Quintin Jardine's blog

I see that Ally McCoist is having trouble persuading people to sign for the once-mighty Rangers. (Note for foreign readers, among whom I include English; there are no such teams as ‘Glasgow Rangers’ or ‘Glasgow Celtic.’) Forty percent of the Scottish population will be laughing their rocks off at that, another forty percent will be in tears, and the rest of us will see it as comeuppance after years of arrogance. Some of us might also find it sad that Ally is spending his time chasing mediocre continentals who wouldn’t have been considered by the club in the days of Waddell, Souness and even Advocaat, when the market is awash with decent British players who are either unemployed or have been frozen out of their clubs by expensive foreign imports. For example, if I was Ally I’d be talking to the agents of at least two former England international centre-backs, and one current Scottish international centre-forward, and I’d be melting Kenny Dalglish’s mobile trying to get Joe Cole on loan. None of these guys would cost a penny in transfer fees, and in this market their wages would be negotiable also, on the basis that fifty per cent of something is better than a hundred per cent of bugger all.