Furious Andy Halliday hits out at disastrous Ibrox recruitment

Andy Halliday has blamed the Ibrox board for the 12-point swing that has left Celtic within touching distance of lifting the SPFL title. 

A year ago Steven Gerrard’s squad were two straight-forward Champions League qualifiers away from reaching the lucrative group stage of the Champions League. 

Apparently Gerrard’s side had been stunning in the Europa League with diddies like Malmo not going to put up the sort of opposition that had been swept aside during three thrilling Europa campaigns. 

Having failed to bring in a fee of more than £1m since Wigan swooped for Josh Windass the Ibrox board had coughed up £23.5m in order to give Gerrard the title that he craved. 

Rather than spend again on talent for the Champions League, transfer guru Ross Wilson snapped up John Lundstram and Fashion Sakala. 

When the 10 men of Malmo won at Ibrox in August panic set in. The spending stopped, Mister Gerrard walked away with Giovanni van Bronckhorst walking into another disastrous transfer window in January. 

Listening to Halliday on Open Goal, the Daily Record reports the True Blue Hearts midfielder saying: 

You look at back at January when Rangers had that lead. Celtic brought in Hatate, Ideguchi, Maeda; they improved their team, improved their squad, improved their starting 11. 

Rangers brought in Diallo, who’s not kicked a ball, played about one game. Ramsey has started three games and now we’re in April. 

The Polish back-up right-back (Mateusz Zukowski) has started one game and it was against Annan. And Sands who’s hardly played. So that was what Rangers added to their squad. 

Celtic added four guys who improved their starting 11. Since then there’s been that swing. 

So for me, criticism for the board, criticism for people who are making decisions in terms of recruitment, and obviously the staff and players will get it as well. 

I can’t remember the last time Rangers spent a transfer fee. Rangers bought Kemar Roofe and Cedric Itten because they thought Alfredo Morelos was leaving. They brought them in to replace him but they’re nowhere near the same team when Morelos isn’t playing 

Transfer fees were paid last January to bring in Jack Simpson and Scott Wright to give them six months at the club ahead of the Champions League qualifiers.