Rumours seem to be swirling around Twitter tonight that Alfredo Morelos will be off to China for the sum of £8-8.5m, add-ons, cuts, future fees, and other things that nobody really has a clue about notwithstanding.
The rumours don’t appear to have any particularly firm source, so we certainly wouldn’t put too much stock in them. But they aren’t wide of the mark, either - Rangers have had a concrete offer, are likely to get a second one before the end of the window, and have a big decision to make.
In case any Rangers directors are reading this site (and why wouldn’t you? You’ve already read what’s in the Rangers Observer when you wrote it) then feel free to make use of our cut-out-and-keep guide to the pros and cons of selling specifically Alfredo Morelos to some Chinese mob in January 2018.
PRO: Eight million pounds is quite a lot of money and we are sort of skinto
For a Scottish team, eight million pounds is quite a lot of money. It’s a quarter of Celtic’s valuation of Moussa Dembele, after all, and more than double everyone other than Celtic’s valuation of Moussa Dembele.
We are a business, after all, and we’re still getting by on soft loans from directors. We could buy three quality players with the money, and get the club on a slightly more sustainable footing as we begin to look to turn a regular income from transfer fees. That will be the main concern weighing on the director’s minds.
CON: We only have one other striker who isn’t totally gash and he was blowing out his arse after ten minutes on Sunday
Jason Cummings is some boy, but he’s not been playing much and as such is not quite up to speed. Which means he won’t be able to last the pace of a full game at the minute, won’t be on top form, and is more likely to get injured. Which leaves us with Eduardo Herrera, Ryan Hardie or Joe Dodoo. You don’t want to be left with Eduardo Herrera, Ryan Hardie or Joe Dodoo. Selling Morelos now would jeopardise our chances of having a good second half of the season at a time when we really should be looking to show some consistent form for once.
PRO: We can’t fit Cumdog and Morelos into the team anyway so we don’t really lose much
On the other hand, Jason Cummings is incredibly good but Morelos is in his way. Much was made of a prospective partnership there, but we can’t really make any two-striker formations work with our squad, with our hunners of central midfielders and Jamie Murphy, Josh Windass and Daniel Candeias all demanding starting spots. Selling Morelos means we can just start Cummings instead - we don’t need to worry about replacing him as much because we’ve got a great striker already here.
CON: We won’t be able to sign another squad member easily because we’ll get shafted for the fee
GTBFO obviously lives a sheltered West End existence and never sets foot in the Barras, but were we to instruct our personal shopper on a haggling strategy, it would probably not be to turn up two minutes before closing time, state that they had just won eight million pounds on a scratchcard, and point out that they were in desperate need of the item immediately or their year would be ruined. That is what we would effectively be doing were we to attempt to sign anyone at all in the rest of the window.
NOT SURE IF THIS IS A PRO OR CON TO BE HONEST PAL, SORT OF IN BETWEEN AND JUST ANOTHER WEE THING TO THINK ABOUT: Why should we sell now?
Given that Morelos is a young man and his contract is not about to expire, if he’s worth eight million now, he’s likely to be worth eight million in five months time. Yes, he could shatter his ankle or go through a drought and lose value, but equally he could score another 15 goals and break into an eight-figure valuation.
You may recall that after Lawwell’s oh-so-hilarious putdown about the Jelavic fee that Celtic did indeed get several big January offers for Gary Hooper, turned them down for little reason and then ended up selling him at a knockdown price. You may also muse that nobody seems to want to pay £40m for Moussa Dembele right now, which they absolutely would before, honest.
But Chinese clubs aren’t really restricted by our transfer windows and their projects are lengthy ones. They’re not just trying to get in anyone decent who knows where the back of the net is for a promotion push or to stave off the drop. The likelihood is we can get the same or a better price for him further down the road after he’s completed at least this season.