Richie McCormack

Shearer went for 15 million.

I think we were looking over 20 million for Ronaldo in the summer of 97 to go to Inter.

It was an obscene amount of money.

Now, you kind of think about the player that rocks up at the 1998 World Cup.

If he's one that's...

you can look at it one of two ways.

Either undercooked from the fact that he hasn't played week in and week out against the Hibs, Hearts and St Mirrens of this world.

Or his knee is in a better condition.

His knee and his head is in a far better condition than what it had been and there's not necessarily this need to absolutely rubber stamp his status as the world's best player.

David Murray said they had the money to do it Ronaldo and his people have both said that they had the money to get it done it's just one of those ones that you're kind of left thinking wow I think around the same time Rangers signed Marco Negri they would have yeah that season obviously Negri's first season in Scotland scored a hat full of goals and he was one of a string of strikers who's performed well in Scotland and then got in the hump in the second season and wanted to go your Pierre van Huyden your George Cadets at Celtic will add to that too

Yeah, ultimately that's what they were looking at, is that they'd reached the latter stages in that inaugural Champions League season, the one where they'd performed so well initially against Leeds and then obviously gotten results against Marseille.

they hadn't done well in Europe since then like there'd been group stage exits and they really didn't make a dent so Murray and the Rangers board wanted something that would solidify their status as a European great because they were running away with Scotland at the time in the midst of the 9-0 and all that

and they saw this as being the final piece of the puzzle.

Oh my God, I absolutely wish this.

I don't think either one of us is a Rangers fan, but I just think purely for the optics of the best player in the world

only having to play in the Champions League, like being rolled out as one of Mr Burns' ringers in the softball episode of The Simpsons.

It's like, oh, we've got Borussia Dortmund at home, have we?

Marco Negri, you can go back indoors, wheel out Ronaldo.

Yeah, we've all got a sweet tooth, which is why we're all kind of attracted to these transfer stories, I think, as well.

I would have grown up in the teletext era, refreshing page 302 just to see if something has happened on the transfer front and seeing if there's any movement.