The Ibrox side are getting their transfer business done early – will it be Last Minute.com as usual from Celtic this summer?

Well, well, well.

As I wrote in my article on Monday, Lawrence Shankland was jetting in from Portugal to “save” the Ibrox side.

Yesterday, the Daily Record’s Robbie Copeland has come out with the full state of play on what the summer looks like over at Ibrox.

And I’ll be honest with you – it makes for uncomfortable reading.

Because the Ibrox club, apparently, has a plan.

A proper one.

Make no mistake here, this is something I never thought I’d be typing in May.

Danny Rohl, it seems, is being allowed to work like a proper football manager.

Shankland was in for his medical yesterday.

Before he joins up with Stevie Clarke’s squad for the Curacao friendly at Hampden.

The Ibrox side, Copeland said, “won’t be hanging about” after sealing that deal.

Reinforcements are lined up in at least three further positions.

A new No.6 is “high on the list of priorities”, with Sunderland’s Dan Neil a longstanding target and Motherwell’s Elliot Watt the latest name to appear on the radar.

Dundee’s Luke Graham is the centre-half they want, with the Light Blues “set to firm up their interest and make a formal bid”.

Zalaegerzeg’s Akpe Victory – a 19-year-old with a £4.3m price tag and Benfica sniffing about him – is on the list too.

James Penrice at AEK Athens is being looked at as backup to Tuur Rommens at left-back.

And up top, alongside Shankland, Plymouth Argyle’s Lorent Tolaj has been touted – 22 goals last season, player of the year, around £5m, no World Cup involvement to slow things down.

That’s eight names, across five positions, on the 26th of May.

The 26th of May.

Let that one sink in.

Meanwhile, over at Celtic Park, we are letting Marcelo Saracchi walk back to Boca Juniors without so much as a phone call.

Ryan McGinlay at the Glasgow Times had the story on Monday afternoon.

The Argentinian journalist Seba Ongarelli – a Scottish-based Celtic fan with form on these things – spoke to Saracchi’s agent and posted this on X:

Spoke with Saracchi’s agent.

He flew to Argentina yesterday and he’ll join Boca Jrs back (season’s over now)

Although he really enjoyed his short time at Celtic and loves the fans, the club never offered him a permanent transfer deal.

The club never offered him a permanent transfer deal.

Read that again.

The club. Never. Offered. Him. A permanent transfer deal.

A 28 year old who made 27 appearances for us last season, and a guy who was loved in the stand.

A guy who gave his all on the pitch and off it.

Allowed to fly home to Argentina without anyone at Celtic Park bothering to pick up a phone.

And we are now left with – and I am not making this up – exactly one recognised senior left-back at the club.

Kieran Tierney.

That’s it.

That’s your depth.

Are you f*****g kidding me??

Will somebody at Celtic Park please tell us what the actual plan is here.

Because, as it stands, Tierney tweaks a hamstring in pre-season.

Which is hardly the most outlandish scenario, given his injury history.

And we are throwing a hastily-converted right-back into the left-back slot in the Champions League qualifiers.

Does anybody at that club understand what is at stake here??

Anyone fancy placing a bet on that one?

Well, if they didn’t understand it last season when it came to Kairat Almaty, what makes us think this time around will be any different?

The bottom line is that the Ibrox side have known for months that Shankland was their man.

That Luke Graham was their man.

That the centre of midfield was a problem position.

And they’ve moved.

That’s called having a plan.

We, on the other hand, are doing what we always do.

Nothing.

Right up until the back end of August, when the panic finally sets in.

When the recruitment department suddenly remembers there’s a window on.

And we end up with somebody on loan from a Serie B reserve squad who can’t run, can’t tackle, can’t pass.

It was ever thus.

Now, before anyone jumps in – yes, I know it’s only the 26th of May.

Yes, I know the manager situation isn’t sorted.

Yes, I know Martin O’Neill is still on holiday somewhere.

And yes, Callum Osmand is presumably still pinching himself over the trophy he just lifted.

I get it.

I genuinely do.

But the fact is, the Ibrox club knows what they have to do to challenge us in the Scottish game.

They’re not waiting around.

Danny Rohl has been given the green light by recruitment chief Dan Purdy to formalise the interest in Graham.

Andrew Cavenagh, their chairman, has publicly stated that Scottish players will be prioritised this summer.

And lo and behold, they’re chasing Scottish players.

A plan.

A statement.

A direction.

Imagine that.

Granted, I detest the Ibrox club with every fibre of my being.

I genuinely believe their entire summer rebuild will collapse the moment they hit a Europa League qualifier in late July.

Shankland, at 30, on what will be the biggest contract of his career, is a gamble of the highest order.

I think Rohl will be gone before Christmas.

But I’ll say this once, and you’ll never see me type it again – right now, in late May, they are doing their business better than we are.

End of.

And let’s be honest here, the Saracchi one was the easy one.

Sign him for £5m, that’s reasonable.

Hand him the usual 4-year deal.

Plug a glaring squad hole.

Keep a fan-favourite in the building.

Job done.

Instead, the club let his loan run out.

Didn’t make him a single offer.

Watched him board a flight to Buenos Aires.

You see, this is exactly what we mean when we keep saying the board is asleep at the wheel.

The “winning kulture” over at the Ibrox side is, of course, mostly a fantasy concocted by Ally McCoist and Kris Boyd.

We all know that.

Nobody is buying the idea that Luke Graham and Lawrence Shankland are suddenly going to make the Ibrox side a serious force again.

Nobody.

But the planning culture?

The bit where you actually do your transfer business before Sky Sports News breaks out the yellow ticker on deadline day?

They’ve got that one over us this summer.

And in doing so, it looks like they could win the Close Season Cup too.

So far, at any rate.

Mark my words, by the end of June we should have at least three new faces in the door.

A centre-half.

A left-back to compete with Tierney.

And a striker who can actually score goals against teams who park the bus at Parkhead.

Is that too much to ask??

Is it??

If we don’t, then the same Last Minute.com chaos that we have watched unfold every single summer for the last decade is coming round again.

And the Ibrox side, the SMSM, and the Stenography Corps will be falling over themselves to tell us that “The Raynjurz are cummin”.

Of course they will.

They always do.

But the bottom line is this.

We are champions of Scotland, and have just done the Double.

We are about to start a Champions League campaign.

Our rivals are signing players in May.

We are losing fan-favourites for nothing in May.

And that, for me, tells you everything you need to know about who is actually running this club at the minute.

Get it sorted.

I won’t hold my breath…

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