Rangers fans can’t have it both ways.
The reported £12million rising to £16m is an accurate reflection of what a 20-year old Scotland international with potential to improve should be going to a Premier League club for, however, there is a down side to this – replacing him with the likes of Calvin Ramsay just became impossible.
Ramsay, along with Hibs’ Josh Doig are two players who would probably be on Ross Wilson’s wish list, not only are they talented players but, being Scottish, they would add numbers to our homegrown quota for European competition.
With Patterson’s sale though, the Scotland Under-21 pair just saw a few pounds added to their price tag, if anyone thinks that Aberdeen or Hibs would sell us either player for anything around the £3m mark they are sadly mistaken.
They might not have the experience of Patterson in terms of high profile games or internationals but, in terms of quantity in the Scottish Premiership, they both have more minutes.
I’m not for a second suggesting that either of them are worth over £10m but, as a league, we really need to start valuing our players properly, not just Celtic, for example, is Ramsay a better player than Jeremie Frimpong who went to Bayer Leverkusen in a deal worth around £11m?
Patterson’s status with the national team undoubtedly would have helped our sporting director during negotiations, after all, he would struggle to persuade a club that a player with just a handful of starts is worth such a fee without those to his name.
Shopping in Scotland just became more expensive, we’ll find out soon enough just how deep we’ll have to dig for local talent.