Ally McCoist wants £30m to make Sevco able to compete with Celtic.
The madhouse economics of Dave Murray seem to have had no impact on the Ibrox boss just weeks after his players were involved in a conceptual discussion with chief executive Graham Wallace, who once worked for Manchester City, about pay cuts.
McCoist backed the players decision to reject the conceptual discussion with time running out as quickly for Wallace as the funds in the clubs account with Metro Bank.
While Celtic have had to buy and sell players like Aiden McGeady, Gary Hooper and Victor Wanyama to build up their current squad but it’s only buying players that interests the current Ibrox boss.
Since moving into management McCoist has spent a fortune on stars like Matt Mackay, Juan Ortiz, Alejandro Bedoya, Lee Wallace, Dorin Goian, Dean Shiels, Fran Sandaza, Kevin Kyle, Dick Forster, Steven Smith, Carlos Bocanegra, Mervan Celik, Anestis Argyriou, Seb Faure, Arnold Peralta, Nicky Clark, Cameron Bell, Ian Black, Steve Simonsen and Emilson Cribari. None of those players have attracted a single offer.
The realities of management and budgeting seem lost on McCoist, as he looked back on administration of the old club it seems that repeating the errors of the past is inevitable- should be ever be able to sign any more players.
“If you lose, maybe, in the region of £30m worth of players if you combine them all in Steven Whittaker, Nikica Jelavic, Steve Davis, Allan McGregor and all these boys, I would think it certainly needs to get replaced,” the former Question of Spork skipper said. “I’m not saying £30m is the figure at all, but that’s roughly what we’ve lost.
“Some will argue it might be more than that and some might say a little bit less, but my point is you can’t lose that, not replace it and expect to compete at the top level.
“If we get investment and funding, then I’d be very hopeful that we’d obviously be in the top league and that we’d also have a better chance of bringing in the quality of player to hopefully enable us to compete at the top level in the top league.”
Despite having the walk-away stars in 2011/12 under McCoist the club crashed out of four cups in seven months and threw away a 15 point lead in the SPL to trail Celtic by five points before Duff & Phelps came to the rescue.
Where the figure of £30m comes from is anyone’s guess with only Allan McGregor of the walk-away players being transferred on when Hull paid Besiktas £1.5m for the keeper. It’s unlikely that Southampton, Norwich or Everton would be difficult to deal with if offers came in for Davis, Whittaker or Naismith.
In January 2012 former Sevco chief executive Charles Green promised McCoist a £30m warchest before resigning three months later.
Despite having a conveyor belt of talent coming through from Murray Park McCoist wants a new scouting network to help his spending plans.
With Kenny McDowall, Ian Durrant, Gordon Durie, Billy Kirkwood, Jim Stewart and Jim ‘star spotter’ Sinclair and others at the club McCoist has a ready made team of experts to discover new players but as ever the Ibrox boss wants more and more regardless of whether it’s affordable or not.
“There are a lot of things that need to be brought to the table,” the £825,000-a-year manager added. “Such as scouting which needs addressed imminently, particularly now as we are heavily into the rebuilding process for the club, short, middle and long-term.
“If we’ve not got a scouting department, which we don’t have, then that is plainly far from ideal.
“It’s absolutely staggering we don’t have a scouting department but I have to say, through no fault of Graham or anyone on the board but it is our problem which needs addressed.”
Before February is out it’s likely that McCoist will have far bigger issues to deal with than how he can scout the next Arnold Peralta.
he lives in a wibbly-wobbly world of his own.
Naw, he lives in Greggs!
The way our current team is being demolished it will not take £30m to challenge us, our board need to start bringing good players in and get rid of the dead wood,Ramgers will be back challenging us In 2 yrs, we should have been miles in front of them, 10 I a row is something I would love to see happen ( hopefully will ) but our board needs to start showing ambition
our squad is not too bad and we do have good players throughout our squad. All we are missing is 2 key players which have to be of a very high standard, which is a playmaker and a top striker. If we can sign these players we would destroy every team in Scotland and win the trebles we should be winning. The board must realise this and push the boat out and try and get theses players, no 2 million buys but 5 to 6 million is needed and im not talking about our whole team just these 2 very important players we badly need.
hail hail
Tony Watt is the missing link up front and I’m sure he’ll be the answer we’re looking for as long as Lenny gives him a chance, he’s done very well in Belgium and has it all in his locker, agree we need a midfield playmaker, we brought Johansson in as that but he looks far too lightweight and just hope he’s not another Pukki ?
But my real worry is if we lost VVD and Forster in the summer who would we replace them with ? IMO we’re a weaker team than we were 13 months ago and that can’t continue to happen or we’re going backwards no matter how much money we have in the bank.
Brian,
Keep the faith.The board will buy a quality
striker in the summer.Lawwell knows how
the fans feel.
Joe,hilarious piece on Sevco again.
I like your, “spent a fortune on stars ”
Each one on the list as bad and as ugly as
the next one.
Sleekit’s fear,like every Zombie, is us legally winning, the magical ‘ 10 ‘
With 7 to go,each passing year,will be like
a dagger through their hearts.
The board know the significance,of reaching ‘ 10’.
That’s why I feel,all our resources will be
directed towards this ultimate goal,in the
coming seasons.
shame about the debts they never paid, these people have no shame, there fans also say not the clubs fault, blake it on the banks for giving us the cash
But of course it’s a lot more than 30m. By the time you factor in signing on fees, bonuses and wages 5 players at 6m each (which doesn’t guarantee you quality) runs to about 45m by the time it’s all added up assuming they would all be on 2-3 year contracts never mind the 4 year ones that agents look for.
All of this guarantees nothing in terms of trophies, since 2/3 injuries almost leaves you back where you started so roll up roll up anyone who wishes to put 50m into this fiasco of an endeavour.
In all honesty by now, this clumpany needs to just bite the admin bullet again.
sally the del boy of Scottish football ” this time next year we will be millionaires” but on a serious note graham Wallace called an emergency meeting to show sally his latest pie chart(sally caught speeding) but to sally’s disappointment it was actually a pie chart showing costs of what in reality it costs to run a football club after you actually pay your bills, btw the chart was coloured by the face painter
Does anyone know where the accounts for Celtic for the period up to Christmas can be found or when? I can see merit in wiping out the last of the debt now and build our infrastructure to be able to dominate Scottish football even after Rangers can spend money again (£30m is a joke) rather than spend money that we don’t have in a league that we should win at a canter. In that respect Celtic and The All New Rangers are in the same position, reacting to it in entirely the opposite way.
I would say that we need a quality striker though. When Forster leaves, we will concede more. Throw in Van Dijk as well and the goals against could jump up. It’s alright winning by a goal just now, but if the defence is leaking, it wouldn’t do.
They did not “lose” Jelavic. The shameless bast@rd5 sold him for a profit while they still owed millions to Rapid for him. Tried to sign Grant Holt, stop sniggering, as his replacement. Then after Duff & Phelps showed up, they tried in vain to sign Dan Cousin!!!!!
You’re 100% right Joe. Dodgy Dave Murray would be proud.
This guy is hilarious, next week he will be saying he needs 40 million and the week after he’ll say he needs 20-25, and not one journalist will ask him where he gets these numbers from and why he picks these random contradictory numbers from thin air. All he cares about is his bank balance and being lauded by the same gullible support who lauded Craigy Bhoy like it’s some kind of achievement in life. Long may it continue!
I want a dinner date with Nigella Lawson, but that’s never going to fuckin happen either, Ally!!
30 million sally eh? How would you use that? 20 million in illegal EBTs, 8 million for the continued support of the sfa and refs, and the othe 2 million to bring in fifteen new players of higher quality than you have today.
You know what? That may just work!
You have to give the fat one some credit here. He knows that the fans have been gulled over and over again for several years but the time has come for a new attempt and lie and they need to be sucked in again so he is saying stuff that they want to hear.
He is dead right about one thing he said this week though. His Sevco are certainly not cup favourites! They aren’t even second, third, fourth, fifth or sixth favourites. They may be equal seventh. While we all know he secretly believes they are, let’s be honest with him. You have got no chance. We have a better chance and we are out!
Different rules for the ZOMBIES.
He knows they can get away with murder.
It won’t be their fault, got to feel sorry for their poor supporters ( Scottish media)
PATHETIC just like him !
( god knows what our fathers had to put up with, with out the internet and sky cameras) HH