Paul Lambert has dismissed Rangers bid for Grant Holt but joked that he’d help his skipper move to Celtic!
A £1m bid from Rangers for the 29-year-old was instantly dismissed by the Canaries as the Ibrox side searched for a replacement for Everton-bound Nikica Jelavic.
Ally McCoist was unable to add a forward to his squad despite stating that he wanted to bring in two new strikers during the transfer window with the bid for Holt never likely to succeed.
“The Rangers bid was nowhere near our valuation,” the former Celtic skipper confirmed. “I told Grant what was going on and he gave absolutely no indication that he wanted to talk to them.
“If he had it might have been different. A move to Rangers might have been attractive to a lot of players but they are not as strong as they used to be.
“Everybody wants to play in the Premier League and Grant is no different.
“He has waited a long time to get into the Premier League and it’s great for him to be playing here, considering where he has come from.
“So while it was a flattering offer, I never expected him to want to leave. Mind you, if it had been Celtic I would have driven him up there myself!”
Holt was in the Norwich side that beat Bolton 2-0 yesterday with Lambert’s side sitting comfortably in ninth place well clear of the relegation dogfight.
Since taking over as manager from Bryan Gunn Lambert has enjoyed almost constant success with yesterday’s three points especially satisfying for the Norwich boss.
Lambert added: “In my time, which is nearly three seasons now, that’s as good as it’s been because of the circumstances and the desire they showed.
“They were brilliant. They were fantastic. It’s a blow when you lose your two centre-backs. I can’t remember that happening to me before.
“The two lads who went off are big, big players and Bolton are a big side. It showed the desire of the lads to not get beaten.
“We deserved to win the game. I thought we were dominant, and we might have got another couple of goals.”
CLICK HERE for Lennon: Rangers brought it on themselves
CLICK HERE for Butcher: It was like a training session for Celtic
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Nice one Joe….
“I’D HAVE DRIVEN HIM UP MYSELF”….Magic….
Well done to Paul….this is a fantastic achievement
by him…
Might get Manager of the Year.
Paul at his best! why would Holt even want to go there? as for the £1m offer who were Rankers trying to kid, if Jelly was valued at £10m & they make an insulting offer like that. Nothing new even Dundee utd & ST Johnstone where p@ssed at them.
While rangers valued Jelavic at £10M, nobody else did! They got probably twice or three times his real value when they got £6M for him. Whyte held off as long as he could to play mind games with the fans, but these games all backfire with results like the one today, the first game after the window closes! Whyte knew all along there was no way rangers were bringing a replacement in.
Unlike many, I really do believe the game will suffer with their financial demise. Few people outside of Scotland are interested in our game as it is, and you have to remember there is only one reason any “care” about rangers today, and it has nothing whatsoever to do with football! The silly infantile SFA, SPL help rangers have enjoyed over the years is what killed the game. They hate us, so now they will be meeting to see what can be done to slow us down. Make no mistake about that!
As the disgraceful fiasco in the “trial” of the thug who was allowed to attack Neil Lennon, the anti-Celtic drive in small-minded Scotland goes well beyond the SFA and the SPL. People with more power than they have pull those strings!
The “establishment” goes beyond the footballing corridors in Scotland. But hey have a massive dilemma now. Do they start to play fair and treat all teams the same, or do they watch their “rolled-up trouser leg” investments go down the pan even more?
The placement of a bigot, and known anti-Celtic ref, hugh dallas, at the head of refereeing groups, sent a very clear message to Celtic. “We are in control of you”. His exposure should have been their wake-up call, the exposure of the corruption shoud have made them understand that in this day and age, religious bigotry, racist behaviour etc., has no place in World Football.
Scotland remains in the dark ages and the sad part is, those who keep it there have no vision to change that. Can you imagine hw much wrse this woud get with “independence”?
Independence would be a nightmare scenario for all things timmy.
SNP are a popularist party & we need look no further than the destroying of crime figures to see their intent.
However, what next for rangers from our point of view is an easy question to answer.
Rules are rules, they should be applied equally to everyone, if that means they go out of business & start in lower divisions so be it.
We don’t need them & I for one don’t want them.
We know what they bring, baggage we could all do without
They have been protected for years. The arrival of fergus was the beginning of their end though it didn’t seem like it at the time.
He had strategy & guts to take on & beat the SFA. His marker was laid down.
My sincere hope is that with thee end game for them upon us, we stay resolute & do the right thing-finish them for good!
The last two posts have reached a new level in absurdity, with the “how much worse it will be after independence” , would you lads like the status quo? Have us subjugated by a Westminster government all wrapped up in the butchers apron, have us partitioned like Ireland where the Westminster government introduced the orange order as an auxillary force, which in turn created the religious divide that we have today, or would you rather live in a country that tries to be all encompassing and inclusive of all cultures.
To get back onto the subject I believe Rangers had to be seen as trying to get a replacement for Jelavic, but a derisory offer for a striker who is by all accounts ‘cutting the mustard’ in the English premier league was never going to be bought for £1 million.
Then the PR division went into overdrive to blame Jelavic himself for instigating the move, before that fell flat when he was given newspaper inches in English papers to tell his side, and low and behold it comes out that it wasn’t anything to do with the cheeky chappie it’s all down to Big Bad Craig Whyte the evil chairman, not releasing funds.
I do agree with Gerry in the fact that we must see Rangers as an entity and rotten institution finished and resigned to the history books.