CAFU: The Black Alan Hutton

If I was Walter I’d head over to the San Siro tomorrow and sign the old Brazilian bugger just for the sake of it. Ach, why noh??!!we’ve got £9MILLION to play with - let’s prove we’re not “a selling club” by buying a guy who played in three straight World Cup Finals. Let’s distract the detractors by getting one of the most famous players in the world in the third twighlight of his career. Let’s re-boost our collective ego by plundering the European and Club World champions. Two million up front and another two mill when he plays 200 games for us. Cafu at Ibrox. Brilliant. We’ll drop him as soon as Stevie Smith’s fit again.

Oh, ho-ho-fucking ho. This is no time for joking, troops is it. Fuck naw. There’s a big transfer of a Scottish player at Rangers so the reaction has to be dark and brooding.

Must be something to do with League Cup semis.

I remember the worry about the reaction Barry Ferguson would get when we brought Bazza BACK from Blackburn three years ago and he made his second debut as a sub in the League Cup semi-final slaughtering of Dundee United at Hampden. We laid out millions for him, he helped ensure we won the League that season, it’s still a 50-50 split as to whether or not his return was welcomed. Oooh, Were we rewarding disloyalty? Eeeeh, Were we allowing a traitor back into our midst? Personally, at the time, I was fucking delighted by his desire to return and he got an ovation in Mount Florida that evening. But the undertow of resentment towards Ferguson for what I always thought was an inevitable move - dumping the SPL rather than Rangers for the Premiership - didn’t leave Ibrox on his return and has never truly evaporated. That big money buy from blackburn - when we looked like a major buying club - created a dark, brooding atmosphere in Beardom. There was a love - hate polarisation

This Wednesday it’s back to Hampden and, once again, David Murray is the man everyone is loving or hating. And this time, the player in question is almost 100% blameless in the eyes of EVERYONE in Red, White and Blue. Selling our best player of the season at the half-way point of a crucially tight title race?! Or do we think £9 million for a player who was a joke a few seasons back and who cost us nowt is EXACTLY the kind of business we wanted our Chairman to be doing when we were all busily trying to oust him because of the debt he got us into??!!

FOUR years ago this week it was Hibs in the League Cup semi at Hampden. Whittaker, Thomson and Scott Brown would all be future transfer targets for The Gers - we’d get two of them and, of course, receive plenty criticism from our own Follow-Followers for not getting the third. These would be the same people who were criticising Murray because one of the signings we DID field that night, as Hibs put us out on penalties, was Egil Ostenstad. We finished that season trophyless - we finished that season not knowing but hoping it was the nadir of the belt-tightening which Alex McLeish’s reign was all about, and which Eck triumphed in spite of.

Mind you, he was great against Forfar in the third round that season, was big Egil! The mighty Loons fae Station Park took a terrible pounding at the hard feet of his silky head. AND he scored in our 3-0 win over St Johnstone in the Ibrox quarter-final. Aye - beating St Johnstone at home in the League Cup - that’s something Egil Ostenstad could safely say HE managed in his Rangers career!

Barry Ferguson’s sojourn to England , where he became Blackburn captain, survived a terrible injury and generally received rave reviews, certainly sharpened his focus. He came back to Govan knowing the grass, for him, wasn’t bluer in one of the world’s top leagues. He knew he had all he wanted at Rangers. For me, he then took that too far in his behaviour under PLG but, should we win the SPL and a cup or two in our first full season without PLG this will augment Ferguson’s aura of a man who knows EXACTLY what Rangers are about - and what we need.

Last season we didn’t play at Hampden at all.

Nor the season before that.

For the first time since our League Cup final win over Motherwell - almost three years ago - I’ll be able to enjoy a trip to a Hampden which isn’t infested by kilted tourist morons.

Yet, just as the happy times seem to be returning, our club are intent on selling one of our top players. I’m waiting for the howls of “negligence” to start up again from at least half the bucket seats around me. It’s clear Alan wanted to stay - it’s clear, if from nothing else other than the ridiculous amount of times Walter’s been forced to say “It’s Alan’s decision” or “you’d have to ask Alan himself” or “ALAN’s decided to go to Spurs”, that Sir Dave wanted the money rather than the player, and it’s clear we’re losing a vital cog in our on-field attacking armoury.

However, I can’t help thinking the £8-9Million we’re getting for him is a lot clearer than Alan Hutton’s talent. Also the furore which went up from some Rangers quarters about the outlay of millions to bring Ferguson back should now disqualify these same people from complaining when we’re getting that kind of money IN, and for a less influential player. As should the “retrospective outrage” aimed at our Chairman for his gargantuan outlay on Tore Andre Flo and for the Murray Park development. We’re not spending stupid money anymore - we’re now GETTING stupid money, for a player who broke his leg, in a misguided tackle against Kilmarnock which took place right in front of me what seems like yesterday. His recovery from that set-back says so much about Alan Hutton’s character - but where that recovery has landed him also answers so many accusations from our own supporters about our off-field abilities: Rangers youth player - through our ranks - sold for £9Million with just six Scotland caps to his name. Fuck me - if that isnae GREAT business then I don’t know what is.

And all those still moaning can at least know the lie in their previous anti-Murray outpurings has been shamefully exposed. Selling a vital player when we’re still in the running for four trophies? If you want to complain about that - and I instinctively do - ye must first admit ye were talkling SHITE when criticisng Murray’s fin-de-siecle spending spree: It wisnae the money which pissed you off - IT WAS THE LACK OF TROPHIES!!

If we don’t win the SPL, Alan Hutton’s sale will be blamed, irrespective of how our title-losing defeats actually come about. This is The Rangers Way. However, Steven Whittaker offers nearly the same levels of athleticism and compensates for any difference in these stakes between him and Hutton with an increased technical ability. On Saturday I saw Alan Hutton turned inside out by an unknown St Mirren winger - just a few yards from where he broke his leg against Kilmarnock - and once again I knew Hutton’s market value was down to his attacking abilities rather than his defensive qualities. Attack, of course, is the first form of defence but, as good a defender as Hutton has become, I feel we could buy a better out-and-out right back for a snip of the Tottenham proceeds.

I wish Hutton would stay but he needs to be at this level for another year before I think he’s as genuinely brilliant as today’s fee would seem to indicate. If we get the fee now we don’t ever have to worry about that.

Ach, ye cannae be great against Lyon, Barca, France and Italy by mistake. But when ye do it all in the period of a few months I still need to be convinced it’s not a one-off year of inspiration from a player who was, to all intents and purposes, a bit of a joke for longer. Fernando Ricksen was amazing for Rangers too - for one year out of six. I would rather Alan left in the summer and we could use his form - however fleeting or permanent it may be - to secure another title. But the money just can’t be ignored.

Neither will the fact we won’t spend that money - and certainly not before Friday of this week. Someone else will come into Rangers by midnight Thursday but we won’t be buying two x £4M worth of players. This money is a book-balancer first and foremost. Well, the Rangers Trust and any other members of the Accountancy Loyal MUST be happy with that - we’re all about the business now, lads, right??!!

But Cousin is staying. Again, the myopic see this as a bad move - or non-move - and we could certainly make it so if we continue to give the guy grief. He’s an openly mercenary man but it was an openly mercenary deal all round. All I know is I saw Darcheville playing a ball through to Kris Boyd against EAST STIRLING which was a carbon copy of the ball Jean-Claude played through to Cousin against Gretna the previous Wednesday. Boydey couldn’t even get to the ball against the Third Division strugglers. Cousin was first to the ball against the SPL strugglers - and scored. Cousin’s goals and presence will surely compensate for Hutton’s overlaps.

Celtic are buying this guy and that while we’re selling. Another complaint we’re sure to hear from Follow Followers. You think these doubting Bears would learn the lessons from the pish they spouted all summer about Celtic getting Brown etc and us getting naebody “with only a few days left of the transfer window”!! We’re top of the league and beat Scott Brown’s Celtic 3-0 last time we played them. Celtic are signing more strangers - right now less is more at Rangers. Cousin’s a January signing and there’ll be at least one new first-teamer in place by 00:01 o’clock on Friday - I guarantee it.

Alan Hutton’s agonising over this move shows he is in even less doubt than the young Barry Ferguson that Ibrox is the place to be. He knows that what Rangers are really all about is winninng stuff and maybe his departure will, in the long term ensure we keep the trophies coming in. However, I feel , as per the bogus attempts to be rid of David Murray because of the “financial situation”, all problems at Rangers are solved by silverware NOW, money later. If I had to bet on it, I’d say Hutton’s departure has definitely lessened our chances of a treble - even a quadrouple - this season. For me it’s always all about Europe and I think his loss will be felt there most keenly but no-one in the stands at Ibrox gives a shit about Europe until we’re out of it and even I have to give us a break on that front this season as we’ve already wildly exceeded my continental expectations for 2007/2008. The key question which remains for the loudest bears is will Hutton’s sale cost us the SPL title?

Oops - mind you, as I write this, the other remaining question is STILL will he actually leave?

Went to the shop for milk this Tuesday evening. As I left the Spar my phone went off in my pocket. My mate texting me to say Sky News reported Hutts was still “agonising” over the move. As I read the text a wee Scottish asian boy dashed out of his close, past me, and into the Spar. Quick as a flash. No wonder - it was effing freezing, even for a fat git like me, and he was in his shorts and trainers: He was wearing the full Rangers strip. Like another young guy I’ve seen dashing about in front of me - he preferred a Rangers jersey to anything in the Premiership.