Joleon Lescott has dealt a devastating blow to Mark Warburton’s Champions League hopes by walking out on a deal to join the Sevco revolution.
Warbo made a not so secret dash south of the border on Wednesday to use his wit and charm to convince the former England defender to take a £30,000 a week pay cut with Aston Villa offering to pay half that figure to dispose of Lesco.
At yesterday’s media conference former city trader Warbo was in good form as he talked up a dream ticket defensive pairing of Lescott and Clint Hill.
When it came to putting pen to paper on a deal this morning the 34-year-old did an about turn forcing the friends of Sevco into a shambolic damage limitation exercise.
Rather than question how a club with a going concern warning against their accounts can afford another £500,000-a-year on their wage bill it was the big book of excuses that came into play.
First out of the traps were BBC Scotland claiming that the player had failed a medical, a very dangerous path for the state broadcaster to go down.
Family reasons were next up to explain to the gullible how their latest star signing had failed to put pen to paper. Having met Warbo on Wednesday and travelled to Glasgow on Thursday it’s unlikely that family reasons suddenly came into play on Friday morning.
Having been eased aside for the Aston Villa defender Phillipe Senderos is now the blue eyed boy while the slow moving saga to sign Joe Garner from Preston North End stretches into the weekend..
Where a £1.5m transfer fee emerged from is anyone’s guess, if Preston are having second thoughts about the credit worthiness of the club from Govan they should contact Rapid Vienna, St Etienne and Arsenal who all lost out financially when the original club liquidated in 2012.
On Thursday Warbo explained how he had convinced Lescott to move to Ibrox saying: “What we can do is look at what we can offer a player. We can offer a player an opportunity here that is maybe not on offer at that club. And maybe those clubs can sign more players to have bigger squads.
“If a player doesn’t buy into that, no problem, we shake hands and move on. You want players who want to be here, recognise an opportunity and see a role for themselves with Rangers.”
With less than a fortnight to go in the transfer window it seems certain that Warbo will need to recall his city trading skills if he is to acquire the players capable of steering Sevco to the SPFL and into next season’s Champions League qualifiers.
