Michael Beale has confirmed that there will be minimal transfer activity at Ibrox in January.
A massive overhaul had been anticipated but with no sellable players and UEFA Sustainability rules in place restricting director loans the new Ibrox boss is hoping for a miracle in the treatment room.
Tom Lawrence, John Souttar, Filip Helander, Ridvan Yilmaz, Ianis Hagi and Kemar Roofe have managed 25 minutes of football since the start of September but Beale is expecting them to return in January, apparently as new signings to use a tired old untruth/cliche.
Speaking to The Sun, Beale admitted:
Some players coming back will be like new signings. I’m not saying there won’t be anything in January, I’m just not going to commit to it because I don’t know what’s available.
With the forward positions, even in a week’s time, if Antonio Colak and Kemar come back for Motherwell, all of a sudden that looks like everybody is in a reasonably good place.
And we know Tom and Ianis are due back in the coming weeks. The midfield and defensive area probably needs to clear up in terms of people being fit and healthy and available consistently.
Delaying the rebuild is going to put severe pressure on transfer guru Ross Wilson, the man that signed the players whose form resulted in the sacking of Giovanni van Bronckhorst.
They may see the return from injury of all these players but none one are the standard of Calmac so expect lots of “need time to bed in” and “it takes time to get fully match fit”.
Saying that, the plain truth is that these guys are guff anyway but the way the media’s historical love and adulation of anyone playing in blue combined with inability of the ibrox supporters to think rationally means, well, you know how this ends.
Incidentally, if Scottish officials and the SFA/SPFL were fair and non sectarian Sevco would struggle to make the top three