Rangers legend Mark Hateley’s (extremely) tongue in cheek suggestion that Philippe Clement make a move for £60M man Ivan Toney might obviously just been a bit of banter, but it shows the chasm of world difference between a diddy club (no offence Brentford) in a big league and a giant club in a diddy league.
This is not meant as any kind of attack on Brentford, but the fact a club who ‘upgraded’ from a 12K stadium to a 17K stadium and yet casually have a player of the world class quality of Toney (and a squad value approaching £500M) shows just how far apart Rangers and Brentford are, despite the theoretical difference between both being quite different.
In theory, Rangers should be miles ahead of Brentford – 51,000 stadium, steeped in centuries of history, Champions League (former) regulars, Rangers should be what Brentford aspire to.
Instead it’s the other way around.
They, like similarly-brilliantly managed Brighton, have a world class squad, and top class coaching, not to mention a well-run infrastructure.
We know, we know – the money in England humiliatingly dwarves that in Scotland, but then Celtic are supposed to be mega rich and they are almost as far behind Brentford and Brighton as Rangers are.
Celtic might have more cash, but if they faced either of those PL sides in serious competition, they’d be completely mauled. Rangers’ fate wouldn’t bear thinking about.
And this harks Ibrox Noise back to the late 80s – yes, the tragic Heysel Disaster was ‘beneficial’ for Rangers, and made the 80s versions of Gerrard, Lampard, Foden and Kane come to Ibrox, but there was money behind that too.
Big money – Lawrence Malborough, David Holmes then Sir David Murray, no FFP rules restricting anything and the club could buy the world class players that today are the reserve of Real Madrid and Man City.
And this shows that Brentford, with that kind of money behind them now, can create the world class squad that Rangers can’t even dream of these days.
It’s bizarre, how far ahead the ‘smaller’ PL clubs are to Rangers, and Sky money is where that started.
Sadly Mark Hateley is right, you’re looking at £200M to sign him and Ally today. And Rangers are lucky if we could afford a hundredth of that these days.