Deflated Clement counts on his Transfer Warchest promises

After months of bluff Phil Clement has admitted that he is facing a major summer rebuild at Ibrox.

No matter what gloss he wishes to put on it his side has come up short in the SPFL with bets off from the bookies with Celtic about to be confirmed as champions tonight or tomorrow.

Clement can claim the title of Six Month Champions or Almost the Same xG at half-time but whatever way he wishes to dress it up his club has failed again with Celtic on the brink of picking up their third title in a row.

There is much more to winning their 54th title than simply bragging rights, Celtic can count on over £30m coming in from the Champions League with a place in the new look draw assured while across the city the rebuild will have to go on while negotiating their way through four midweek qualifying ties to join the hoops in the big time.

It all sounds very familiar for this time of year. Talking up the summer rebuild is a staple part of life at Ibrox, neither Giovanni van Bronckhorst of Micky Beale survived through to Christmas to push on with their summer recruitment plans.

Discussing the rebuild, yesterday Clement told the Daily Record:

Yeah there’s a [major rebuild coming], we know that. We’ve been busy with that for months. I cannot put a number on how many we will bring in. I know a number, but I’m not going to put that in the media now.

Will it be significant? Of course, because we have a lot of contracts ending also. We don’t have unlimited finances, so we need to make the right decisions in the positions and where to spend more and where to spend less.

And of course, a story with the Champions League would also change things. We’re going to need to be more creative in that as a club, and we need to do it fast also, because we have decisive games in August in the league and in Europe.

So, that makes it much more difficult. In the meantime you cannot lose points in the league. That is going to be a challenging period for everybody to make fast decisions, to make good decisions, and to convince people to come here also.

But I can say that everybody on the board, in recruitment, is very motivated for that. And they are working really hard.

No contract offers appear to have been made to Borna Barisic, John Lundstram, Leon Balogun, Kemar Roofe or Ryan Jack who will all become free agents next month.

This time last year Beale had already teased Ibrox fans with pictures from his scouting missions to Italy, few supporters could have guessed how much grief he would get from scouring Serie A and coming home with Sam Lammers and Cyriel Dessers. Danilo was added to the forward line from Feyenoord for a net spend of around £15m.

Coming from Italy and Holland, their agents would be well aware of the wages that Kemar Roofe, John Lundstram, Todd Cantwell and Nico Raskin are picking up. It would be an act of negligence if Beale’s top three signings were picking up less than £100,000 a week. All on long term deals.

Beale does seem to have found some decent value in free agents Jack Butland and Dujon Sterling but Kieran Dowell and Jose Cifuentes have contributed nothing on the park despite the hype of Beale looking them in the eyes to ensure that they were good fits for his squad.

Two useful signings out of seven isn’t nearly good enough in any circumstances as Beale and Clement have discovered, especially with Sterling the only defender brought in from that batch.

The previous summer Giovanni van Bronckhorst was badly short changed despite taking the club to the Europa League Final and through Champions League qualifiers. In addition he brought in the guts of £30m from selling Nathan Patterson, Joe Aribo and Calvin Bassey.

Rabbi Matondo, Ridvan Yilmaz and Ben Davies arrived on big wages attached to their £11m combined transfer fees. Tom Lawrence and John Souttar arrived as free agents with their inflated wages reflecting that status.

Celtic fans know all about costly wastage from the horrendous word of Mark Lawwell highlighted by the signings made last summer, fortunately Brendan Rodgers is about to deliver the SPFL title as a get-out for the failings of the Celtic board. Clement has failed in that task and will spend the next three and a half months paying the price.