Tom English: 'Donald Muir is getting slammed for turning down an offer that was never made'

MEMO TO the Rangers Supporters Trust: If you're going to stage a demonstration, stop talking about it and bloody well get on with it. What's stopping you? If you feel that your club's future is being compromised by the bank then get yourselves on the streets with your banners and your bugles and make some noise.

What's that you say? You've been quite angry on Follow Follow? I see. And some of you have closed your accounts with Lloyds Banking Group? Rebellious stuff, for sure. You raised some anti-Donald Muir flags at Ibrox the other week? Ah yes, it's good to know that the defiant spirit of William Wallace is alive and well and currently residing in the Broomloan stand.

This Rangers business is a bit weird. On Friday we had David Edgar, the torch bearer of the trust, talking grimly about an "organised protest" on the back of a "suspicion that Lloyds Bank is not doing enough to facilitate a sale". I might be wrong, but I thought it was down to Alastair Johnston to facilitate a sale, not Lloyds.

Edgar and chums are going bonkers because the bank supposedly dismissed a bid of 18 million for the club a short while ago. This was Dave King's consortium, we're told. The bank wouldn't countenance the offer and Muir has taken it in the neck ever since.

Here's the deal, though. There was no offer and there is no Dave King, not in terms of buying the club at any rate. King has not been seen around Ibrox since August, hasn't spoken to anybody who matters at the club or attended an important meeting for the longest time. This 18m bid, it's fantasy. It never happened.

How do we know this? Because if it was a proper offer it would have to be declared to the stock exchange. That's the rule. There was no declaration because – and forgive me for stressing this, but it needs to be done in order to get it into the heads of some Rangers daydreamers – there was no official bid. Nothing. Nada. Zip.

The bizarre thing about this is that Muir is getting slammed for turning down an offer that was never made in the first place. But even if it had been made, do you think 18m is enough to get the keys of the door at Ibrox? Not even close. It would be the sale of the century at that price. Ibrox, Murray Park, McGregor, Boyd, Bougherra, Davis, Wilson, Fleck, Thomson, Whittaker all for 18m? The banks have been utterly reckless in their business in recent years, but giving away that lot for such a trifling sum would be bordering on the criminal, would it not?

Anyway, didn't happen, OK? That's not to say that Rangers people shouldn't be worried, but they should learn to target the right people when letting off some steam. Muir is a strange choice. For the life of me I can't understand what exactly he has done to deserve the kind of stick he's been getting. One joker suggested last week that Muir's home address should be published online so that Rangers fans could go and stage a protest outside his door.

Muir is not an employee of the Lloyds Banking Group yet among the disaffected of Ibrox he is the symbol of the bank's persecution of the club. This is a bit trippy to be honest. Muir is David Murray's Mr Fixit. He is on the board in order to ensure that the club don't sink any further into debt. That's his job.

And it needs to be done. Rangers owe 31m and they're going to have to pay it back. Some fans interpret this as a hard line by the bank, a callous attitude that is threatening to destroy the club, but these people are not living in the real world. If you max-out your credit card and can't buy so much as a pair of socks on your Visa, whose fault is that? This is where Rangers are at. They're out of credit. It's payback time. This isn't anybody's fault but their own.

Walter Smith has been making dark predictions for the months ahead. The manager says this thing is only going to get worse, implying that the marquee players at Ibrox are going to be sold in order to service the debt. Smith's gloom is understandable, but it's not necessarily correct. The truth is that Sunderland offered 5m for Madjid Bougherra a little while ago and Rangers turned it down. So they're more robust on that front than some might think. We're not saying that Bougherra and Davis and Boyd and McGregor and Wilson won't be sold in the summer, but it's too easy to forecast a fire sale.

Rangers people have been talking about fire sales for two years and it hasn't happened yet. In the meantime, they've won a title and are ten points ahead of Celtic in their pursuit of another.

So, if Rangers fans feel the need to protest, then they'd want to be clear about what they're protesting over. The bank have not turned down an offer for the club, so forget that one. It's a myth. And they haven't insisted that players must be sold, or else Bougherra would be a Sunderland man by now.

But go ahead, boys. Take to the streets. Make your stand. Call Muir every name under the sun. But you might do me a favour while you're at it. Explain just what it is he's done that's made you hate him so.