Well, let’s give him his due, that was certainly one way of going about it.
When Patrick Stewart chose to pop his head above the parapet on Saturday, it was widely anticipated the new Rangers chief executive would indulge in the business of attempting to win friends and influence people. But, in fact, by adopting an approach which sailed dangerously close to tipping towards condescending, Stewart managed to placate absolutely no one.
With the notable exception, of course, of Philippe Clement. If anything, his Saturday morning media briefing succeeded only in further antagonising and alienating a fan base which was already on the brink of mounting a full-scale rebellion against the men in charge of their club.
Stewart spoke a great deal while saying almost nothing they actually wanted to hear. It all amounted to a bad start for the man from Manchester United as well as recently appointed chairman Fraser Thornton. It was a surprisingly clumsy intervention which did absolutely nothing to take the sting out of yesterday’s visit from St Johnstone, during which sections of the home fans made their feelings perfectly clear with chants of ‘sack the board’.
By walking out of Ibrox after 55 minutes of an otherwise routine win over an almost certainly doomed St Johnstone, they stuck two fingers up at Stewart and the rest of those in the comfy seats of the directors’ box. Stewart’s biggest mistake was his failure to come across as a man with a plan and a mandate to provide the current regime with some much needed clear, strategic thinking . It all felt a bit too much like – meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
Both he and Thornton need to change the perspective and move the dial where the fans are concerned. First, they must rid themselves of the suspicion they are there merely to facilitate the wishes of the investors who have failed so spectacularly to move the club forward over much of the last decade or so.
“I need to make some tough decisions, it comes with the role, but I am committed to making the right ones for Rangers, not just the popular ones,” Stewart said without a hint of irony. By nailing his colours to Clement’s mast – for the time being at least – he’s playing a high-risk game.
Because if results do not turn around dramatically in the short term then Stewart will have no option but to conduct a hasty reverse ferret and that would leave a huge question mark over his own judgment and decision-making.
If a 15-point gap at the top of the table is no longer a sacking offence then what does that say about how far standards have been allowed to drop under this regime? Likewise, if the CEO backs Clement one week then has to fire him the next then the Rangers supporters will quite understandably have concerns and reservations about his own suitability for the job.
Because they’ve seen quite enough of Clement to reach their own damning verdict and they deserve to be listened to rather than told that the people at the helm know better than they do.
These people know what managerial excellence looks like. There’s quite literally a statue to it recently erected outside their own stadium. Walter Smith set that particular bar and against it all others will be judged. More than a year into the job, the awkward and obvious truth is Clement simply doesn’t come close to matching the standards of the great man.
Forget about paying for hired help to carry out an independent report by pulling up the drains behind the scene at Auchenhowie. Rangers fans have conducted a root and branch review of the Belgian and they have concluded, en masse, that they can no longer tolerate his inability to put a consistent, winning team on the pitch. Stewart was right about one thing. Sacking a manager does not provide a silver bullet solution.
No, the silver bullet comes with identifying and securing the services of a manager who is genuinely worthy of standing in Smith’s shadow. There is nothing at all to be gained by stubbornly standing by the manager when that manager plainly isn’t capable of managing.
Stewart was also correct though to talk about the wider, far-ranging issues which have done so much to hamper the club’s progress. And if he is as bold and as astute as the position demands, that’s when he may find himself crossing swords with the very people who are signing his pay cheques.
Because in order for Rangers to be properly fixed, the club will require a recalibration from the top down. One look around the room at the next board meeting should show Stewart and Thornton where the fundamental problems lie.
Alistair Johnston and Graeme Park might be well-meaning but their reputation and standing have become horribly tarnished by a succession of missteps. They represent a period of internal squabbling and chronic judgment that has rendered Rangers as the permanent runner-up in a two-horse race.
But at least they’re present. The same can hardly ever be said of the Ibrox club’s three other non- executive directors – Julian Wolhardt, George Taylor, John Halsted – all of whom seem perfectly comfortable in their roles as absentee landlords.
These men have been hanging around – albeit from quite some considerable distance – for years now but really, what have they achieved in all of that time? The vast majority of Rangers fans would struggle to pick any of the three of them out in an identity parade, never mind quantifying what it is they have contributed to the cause as almost entirely silent partners.
Wolhardt and Taylor were last spotted somewhere in the Far East. Halsted monitors events from the other side of the Pond. But this lack of boots on the ground is symptomatic of a club which has lost any sense of structure or leadership.
It’s Stewart’s job now to front it all up and to provide Rangers with some kind of direction. Which is why he missed a trick the other day when he assumed the mantle of communicating with the paying customers and somehow managed to make the relationship between the board and the fan base even more fractured than it already was.
Ultimately, Stewart will have to be judged on his action rather than on his words. But the new man hasn’t helped himself with his hamfisted, ill-thought-out introduction to the supporters and he has much to do in order to ensure that first impressions don’t last longer than he does.