McCoist demands £30m to challenge 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.