Steven Naismith has been re-writing history around the liquidation of Rangers and his refusal to TUPE over to the new club formed by Charles Green.
The injury prone striker was recovering from knee surgery when Ally McCoist’s side crumbled under the pressure of Celtic putting together a winning run.
A 15 point advantage at the top of the SPL in November was turned into a one point deficit when Joe Ledley scored the only goal of the game in the final match of 2011.
Rookie boss Coisty couldn’t cope with the momentum that Celtic had built up with the house of cards finally tumbling on Valentine’s Day. From September Rangers had failed to pass on Income Tax and National Insurance payments to Her Majesty with Duff & Phelps called in in a bid to protect Her May and 275 other creditors.
Naisy took a pay cut in return for being made available for a cut price fee in the close season but when the new club was formed he walked away to Everton and a bumper pay day.
Picking up on his appearance on the Lockdown podcast The Sun reports Naisy saying:
In the January, when it all kicked off, they said they were going to do X, Y and Z just to get the club on a good footing.
We were told nothing would change, we’d move forward, and everything would be fine and be plain sailing come the summer.
I mean, we were 15 points clear at the top of the league at the time but after administration, the boys would only train twice a week. Two days a week they’d be out on the grass.
I was injured at the time and in the gym but the team would go into a Saturday game and it was crazy. Results just nose-dived and it got worse and worse and worse.
My mates would be going to games and hear stories about the administrators, and be buzzing thinking things were moving forward but we’d go in the next week and it would be totally different, it was a mess.
As a squad of players we were trying everything we could, from taking pay cuts and other legal things that could be done to save jobs but at the end of the day they’d just turn around and say ‘no, we don’t really want to do that.’
In my opinion they had an end-game they were always sticking to. The collateral damage was going to be the fans, the club, the squad, everything.
We were all guys who loved being at Rangers having supported the club, and all wanted to do well but in the background there were people in charge doing what they could to get what they could get out of the club.
For the club to lose £70m in the next two years, being in the bottom division in Scotland, is incredible. That tells the full story
Alongside Steven Whittaker wee Naisy called an emotional media conference to announce that he wouldn’t be joining Charles Green’s new club. Kyle Lafferty and Allan McGregor did the same without calling a media conference.
