A look through the list of teams that sold players to, or bought players from Scottish teams tells a sad story. With a few notable exceptions, not one of the players leaving Scotland is moving to what could be called a ‘top club’. Likewise, most of the players coming to Scotland have come from teams in the English Championship or below, or from mediocre teams in mediocre leagues. Can anyone tells us, without Google-ing, where FC Ashdod play?
Scotland has always been a ‘selling’ league. Even in the glory days of the late 80′s and early 90′s that saw a swathe of European talent move north in search of European football (Hately, Larson, Gascoine, Laudrup) we exported more than we imported. Top English sides would regularly head north for talent. Liverpool stole Dalglish from Celtic and Alan Hansen from Partick Thistle. Joe Jordan moved to Leeds from Morton and Martin Buchan was sold by Aberdeen to Manchester United to name just a few examples.
Nowadays, our players are sold to sides in the Championship, clubs like Derby, Cardiff, Doncaster, Watford and Norwich: the days of selling our players to top English and European sides has long gone.
Perhaps it’s down to the credit crunch, but more likely than not, it’s down to the quality of players the Scottish leagues have to offer. The standard of football in Scotland has improved, but certainly not at the rate of the teams south of the border. Whether it ever will is doubtful without significant investment in clubs at all levels across the country, but until that happens, the best a talented player can hope for is a move to a mid-level English side. The sad thing is that a move to somewhere like Doncaster is more attractive than playing regular football in the SPL; for one, they’re paid more and secondly, the standard of football is higher.
What does all this say about the state of Scottish football?
Probably not much. We are hopeless romantics after all here at Inside Left. We pine for the good old days of flat caps, rattles, rosettes and no women at football matches (only joking!), but seriously, we’d love to hear your views.
So, with all that said, here are the winners, and the losers in this season’s transfer window.
Winners
It’s hard to pick out any winners from the January transfer window, but Hamilton have done well for hanging on to James McCarthy. The youngster 
has been a target for a number of clubs, but McCarthy has decided to remain north of the border for another year to get more first team football experience. Courted by Liverpool and in particular Middlesborough, the money involved in any transfer would not have been huge by English EPL standards, but – and this is to their credit – Hamilton turned down the chance of much needed income to keep McCarthy at the club. The cynics would say that Accies are just waiting for better offers, but keeping a player on for another year is always a gamble: McCarthy could have a stinker next year, or get injured, both of which will seriously affect his valuation.
Willo Flood, formerly of Dundee United, completed his dream move to Celtic last night. Hopefully it wont be a “dream move” of the Robbie Keane variety, but Irishman Flood has done well for himself since warming the bench at Cardiff. A popular player at United, the young midfielder got his Celtic career of to a good early start when he battered his second United penalty against the crossbar in that epic shoot-out last week that saw his new employers, Celtic, through to the final of the CIS Insurance Cup.
Losers
Hibernian, for hanging on to Steven Fletcher. Like McCarthy of the Accies, Fletcher is another player that has been followed by a lot of top teams, both in England and further afield and speculation about his future at the club has been rife. That Hibs want to hang on to Fletcher (he’s scored 6 goals this season and 14 last season) is obvious: with Riordain and Nish he forms part of a trio of strikers at Easter Road that potentially should be one of the most feared front lines in the SPL. But lets be honest here – Hibs will never win the league, and Fletcher is desperate for a move. So when a club came calling with what was described as a ‘substantial’ offer, you’d think that Hibs would jump at the chance of some tasty income, ready to sacrifice their greatest asset in the interest of the future of the club.
Unfortunately, the club that made the offer was Celtic, and that was the end of any moves for Fletcher. We can understand that Hibs are probably not keen to sell to an SPL rival, but with Fletcher tied to the club until 2013, he’s not exactly going to be the most motivated player. If anyone has seen Didier Drogba’s or Dimitar Berbatov’s disinterested appearances for their clubs following their on-off transfer saga, you’ll know what we mean. Hibs should have sold – they need the money more than they need Fletcher.
We where not sure in which category to put Rangers: winners for hanging on to their key asset Kris Boyd (although this was more down to the Boyd himself, the £3.5m all but completed until Boyd’s personal terms scuppered the deal), or losers for failing to offload any of their players (despite the massive ‘Clearance Sale’ signals coming from the club) for significant amounts, money which could have been used to reinvest in the team. In the end, we stuck them here, as losers.
Rangers have, for the first time we can recall anyway, not made any moves in the transfer window. A slow trickle of players left the club (Gow, McMillan, Burke and Adam), all on loan, with no one coming the other way. The sum total income this transfer window: £0. It’s debatable whether Rangers need strengthening on the field, but certainly if the sounds coming out of Ibrox are to be believed, the club could have done with strengthening the balance sheets. With neither Boyd and the other transfer target, goalkeeper Allan McGregor leaving, where this leaves Rangers financially remains to be seen, but if the money-spinning friendly fixture with AC Milan is anything to go by, the club are desperately trying to find alternative sources of income. Manager Smith might (should!) be happy that he’s kept his team intact, allowing Rangers to continue to challenge Celtic all the way for the title, but we suspect chairman Murray is anything but.
The loss of Hearts central defender Christophe Berra to Wolves in a £2.3m remains to be seen, but there’s many a Hearts fan would rather have seen Andy Driver sold, mainly on the assumption that central defenders are hard to replace. Berra has been solid in the back for the Edinburgh side this season, his absence noted in the sides 2-0 defeat at Accies last weekend. Artmedia Bratislava defender Pavol Farkas has been mentioned as a possible replacement by manager Laszlo, but with the transfer window now shut, it looks like Hearts will have to fill the void somehow.
Like Berra, Chris Porter has played an important role for his club this season. The former Motherwell striker, who joined Derby was the clubs top scorer this season with 9 goals. It’s not the first time that Motherwell have sold on their top scorers; in recent seasons, Scott McDonald and Ross McCormack have all left the club. Porter goes to English Championship strugglers Derby County for a fee reputed to be around £400k. The question is whether Motherwell can find a replacement for Porters’ goals, especially now they’ve finally got a decent run going. It’s going to be a tough year for David Clarkson …