Smith preaches financial prudence

[Jon 0]

Rangers manager Walter Smith has rationalised the club's failure to match Celtic's �£4.4m bid for Hibernian midfielder Scott Brown, explaining that a combination of prudence and pragmatism prevented him from raising the stakes.

 

The days when Ibrox chairman David Murray boasted that "for every fiver Celtic spend we'll spend a tenner" are long gone, and Smith pointed out that his squad needs strengthening in every area, a problem which precludes spending lavishly on individuals.

 

"When you have the number of players we need to get in, we don't have that amount of money to spend on one player," he said.

 

"It's got nothing to do with the club's financial position, it's to do with the use of the money we have available.

 

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"Any sensible person would look at the situation and say: 'If you have five players to bring in it wouldn't be very sensible if a large percentage of your budget went on one player.' [Celtic] have decisions to make which are different to the decisions we have to make, and we can't let that affect us in any way. It's disappointing because I think [brown] is a very good player."

 

Smith also stressed that the policy of settling the contracts of unsettled or unsuccessful signings has been discontinued and that the likes of Karl Svensson, Libor Sionko, Filip Sebo and Thomas Buffel must improve their contributions.

 

"We can instigate the buying of a player but not the selling of one," he said. "Rangers have paid players up before but there will be no more of that. If they don't go then they'll be here, it's as simple as that."

 

Rangers wind up their domestic campaign tomorrow with a visit to Aberdeen, who are one point ahead of Hearts as both attempt to secure the final UEFA Cup slot.

 

Out of respect to the Edinburgh club, Smith will field his strongest eleven, which may see a debut for Andy Webster, but the need for new arrivals will be all too apparent, with Dado Prso, Stefan Klos, Steven Smith, Uho Ehiogu and Brahim Hemdani missing for a variety of reasons.

 

"We have a responsibility to ensure that our attitude is better than it was against Kilmarnock last weekend," said Smith.

 

Looks like we wont be buying out any contracts to free players then.

[buster 0]

Think we´ll have the interminable wait until september 1st suffering rumours, speculation and downright rubbish with the odd signing thrown in.

[stewarty 1,876]

Looks like we wont be buying out any contracts to free players then.

 

Excellent news IMO. Too many players have arrived at Ibrox in the past 2/3 seasons and not fancied it. They've then quickly realised that if they dont put the effort in and generally look disinterested, then Martin Bain will come along with his big cheque book and give them a big pay off.

 

The other side of the coin is that players know that when they sign that the management will back them and not just give up when the going gets tough.

[Gribz 743]

Excellent news IMO. Too many players have arrived at Ibrox in the past 2/3 seasons and not fancied it. They've then quickly realised that if they dont put the effort in and generally look disinterested, then Martin Bain will come along with his big cheque book and give them a big pay off.

 

The other side of the coin is that players know that when they sign that the management will back them and not just give up when the going gets tough.

 

Yeah agree Stewarty, but you have to wonder WHY all these players in the past 3-4 years have came to Rangers and just purely flopped. Most of them came with pretty decent backgrounds and did fairly good jobs at previous clubs and even at International level.

 

Are they just not getting a chance of a run of games?

Is the Scottish game that bad and difficult to adapt to?

Do they see Rangers as an easy target to make money?

 

Rather than dwell on the flops of the McLeish era, il look at at the ones we currently have and put Buffel in - Svensson, Sebo, Sionko and Buffel! These are 4 international players who came to the club with promise but turned sour overnight.

Something isnt right - so many players just cant go off the boil for no reason.

 

I look at Hemdani who everyone thought was going to be another name in the flop scrapbook but he has come good in his 2nd year and ended up being out POTY.

[stewarty 1,876]

I think it's the age old 'takes time to settle in' stuff. Add to that the physical nature of our game which makes it harder to settle as these guys come in from the continent and get no time on the ball.

 

Bottom line though, I reckon they just dont fancy putting in the required effort, unlike Hemdani. Maybe the weather is a factor too. Not many of them will have had to cope with freezing cold driving rain coming in off the North Sea on a chilly November night in Inverness.