They’d been waiting for this moment to come along ever since leaving Parkhead with their tails tucked between their legs. For weeks now, they’d be hoping it might drop out of the sky and land at their feet.
But when the opportunity presented itself to them at Rugby Park yesterday, Rangers allowed it to pass them by almost as if they were too scared to confront it. And, one full year into the job, that’s becoming the story of Philippe Clement’s tenure.
The Belgian has become the latest in a line of close but no cigar merchants to have allowed standards to be degraded to such an extent that his side is now in serious danger of being considered a bit of an irrelevance where this season’s league title is concerned.
Saturday’s draw between Celtic and Aberdeen ought to have been the trigger point for a monumental reaction. Rangers should have been clambering to get on board the bus down the M77 in the knowledge that the door had suddenly been left blowing in the winds of storm Ashley.
But, rather than gain a bit of ground on the front runners by eating into their lead, Clement and his players actually conspired to fall even further behind, as the five point gap they began the weekend with increased to six thanks to Marley Watkins’ late winner in Ayrshire.
They say, at testing times such as these, that the mentality of some players can become fragile. But not with this Rangers team. They’re no longer suffering from a fragile mindset. On the contrary, it’s already broken and shattered into pieces.
And it was glaringly obvious long before Watkins muscled his way past John Souttar to bag the winner. If Clement was caught by surprise by this concession then he must have been the only man inside the stadium who hadn’t seen it coming from a mile off. This game had a 1-0 Kilmarnock win written all over it pretty much from the moment it began.
Derek McInnes’ players were sharper, hungrier and stronger than their opponents all over the pitch. In fact, it was a textbook McInnes performance and, after a sluggish start to the campaign and the distraction of European football, Killie are now back knocking on the door of the top six.
Rangers? They’re now just a single point better off than fourth placed Dundee United and it seems more likely they’ll be focusing on fending off this threat from Tannadice rather than harbouring any real hopes of getting involved in the argument brewing between the top two.
Yesterday was the chance for Rangers to demand to be taken seriously. And what they came up with was merely more proof to the contrary. They’re a tough watch under Clement. A dull, unimaginative unit which plods around at pedestrian pace but without purpose or genuine menace.
They’re out there and they’re present. They run around, they huff and puff and every now and then they wave their arms around in the air to complain about something or other. But, all the while, they do little more than go through the motions.
Clement looked for a a bit of patience earlier in the season when he pledged to the club’s fans that they would see ‘the real’ Rangers around the months of October and November. Well, if what he had in mind was a punchless, pointless, powder puff outfit then he’s delivered on that promise.
But it’s not going to wash with a support which is teetering on the brink of a full scale revolt as their club stumbles around from one mess into the next both on the park and off it.
‘The mismanagement of Rangers must stop and stop now’ was the message they unfurled in the away end yesterday. Forget that it had a Father Ted ‘Down with this kind of thing’ feel to it.
The fact that they are going to such lengths, spelling out the extent of their own dissatisfaction is what really ought to register with the current hierarchy. If you can even call it that.
‘There’s been a banner’ you could almost hear them splutter when Sky’s cameras panned around the stadium and honed in on the protestors, ‘Somebody had better get the chairman on the phone. Oh wait, there is no chairman. Get the CE… oops.’
Add to that the fact that, already minus a full time chairman and chief executive, Rangers are now also going about their flawed business model without a director of football and it’s no wonder these fans are demanding fundamental change at the top of the old staircase.
Of course, at least they have the comfort of knowing that the board has tied up Clement on a bumper new extended contract. Right?
Well, maybe not because the very idea of slapping a pair of golden handcuffs on the manager’s wrists is looking more and more like another knee-jerk decision based on nothing much more than all out panic.
Yes, former chairman John Bennett wanted to paint a picture of unity and order behind the scenes when he posed for a photo opportunity with the pen still in Clement’s hand. Bennett wanted his clubs supporters to believe in the process and to buy into the notion of strong, decisive leadership from top to bottom.
But, here we are two months later, and if anything the malaise has become even more toxic and foggy than it was back then. Clement made promises of jam tomorrow when he said it would take some time for his new look team to click together. And yet, in reality, Rangers are giving their fans nothing much more than a bad taste in the mouth the more they see of Clement’s vision.
No clear style of play. No identity. No width. No pace and not a striker worth the name in sight. It’s maybe just as well for Clement’s job prospects that there also happens to be no one calling the shots or capable of making the big decisions above his head. Right now he’s surviving by default and that can’t be expected to continue indefinitely.