‘Blatant cheating’ Durham failed to spot £65,000/week Ibrox loan star at Hampden

When it comes to hurting over another Celtic trophy success it is a close-run thing between Tom English and Adrian Durham.

Both pundits like to cultivate an image of being fearless and out-spoken as they hover around the fringes unable to get close to a worthwhile story.

To be fair to Durham he does survive in the real world, if his views didn’t attract advertisers to TalkSPORT he’d be out the door. With the comfort of the licence fee BBC Scotland can send English off to the ladies World Cup in France or the egg-chasing in Japan for weeks on end.

After Celtic’s win at Hampden English spewed out the sort of anger that you’d expect from a message board dedicated to the deluded world of Ibrox fans.

Durham had a little longer to gather his thoughts, when he let rip on Monday afternoon he was more off-target than a 20-yarder from Alfredo Morelos.

Picking up on his Drivetime rant The Sun reports Durham saying:

Now Fraser Forster is on £70,000 a week. Southampton are paying more than half of that wage. Is it really fair that he’s just kept goal for Celtic? Southampton have just won the cup for Celtic!

Isn’t that cheating? That’s BLATANT cheating! Isn’t it? They can’t afford to pay his wages so what’s he doing in the team?

Southampton deserve to have that trophy in their trophy cabinet for six months of the next 12. They do, it’s an absolute disgrace. Southampton are funding Celtic’s season. Southampton are funding Celtic’s title bid.

Celtic have registered Forster’s transfer, including full contract details, with the SFA and SPFL. He won’t be getting his wages topped up by an off-shore ‘tax free’ Trust that might rebound on him in a few years’ time.

If Durham wants to look into BLATANT CHEATING he might care to look back 19 years to how Ronald de Boer and Tore Andre Flo were lured to Ibrox from Barcelona and Chelsea.

Loan transfers have actually been legal for a long time and are used by many clubs. Some clubs use it well, others less so.

While Forster was pulling off incredible saves at Hampden other fans were trying to find evidence of Jermain Defoe being on the pitch at Hampden.

In January with 17 months to run on his lucrative Bournemouth deal the Cherries were desperate to get someone to offset some of the former England striker’s wages.

Defoe’s friendship with Steven Gerrard made a move to Ibrox likely with the League Cup runners-up paying out £65,000 per week for the veteran.

In fairness to Defoe he did make it onto the pitch at Hampden (replacing Glen Kamara after 71 minutes), Liverpool starlet Sheyi Ojo watched the whole match from the bench while Leicester City play-maker was last seen on September 23 making an 18 minute substitute appearance away to Livingston in the doomed League Cup bid.

After watching a penalty shoot-out at Hampden in April 2016 Durham tipped Mark Warburton as a future England international manager.