Neil Lennon has reminded Ibrox fans of one of the greatest ever quotes from David Murray.
‘For every five pound that Celtic spend we will spend ten’ became a phrase forever associated with the Edinburgh based businessman.
In his pomp, backed by the unquestioning Bank of Scotland, it came to symbolise the triumphalism of the club as they attempted to wipe Celtic off the footballing map.
After the financial crash of 2008 Lloyds TSB took on Murray’s toxic empire and suddenly that quote had a fresh look as the chickens came home to roost at Ibrox. In 2011 Murray sold up for one pound with the club put into liquidation just over a year later.
The old rivalry is apparently back on the dance-floor, fighting it out for honours and trophies according to some. Conveniently overlooking the fact that Celtic’s income is three times that on the Ibrox side and that the hoops have swept up the last nine domestic trophies.
Apparently £3.5m is about to be spent on Filip Helander from Bologna which has sparked the idea of an ‘arms race’ as the two rivals slug it out for players, trophies and glory!
Lennon lived through the Ibrox summer spending sprees of 2010 and 2011 as Celtic lived within their means and repeated those economic lessons to The Scotsman today.
I can’t affect what Rangers do. It’s not one of those situations where if they spend £4m, then we want to spend £8m. It’s not like that. We just want to get the right players in if the price is good and we think there’s quality and re-sellable value in them as well.
We have to focus on ourselves. You can’t affect what’s going on elsewhere. You can’t – and we won’t. We might be [going for the same players] but that creates its own issues. Sometimes agents play one against another and I don’t want to get involved in any of that nonsense either.
We’ve got four or five days [until the next Uefa deadline] and you can do a deal in three or four hours. It’s a question of whittling it down: is this the right price, the right age and the right wage?
We have to filter that all down and have been agonising over a lot of players over the last two or three weeks. We want to get it right. Not just for the sake of short-term.There’s a lot of work being done in the background. We had a four-hour recruitment meeting on Wednesday on two positions. It’s quite energy-sapping sometimes.
So far this summer Celtic have committed £10m to signing three players, across the city Steven Gerrard has signed seven players for an outlay of £1m.
