BILLY BREMNER MEMORIAL JOIN OUR CAMPAIGN
Date: 26th January 2025
SELL, SELL, SELL, NO DON’T…
On the 3rd of February, it finishes.
What does?
The January transfer window.
At 11 o’clock on the 3rd of February, all the deals will have to have been registered and done. Although there are pieces of paperwork that can be submitted after the deadline by about an hour, taking you to midnight.
We are going to see flurries of activity between now and then as players who are likely to go one way, or another are announced as new signings by clubs the length and breadth of Scotland.
Of course, lower down the leagues, there’s less excitement than there is up at the top, particularly in Parkhead, where the possibility of two former players coming back to the club are the headlines that you read consistently, be it in the Daily Record, on the BBC website or just in your internet feed.
Across in Europe, the transfer window will close on the same day, but the times depend on which particular country you’re looking at. Some are going to be closing at 10 p.m., some earlier or later.
And it is to Europe, rather bizarrely, that we are being forced to look for the development of our young players for the national squad. In years gone past, we would talk about over how the national team manager would base his squad around two clubs in Glasgow and Anglos – players down in England who left our Scottish infrastructure.
Some opined this was healthy for the national squad. If they make a decent fist of it at club level in England and at Celtic and Rangers, we should not decry them coming into the national squad and doing the same job for us on an international stage. We didn’t but not seeing them play each and every fortnight in Scotland meant we lost out on seeing them play before they played for our country. If we wanted to have the best, we also wanted to see the best.
The development of our football often means that Scottish players to get game time are sent to clubs at a lower league level because they will never get the chance to pitch their best against the best in the Premiership. A desire for development time by going abroad now appears to be part and parcel of our game at the highest level.
We see the likes of Ferguson, McTominay, Hickey, Doig and of course young Billy Gilmour. Italy appears to be the favoured destination though this has a long association with Scottish players – Joe Jordan or recently departed Denis Law or even Graeme Souness. They all tripped over to the Italian league to ply their trade.
Recently Paul Lambert has been looking back at his time at Borussia Dortmund, and the story of Max Johnston currently at Sturm Graz who has been playing in the Champions League. This s a competition that Lambert went on to win with Borussia Dortmund. Unfortunately, due to his son’s illness Lambert’s time at Dortmund came to a close and he returned back to Scotland and heaven knows exactly what medals would currently be in his cupboard to augment the ones he got at Celtic. For Max Johnston at one point, he had left on loan to Cove Rangers whilst with Motherwell, another club that Paul Lambert graced with his presence. He then got the opportunity to go abroad and in the Austrian league with Sturm Graz. Speaking to BBC Sport he talked about being delighted with how everything’s turned out and hoping to keep going in the right way.
For the Scottish national team, it is clearly an opportunity not just to give Steve Clarke more stamps on his passport, but to develop the Scottish game by getting influences from abroad into our national team to parade increasingly successfully, hopefully, in international competitions.
For our clubs, the opportunity to change the coefficient when they are playing their trade in the Europa League or the Conference League or the Champions League is too good to lose but the development of players that are going abroad must surely challenge the security of that?
After the last World Cup, not many names in the successful squads looked to Scotland as their next footballing stop in their careers. We are left with attracting decent internationals but not world beaters.
Of course it’s exciting, to hear of our players making waves and headlines in Europe, of course it is a marvel to think of a player that was once at Cove Rangers now being in the Champions League, of course players who were with the likes of Norwich City or happened to ply their trade at Motherwell or Premiership clubs in Scotland that are not challenging for titles are now at the top of the Bundesliga or Serie A. But the one thing that we should keep going back to is why it is that Scottish young players have to go abroad in order to a. get game time and b. get the types of development opportunities, playing in their national top league, with teams playing for titles. Why is it that they and the fans are being denied consistently that chance within Scottish football. That isn’t a travesty but is a question that those in power must at some point begin to answer.
Posted in: Latest News
Tags: Football, Scotland, Scottish football, Transfer Window