My Name Is Joe, Again

Now, signing players for the sake of signing players is sheer folly. It's something teams in dire straits do and something that hopefully will come back and bite the r*ngers on the arse.

In GS 1st season we signed players for the sake of signing players, due to lack of numbers, and ended up wie Camara, Virgo and Du Wei. This action, for me, is the action of a manager who is desperate and is willing to take numbers over quality, which sometimes situations dictate.

News today that, oor scoring cup winning full back was back on the managers radar has come as a surprise and has caused a collective scratching of heids from the naysayers.

After the cup final i posted that Doumbe was not good enough. He lacked defensive nonce, his positional sense was suspect and while he did a no bad job he was not the quality we were looking for.

When you are in oor position, winning leagues, cups and progressing in Europe any signing should improve the squad. Doumbe disnny tick any of those boxes and to tell you the truth if we canny do any better then i would rather Paul Caddis and Gary Irvine got their chance to deputise.

The most annoying thing is that we have had the whole summer to plug this problem position. We are meant to have scouts all over the world, thousands of players on file, we would leave no stone unturned in the quest to find an unearthed gem and have had all summer to find a player to improve this position.

So why is it we have returned to a player who wisnny worth offering a contract to after his first spell and a player that couldnae get a contract wie the mighty Sheff Utd. Begs the question have we pished in the pot and left this position to chance and the bargin basement?

One thing r*ngers have done, apart from spend loads of dosh, matching us and building a team that will trouble us, they have bought players to plug problem areas. The Naismith debacle is the perfect example. They had the dosh but Wallie thought the right hand side was a priority area.

What would GS have done in the same situation? Faced wie the choice of a creative player or a full back who would have improved us, i think i can safely say oor budget would be blown on the player we didnae need.

One thing's for sure the Caldwell household will be sleeping more easily this evening safe in the knowledge that a full back slot is still up for grabs.

Forza