So Hibs have sold Steven Whittaker to Rangers for £2 million.
I can hardly blame Mr Whittaker, as he will no doubt be doubling (at least) his earnings, to the extent that he will be set up financially for life, even if he never gets a game for the Rangers' first team. Nor can I blame Hibs - £2 million would have been an awful lot to turn down for a 23 year old yet to break into international football. I cannot even be unduly critical of Rangers; football is an exemplar of tooth and claw capitalism and, if they - along with Celtic - choose to deploy their relatively massive resources to hoover up all the best talent in Scottish football, then that is their right and privilege.
But something is wrong. Mr Whittaker follows his predecessors in recent seasons, Kevin Thomson and Ian Murray, both of whom opted for the lucrative path from Easter Road to Ibrox. Neither has managed to establish himself as a first team regular at Ibrox and, because of a lack of first class match practice, neither has fulfilled any international aspirations. Will Mr Whittaker be any more successful? We'll see.
And is this good for Scottish football as a whole? To have talented Scottish players sitting on a bench at Ibrox and Parkhead while the other teams are denuded of quality?
Alas, 'twas ever thus.
2 comments:
In Rangers' defence, Alan Hutton's performance on Tuesday night highlights exactly why Rangers do need another player for that position.
Hutton is a good athlete, but sadly, he is not the sharpest player on the pitch at any one time: he has had an unfortunate tendency to wander out of position and leave Rangers exposed in his area of the park, and his red card shows that discipline isn't his forte. Firstly, Whittaker's presence will force Hutton to sharpen up his act by providing competition for the right back position that Hutton hasn't had since PLG fell out with Phil Bardsley.
Secondly, Hutton's red card means that Rangers would now find themselves without a right back for the second leg against FK Zeta, which would lead to another defender being played there out of position, in the way that Sasa Papac has been covering for Stevie Smith at left back. If (and it's a big if, I admit) Whittaker is eligible for the match, that problem has been resolved.
And at the risk of turning this into a football blog, Murray (who was bought for his versatility) and Thomson have both done well when picked, but both have also been unlucky with injuries - a bit of a Rangers thing, that. We'll see hether they establish themselves as regulars, but I think both will do so. I'm not so sure about Whittaker, for whom £2m seems an awful lot of money.
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