Thomas Buffel

[juffery 0]

I never knew that actually. That's a shame as he's a decent player and could give us a wee bit of invention maybe coming off the bench against the stuffier sides.

[stewarty 1,877]

I'm sceptical as to whether the money thing is valid. Firstly, if it was true - why has he not brought it up in the press? He's not been shy in saying "play me or let me go" on a couple of occasions so why we he shy away from telling the press that big bad Rangers wont pay a couple of quid to give him a game? They're denying him the right to do what he does best are they not?

 

Surely a combination of the player, his agent and Feyenoord might conspire to make it public knowledge given that they have something at stake here?

 

The facts tell a story too. Buffel has played a total of 62 games for Rangers. 47 of those have been in the league. Therefore, the only argument could be that there is a clause to pay an additional fee once he's played 50 league games.

 

Personally I dont buy it. My view, however uninformed, is that Walter Smith simply doesn't fancy him. We've gone 19 games undefeated in a row, our tactics are to load up the midfield with defensive players and there isn't much space in there for a creative flair player who is unlikely to stick the boot and quite often doesn't contribute much if the opposition stick the boot into him! You could argue that he could play up front but we plenty of other options which suit our formation and gameplay. Clearly Walter prefers Darcheville, Cousin and McCulloch and Boyd occasionally. Also, there are others such Novo and Naismith who can play up front and in wider positions who get games because of their versatility and the need to freshen teams up occasionally.

 

I'm not saying it's not true but given the Michael Ball situation I would be surprised if Bain and Murray would allow a similar situation to arise given the problems it caused and I will continue to be sceptical until someone comes out and says otherwise.