Quintin Jardine's blog

I know that Rangers signing options are constrained these days, but I can’t be the only person in Scotland to be astonished that they have been led to ease the problem by taking, on loan from Blackburn, one El-Hadji Diouf. A very good player no doubt, but this is the same El-Hadji Diouf, whose previous includes, a community service sentence in France for being involved in a road accident while driving without a licence,  telling a ball-boy at Everton to ‘**** off, white boy’, a suspension in England for spitting on an opponent, and a club fine, UEFA suspension and £5000 Sheriff Court fine in Glasgow for gobbing on Celtic fans during a UEFA Cup tie. The man is arguably the most hated footballer in England. Blackburn are off-loading him in the wake of his  latest outrage, abusing a fellow professional as he lay on the ground after suffering a double fracture of the leg. By every account, not a nice guy. Let’s face it, when Sam Allardyce, a man who has spent his entire management career going apeshit in the dug-out, considers sending someone to a shrink, that person must be an extreme case.

It may be that his latest move, to his ninth club in a twelve year career, will be the making of him. (On the other hand if he crosses Walter Smith or Ally McCoist it may well be the end of him.) But whether it is or not, and good player or not, I’m still asking myself why Rangers chose to import such a character, particularly one with a criminal conviction for assaulting fans of their great rival. Do they have no faith at all in their own youth development system?