Cheap shots do Rangers no good

MARK Warburton says he won’t be held to ransom over Michael O’Halloran. Rangers have had two bids of under £200,000 knocked back and the Ibrox manager has warned any clubs playing hardball to forget it. But St Johnstone’s valuation of £600,000 is hardly a shameless act of opportunism. It’s not a hostage crisis; no guns are being held to heads. Last time anyone checked O’Halloran (below) was the Perth club’s best player. No superstar perhaps but he has pace to burn. And most important of all, he has 18 months left on his contract. If St Johnstone valued him at £4million, it would be patently absurd. Perhaps so, but they can ask any price they like. A fee of £450,000 would be a decent compromise but right now Rangers don’t show much inclination to pay that either. If St Johnstone can set any valuation they like, of course, then so can Rangers. It’s their prerogative. But if they go in beneath the quoted price they can hardly be surprised — let alone indignant — when the selling club says no. That is how transfers work. Rangers have been in this movie before with Scott Allan. They expected Hibs to offload him for a lower fee if the player demanded a transfer and agitated for a move. It didn’t happen. What did happen was that Hibs got angry. And the midfielder was sold to Celtic instead. Rangers supporters think it’s impossible to do business in Scotland because of spite. Clubs like St Johnstone and Hibs have it in for them. But that fails to explain why Warburton has been frustrated in his efforts to sign Toumani Diagouraga from Brentford following a couple of failed bids. No one expects a club running a shortfall for the season to lavish millions on new players. But yesterday Rangers fought off a bid by their former Wi-Fi firm to ring-fence £300,000 in court after their counsel cited a much improved financial position. All the reason needed, surely, to go and get a deal done for O’Halloran.