It would be prudent for Rangers supporters not to be seduced by events at Ibrox on Thursday evening. In the venue’s long and rich European history, few teams can have looked as inadequate as FCSB. The Romanian side arrived in Glasgow with a sense of crisis swirling around them and left with questions regarding their suitability to feature in the Europa League at all. Their contribution to the fixture was disgraceful.
In ordinary circumstances, Philippe Clement would now be facing a crucial eight-day spell in his Rangers tenure. His side were offered hope by Celtic dropping two points against Aberdeen last Saturday but capitulated at Kilmarnock the following day in the kind of disjointed and listless fashion that sums up all but one of their recent seasons. St Mirren and Hearts now visit Ibrox, either side of a trip to Pittodrie, for which Aberdeen should be the favourites.
Joy in Europe – Rangers have also defeated Malmö, who were almost as staggeringly awful as FCSB – fails to mask domestic stumbles and the sense Clement will prove incapable of moving Rangers forward, 12 months after he succeeded Michael Beale. Clement’s jam tomorrow approach has failed to convince the masses. Punters must be starkly aware that European football has suited Rangers for years, while players and coaches have been paralysed by expectation in Scotland.
Clement is protected by background dysfunction. The manager’s August signing of a contract until the summer of 2028 should not prove prohibitive should Rangers wish to sack him – termination clauses tend to remain unchanged in such scenarios – but the new terms proved Rangers’ desperation for continuity.
The chief executive, James Bisgrove, departed for Saudi Arabia in May, handily missing the maelstrom attached to delayed development work at Ibrox which shunted Rangers off to Hampden Park for the early part of this season. Bisgrove is yet to be replaced. A job that should be hugely attractive to Scotland’s corporate set is a no-go zone because the club’s chain of command is muddled by an ownership structure involving umpteen minority shareholders. The biggest of them, Dave King, routinely lobs grenades from South Africa towards what he regards as an inadequate regime.
Rangers have no permanent chairman since John Bennett – who has sunk £25m into the chasing of rainbows or, more specifically, Celtic – stepped down in mid-September. They have no sporting director, nor a head of football operations. The key personnel at Rangers are the manager, an interim chairman, a glorified chief scout and George Letham, an investor described as having a hands-on role despite holding no official post. For a club of such scale and aspiration, it is a remarkable scenario. John Gilligan, who has succeeded Bennett on a temporary basis, asked Rangers’ ultras to halt the firing of pyrotechnics amid fear of Uefa sanction. A serious, confident and competent Rangers would have stopped pandering to that group long ago.
Bennett had been adamant he would not remove Clement. The stance was admirable enough, given Rangers have burned through managers and associated cash at an unhealthy rate. Where this loyalty would always come unstuck is if the Belgian could not prove capable of developing a style of play or level of performance that shows Rangers are progressing.
This is a team who have scored fewer Premiership goals than Dundee United and Dundee. Rangers trounced Ross County 6-0 in late August and still have a goal difference of only plus seven. Rangers’ glaring flaws in the transfer market mean they have become borderline obsessed with a trading model so successfully used by Celtic, but the Ibrox approach is scattergun. Some of the current Rangers crop may move on for profit but they will be outnumbered by those who vanish into the wilderness. Rangers have no blue-chip, standout performer.
There is no queue of coaches waiting to take over at a club destined to play second fiddle – at best – unless Celtic make monumental errors. Cheerleaders for Derek McInnes state Rangers should dispense with Clement and hire the Kilmarnock manager. Those who bemoan Clement’s one-dimensional style should be careful what they wish for if McInnes is seen as the answer. Rangers need fresher thinking, including through alliance with an academy which is embarrassingly underutilised. Tactically, they need a manager who can dominate inferior opposition at pace.
Clement, not prone to accepting criticism, may stand tall by Monday week. It feels as if another crisis will hit Rangers in the not-so-distant future. The club has been allowed to drift. Until the upper echelon of the business is stabilised – or revolutionised – this will remain the case.
