Tom English: Ally McCoist’s reputation at risk over Guerra

A YEAR ago this week, Juan Manuel Ortiz was readying himself for a game against Real Madrid. Ortiz was an Almeria player back then, an apparently important cog in their (doomed) battle against relegation from La Liga.

The arrival of Jose Mourinho’s men was greeted with a combination of excitement and fear for Real were in no mood to take pity on their struggling hosts. They started with Sergio Ramos and Xabi Alonso, Sami Khedira and Cristiano Ronaldo, Mesut Ozil, Kaka and Angel Di Maria.

Real had won their previous eight games in all competitions, scoring 25 goals in the process. Ronaldo, alone, had scored 13 of the 25.

It’s hard to say for sure how Ortiz played in that game against Real but he must have done just fine because he completed the full 90 minutes of a shock 1-1 draw. Later the same month, Ortiz helped Almeria qualify for the semi-finals of the Copa del Rey. Before he left for Rangers, and in the last weeks of the La Liga season, Ortiz played at the Camp Nou and shared a pitch with Messi, Xavi, Iniesta and the rest of Pep Guardiola’s invincibles. Almeria lost 3-1. A respectable result, no question.

His last game for his old club was against Real at the Bernabeu and an attacking triumvirate of Ronaldo, who scored twice, Karim Benzema, who also scored twice, and Emmanuel Adebayor, who scored three times. The point is not that Almeria got slaughtered on the night but that Ortiz was starting in these games. He was a La Liga player. He was used to life on the biggest stage in football.

For whatever reason, Ortiz has not, and may never, hack it in the Scottish Premier League. From Camp Nou and the Bernabeu to nowheresville in a matter of months. His last start for Rangers was in late September. He’s played the sum total of 14 minutes since then. By the sounds of it, Ally McCoist has all but given up on him in the same way he seems to have gone cold on two other midfield acquisitions, Alejandro Bedoya and Matt McKay, the latter having started just two games for Rangers as well as one brief appearance off the bench.

Now, it seems, that he’s keen on another Spanish player, a striker this time. Javi Guerra is his name, Real Valladolid his club and in the region of £2 million his price tag. On Tuesday, McCoist all but confirmed that Guerra was at the top-end of his wish-list should Nikica Jelavic depart for pastures new. McCoist believes Guerra is an outstanding player and something of a goal-machine – and the stats tend to back him up.

Guerra has started 14 games this season and has scored eight times. Last season, he started 38 games and scored 24 times. The season before, when he was at Levante, he scored 12 goals in 33 games. With numbers like those you might expect him to eat up the SPL. That’s obviously what McCoist thinks, but he probably thought that about Ortiz as well. He might have thought that, if Ortiz can play 90 minutes against Mourinho’s top boys and come out with a 1-1, then surely he was going to be a success in the SPL. Right? Well, wrong. So far, at any rate.

Some alarm bells should be ringing in McCoist’s head in relation to Guerra. Firstly, he was on the books at Valencia in La Liga for three years but only ever made two appearances. All his goals have come in the Spanish second division. No doubt, it’s a decent level of competition, but it’s a level below Ortiz had been playing at and we all can see how out of his depth he has appeared in the SPL. Ortiz was coming up against Barcelona and Real Madrid, Valencia and Sevilla. Guerra has been doing it against Recreativo and Ponferradina, Elche and Salamanca, Numancia and Huesca. We all have a love of Spanish football, but their leagues are not without their dross. It’s hard to judge Guerra’s merits based on performances in Spain’s second tier. Not all that glisters over there is gold.

Secondly, if Guerra was a tyro then there might be more inclination to believe that McCoist is on to something, but he’s not a tyro, he’s 29 years of age and he’ll be 30 in March. You have to wonder, too, why he didn’t get a move to La Liga in the summer after his 24 goals last season? And what about his re-sale value in the event of him turning out to be a triumph in Scotland? Basically, at his age, he doesn’t have one.

That will hardly matter to the fans, of course. If they get two or three prolific seasons from him, then they’re laughing no matter what age he is. The potential for re-sale value should be a critical part of the Old Firm’s transfer policy in this day and age, though. Clearly, Celtic have grasped the concept. Given the dire straits Rangers are in, you might have thought they would have grasped it, too.

How many strong saleable assets have they got at the club right now? Assets, that is, that might generate the kind of transfer fee that would make a difference. Jelavic, for sure. Allan McGregor, definitely. Those two are really the only bankers. If McCoist has £2m, plus a healthy wage, to spend on a striker he has to do two things with it. Turn it into goals and then turn it into profit. That is the fiscal reality.

That is a road that Neil Lennon seems to be going down. Yes, he’s had more financial freedom to spend than McCoist has had, or is ever likely to have, but Lennon has predominantly gone for younger players in the transfer market, players who might one day be sold later for a decent return. We’re talking here about Gary Hooper and Beram Kayal, Victor Wanyama and Adam Matthews, Emilio Izaguirre, Joe Ledley and Anthony Stokes. The average age of those seven signings is 22.4.

Lennon, and his scouting staff, have recruited young and potentially-valuable players. At Rangers, McCoist has brought in Carlos Bocanegra who is 32, Doran Goian who is 31, Ortiz and McKay who are both 29 and now another 29, soon to be 30-year-old, is on the Ibrox short-list. Given the financial hole they’re in, you would think that Rangers would adopt a similar signings policy to Celtic – buy low and try to sell high at a later date. But, no.

So, Jelavic. Is he staying or going and, if he’s going, is Guerra the man to replace him? Might Guerra be the new Jelavic or the new Ortiz? It’s not just the pursuit of the league title that might be riding on McCoist getting it right. Having got it wrong a little too often in the transfer market already, it’s McCoist’s very reputation as Rangers manager that’s at stake.