Football: Hartley's set to lift the Bhoys just like my old pal

ANAGERS are judged two things - results nd transfers. Get both right and you are a genius. Get both wrong and you are out of a job.

It is either good buy or goodbye. Simple as that. he old transfer merry-go-round got ne last spin for the season in midweek and, as ever, there were a few signings that were more than just a shade interesting.

Kevin Thomson to Rangers from Hibs for pounds 2million. Paul Hartley (left) to Celtic from Hearts for pounds 1.2m. Shaun Maloney from Celtic to Aston Villa for pounds 1m.

And, it seems, about half of Lithuania to Hearts!

I said here a fortnight ago that I was a bit puzzled as to why Thomson and Scott Brown seemed joined at the hip.

If you bought one it appeared you had to by the other.

But Walter Smith separated the players - for now, anyway. I realise there is still talk of Brown joining his old mate at Ibrox in the summer with figures of between pounds 3m and pounds 4m being bandied about.

That's a lot of money for a youngster who was at Rangers as a kid and allowed to move on.

Thomson is a talented player, no doubt about it.

He has loads of skill and will bring class to any midfield.

Don't look for him chipping in with a lot of goals, though. I believe he has scored only three in his entire career and, intriguingly, two have been against Celtic! Hartley reminds me a wee bit of Bertie Auld. Celtic signed my old pal back in 1964 for a princely sum of pounds 12,000 from Birmingham City.

At the time it looked as though he was being brought in merely to add a bit of experience to a squad called the Kelly Kids after the late chairman Sir Robert Kelly.

There were youngsters such as Billy McNeill, Jimmy Johnstone, Bobby Murdoch, Tommy Gemmell and Bobby Lennox coming along. They needed someone to help guide them.

Bertie, in Glasgow parlance, was as gallus as they come. He played his football with a fair degree of swagger.

There was no way this guy was going to be a bit-part player.

A year after coming back he was scoring two goals as Celtic beat Dunfermline 3-2 in the Scottish Cup Final - their first piece of silverware in seven years - and two seasons after that he was the man of the match as the club lifted the European Cup in Lisbon.

So there's a lot for Hartley to live up to!

The player has said that he will be hated by Rangers fans for turning down advances from their club but, as I have always said, that's no bad thing.

The day the opposition support starts cheering you, then you know you are not doing your job properly.

As it happens, I don't think it will bother Hartley too much about getting stick from the opposition. He must be used to it by now!

Maloney to Aston Villa? Martin O'Neill could have waited until the end of the season and got him for nothing, but he preferred to spend pounds 1m. If my figures are accurate, that's pounds 9m the former Celtic boss has put into the Parkhead side's coffers this season after his earlier purchase of Stilian Petrov. He's buying players he knows well. Graeme Souness obviously kept tabs on what was happening at his old club Rangers and brought in the likes of Jean-Alain Boumsong, Barry Ferguson and Tugay. O'Neill must have similar thoughts too. To be fair, Shaun Maloney is not going to turn Villa's season around and he could have played the waiting game.

They are out of the FA Cup and it looks as though a mid-table place is the best they can hope for.

But at least he has done the decent thing and shelled out a few quid for the player.

Now we can all settle back and see how all the new guys perform. Good buys or goodbyes? All will be revealed in the coming months.

CAN it be true that referees need an operation to have every morsel of common sense removed before they are handed their whistles and red and yellow cards?

I ask after Iain Brines's sending-off of Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink following his last-minute winner for Celtic at Caley last week.

The Dutchman had already been booked for querying a decision by the ref who, as TV pictures showed, clearly got it wrong.

Then the big striker went to a section of Celtic fans behind the goal to celebrate his winner.

Okay, technically, that can be seen as inciting rival supporters.

AC Milan in the San Siro, maybe. But Caley Thistle in the Highlands? Give me a break!

If the match official had kept his card in his pocket, no one - and I mean no one - would have been bothered enough to complain.

But he had to play to the letter of the law and order off a player guilty of no more than showing delight after netting a fine goal.

I've already said it in the past and no doubt I'll say it again in the future - the problem with common sense is it is not that common.

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