The Scottish transfer market seems to finally be getting out of the mindset that our players aren’t worth as much as they should be, Celtic have done well for years at cashing in but it now looks as though the rest of us are finally catching up.
Nathan Patterson’s move to Everton that could rise to £16million and Calvin Ramsay’s transfer to Liverpool for up to £6.5m marks a very definite move towards closing the financial gap.
An fascinating article in The Athletic featured scouts from the Premier League and Championship giving their verdict on Scottish players and the SPFL market in general which gave an insight into how our players at Rangers may be viewed down south.
When asked if Rangers dominance domestically makes it hard to judge individual player ability, one scout said:
“That’s always the worry, and it’s why the bigger teams will pay a lot more attention to what they (Celtic and Rangers) do in Europe. On the other hand, scouts are aware of the Glasgow bubble and the pressure to win every game, so being successful in this environment can’t be totally ignored.
“I would say attacking players need to be hitting a good number of goals and assists a season. While it might be an old-school way of looking at things, nobody is going to come to (watch) a side that dominates 90 per cent of domestic games looking for hidden gems.”
Interestingly when asked about whether or not a successful run in Europe raises the profile of any individuals, another claimed:
“It’s a flawed argument. You’re looking at a team, not a player. Ryan Kent doesn’t have the end-product or the unpredictability to be elite, in my opinion, and I don’t think that changes due to a good run in Europe.”
The transfer market in a nutshell.
One scout thinks that being successful in Europe will attract more attention for star players whereas another feels that it shouldn’t carry any extra weight when assessing players, exactly the same as fans who may feel that Alfredo Morelos should be sold for £8-10m if an offer comes in but others that we should still be looking for over £15m.
Transfers by their very nature are subjective, clubs will have a valuation but this may change depending on who makes the offer. Take Patterson as the most recent example, if it wasn’t a Premier League club that came in for him we probably would have accepted half of what Everton paid but we know how deep their pockets are and what they have paid for players in the past – times have changed and clubs, in England in particular, will have to dig deep for our best talent in the future if they rate them highly enough to make a move.