Seriously. Do you ever see supporters of other clubs going on forums like this to complain about how much Hibs or Hearts or Aberdeen or Arbroath are paying any particular player? Or even caring?
I don't think there's a Rangers fan out there who thinks we've had good value out of our players in the past few years, but then that's universally true of some players at every professional club. We're finally going down a more affordable path that places more emphasis on developing our own youth, but again I don't think I've heard any Rangers fan complain about this, and indeed for the most part it's what we've wanted since before 2012 even.
To say Hearts is a model to follow is pretty dubious at the moment. Hearts were forced to depend heavily on youth players because of a crippling financial situation and a transfer ban, and that young squad got them relegated from the top flight. Last season they bought in a host of foreign players, some an improvement and some pretty average, in a manner reminiscent of Scottish football circa the late 90s and early 2000s, and have seen youth players released or leave because they were being squeezed out of the first team by the new players. That's not to say it's going to be an ongoing trend, but it might be. Their signings this summer will be a good indication of their future direction. But at the end of the day the advantage Hearts had was a good scouting system, or at least good knowledge of available players established by Craig Levein since he lost his job as Scotland manager.
It might also be that we go down that route again (of buying most of our first team), but at the moment it looks like we're building a squad for the long term, and rather than buying in experienced players to fill all the gaps we're bringing in younger guys for our development squad who we can shape.
I think we probably will spend money on players in time, but it's more likely to be for the odd talent who would be a standout rather than the norm.
I don't think there's a Rangers fan out there who thinks we've had good value out of our players in the past few years, but then that's universally true of some players at every professional club. We're finally going down a more affordable path that places more emphasis on developing our own youth, but again I don't think I've heard any Rangers fan complain about this, and indeed for the most part it's what we've wanted since before 2012 even.
To say Hearts is a model to follow is pretty dubious at the moment. Hearts were forced to depend heavily on youth players because of a crippling financial situation and a transfer ban, and that young squad got them relegated from the top flight. Last season they bought in a host of foreign players, some an improvement and some pretty average, in a manner reminiscent of Scottish football circa the late 90s and early 2000s, and have seen youth players released or leave because they were being squeezed out of the first team by the new players. That's not to say it's going to be an ongoing trend, but it might be. Their signings this summer will be a good indication of their future direction. But at the end of the day the advantage Hearts had was a good scouting system, or at least good knowledge of available players established by Craig Levein since he lost his job as Scotland manager.
It might also be that we go down that route again (of buying most of our first team), but at the moment it looks like we're building a squad for the long term, and rather than buying in experienced players to fill all the gaps we're bringing in younger guys for our development squad who we can shape.
I think we probably will spend money on players in time, but it's more likely to be for the odd talent who would be a standout rather than the norm.