In a damning assessment of the current state of the Scottish Premiership, renowned football pundit and former footballer, Alan McInally, has claimed that there are no players within the league that would be worth signing for Celtic or Rangers this summer.
The former Scotland international went on to lament the apparent decline in the quality of Scottish players, particularly in the midfield and striker positions.
McInally's scathing verdict suggests that the country's top clubs may have to look beyond their borders to find the caliber of players needed to compete at the highest level.
With the exception of Heart of Midlothian's, Lawrence Shankland, who finished as the Premiership's top scorer, McInally believes there are few other players who would command significant transfer fees from the Old Firm clubs.
"As much as Celtic and Rangers usually have their opportunity to take someone from another club that’s done well, I don’t think that there was anybody that was really outstanding so that the Old Firm would say we really genuinely need to go and get them,” he told Gambling.com.
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"Back in the day there was a glut of unbelievably good Scottish players available for Aberdeen, Dundee United, the Old Firm and coming down to England.
"I was actually just speaking to someone about this the other day, funnily enough, that lives down here (in England). They said ‘where’s all the Scottish strikers and midfield players?’. We were looking at some of the other strikers that don’t exist anymore, because we don’t have them in the Scottish national team. Someone that’s scoring that amount of goals.
"You could say Lawrence Shankland of course, with him finishing top of the goalscoring charts. But in terms of someone else wanting Lawrence Shankland, there’s not really that many clubs interested in spending a lot of money to bring him in.
McInally was asked about Celtic’s summer recruitment plans and their lack of transfer activity to date, which he replied: "I started my career at Ayr United, and on Friday (July 5) I was invited back as Ayr played Celtic in a pre-season game.
"I know it was to open one of the stands and it’s very early on in the season, but I was a little surprised that Celtic haven’t been more active in the transfer market.
"They were relatively successful last year in terms of obviously putting Rangers back in their place again, but I like to see business done early.
"I know that maybe some of the managers have been watching the EUROs and thinking ‘I’ll take him, I might get him for a good price’ etc.
“As of yet, Celtic haven’t been too busy. But that’s got to change, new faces have to come in, people have to leave, things have to be freshened up and I’m sure they’re on the job - it's just not been done yet."
