Hignett joins the advice club

Craig Hignett has joined Garry Flitcroft in the 'giving an opinion on modern day Rovers' department and has advised Venky's to value the merit of building from the ground up.

There has been mass debate over the last few months over the pros and cons of signing a 'big name' and signing potential and Hignett believes the way forward should be in signing players who to progress.

Craig even uses the bizarre case of Fabrizio Ravanelli to support his argument.

Hignett spoke in the Lancashire Telegraph and said - "It does not necessarily work. Your team improves in that you get better players but it doesn`t mean you work as a team. We certainly didn`t at Middlesbrough and Ravanelli in particular caused a lot of friction.

"He just didn`t gel with the rest of us. Ravanelli did not mix with the English culture and didn`t seem interested in doing so. He made it known he wasn`t impressed with the facilities and didn`t understand why we didn`t train twice a day.

"Rav had come from Juventus, the European champions, and he couldn`t come to terms with the nature of the Premier League. When he played for us in one off cup games you saw how good he was but he couldn`t be bothered doing that every week.

"What the likes of him, Juninho and Emerson did do for the club was raise the profile. The fans loved it because we were being talked about all the time.

"It wasn`t all a disaster because we got to two cup finals but we also got relegated. We could beat anyone on our day but we had to depend on Ravanelli being up for it.

"When we played away from home in the league, there were times when he was just not at the races."

Hignett even expressed his shock at the sight of Rovers trying to sign Ronaldinho back in the last transfer window and feared the worst at that point.

But Hignett has backed the idea of buying potential, climbing the league and then having a bash at trying for the big names.

Hignett spoke in the Lancashire Telegraph - "When it all kicked off about Ronaldinho, it just appeared to me like it was someone who was very naive was in charge of a football club for the first time'

"They thought they could buy anyone because they had money. The facts are though now the best players go to the best clubs. They will find it is now almost impossible to attract world stars if you are not playing in Europe.

"They might be able to get a name who is coming to the end of his career if they are willing to pay enough in wages, I guess like the Ronaldinho situation. That would have been a disaster in my mind though.

"Back in Middlesbrough`s day we got Ravanelli because we made him the highest paid player in the Premier League on about £40,000 a week and paid a £7million transfer fee.

"That wouldn`t even buy Andy Carroll`s right foot now. In today`s game you would be looking at £50m plus for someone like him and about £200,000 a week in wages.

"I believe they are better off doing what they ended up doing in January.

'Sign young players with potential and build from there.

'Maybe then they could get to the stage one day when they could attract the big names."

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