excellent business and I believe that it is the ONLY way Rangers can conduct their future transfer business if we are to succeed to some degree in Scotland and Europe consistently.
Adoniram.