The events of the last week or so – or to put it more accurately the complete lack of them – probably perfectly sum up where Rangers are right now.
Stuck in the ultimate rut and going absolutely nowhere. Coming second best in a two horse race has been accepted so obediently for so long now that they have almost forgotten what it feels like to rule their own roost. Failure and disappointment have become the expected normality. Or, to put it another way, the natural order.
But, even so, the men in charge of the Ibrox club’s command centre have surpassed themselves by willingly turning a blind eye to the humiliation which was wreaked upon their supporters last weekend, as they watched on in a state of jaw slackening horror. To exit the Scottish Cup before Valentine’s day would once have been considered as a sacking offence all in itself.
But to do so by being defeated at Ibrox by a side from the Championship which was held to a 2-2 draw by East Kilbride only a week or so earlier? And posting perhaps the most catastrophic loss in the club’s proud history? At a moment in time when they have already been reduced to the role of by-standers in this year’s title race?
No that’s taking this dereliction of duty to an entirely new level and it almost beggars belief that, eight days on, no-one from within the Rangers boardroom has had the courage to pop a head around the door to provide some sort of communication to the fans who are still hanging around open mouthed, in a state of considerable shock.
Where is Patrick Stewart for example? The recently appointed chief executive was supposed to bring a bit of strategic thinking and leadership to a regime which was badly in need of all the help it could get.
Likewise, Fraser Thornton was shoe-horned into the chairman’s seat at around the same time and together this pair offered the club’s supporters a sense of hope and a new beginning.
It was down to them to shake the place down and to deliver some order and functionality to a hierarchy which was plainly fractured and so very obviously out of its depth. But, rather than sweeping through the club like a dynamic new broom, Stewart and Thorton have disappeared through the same old looking glass at the top of the Blue Room. Like the rest of them, – Julian Wolhardt, George Taylor, Alistair Johnston, Graeme Park and John Halsted – they too have become invisible men.
It is both remarkable and shameful that not one of this ‘leadership group’ or their recently found hired hands had the courage to find a voice in the immediate aftermath of that Queen’s Park capitulation. They might be saying nothing at all but they’re doing it so loudly that it screams of a club which has all but given up on its own responsibilities as well as its self respect.
Quite clearly, Rangers no longer see themselves as a competitive and genuine football force inside their own back yard. If they did, then this current state of affairs would be regarded as something of a scandal. Instead, it is not even deemed worthy of comment and most certainly not quite bad enough to consider relieving the manager of his duties.
At the very least, if Philippe Clement was removed from the firing line, then the Belgian would be released from all this misery of his own making. It would constitute an act of kindness and it would also go some length to making the club’s supporters believe that Stewart and Thornton have got their heads in the game and the best interests of the fans at heart.
But now there is no choice but to question the credentials of the new boys in brogues and to ask what exactly it is that they have been doing all this time since taking on their respective posts a couple of months ago? Yes, they have ordered a ‘root and branch’ review of the club’s operations and outsourced this investigation to a team of experts who are presumably being paid handsomely to pull up the drains on the board’s behalf.
But isn’t that why Stewart was required in the first place? To take a look around and to start making the decisions which would make Rangers relevant again? Instead, they made the trip across the M8 to Tynecastle on Sunday for a league match which was rendered absolutely meaningless before it had even started. And that also sums Rangers up right now. Put simply, they no longer matter.
They have allowed themselves to become insignificant and easily ignored. Clement began Sunday 16 points behind Celtic at the top of the table. Yes, it was back to 13 by the time he returned across the country but so what? Really, who cares?
That Rangers managed to claim a victory in spite of themselves may have made for an interesting watch but while the contest was actually quite fascinating, its outcome carried no value or importance. And that simply has to be the crux of the matter where Stewart and Thornton ought to be concerned because if apathy is now the overwhelming emotion around their empire then the whole business is broken.
There were chants from the away end calling for regime change. ‘Rangers Football Club is in the wrong hands,’ they sang midway through the second half.
But it all felt more like a half hearted afterthought than a full scale revolt. These fans need some reason to make them re-engage with their own club again and so far Stewart has failed quite spectacularly to discover it.
He has mentioned in passing that Rangers are looking for what he describes as ‘external investment’ and, even if it hardly raised as much as shrug of the shoulders, this is the one development which could yet become a game changer. If there are talks ongoing with some potential guardian angel which might involve an entire recalibration of the club from top to bottom then, all of a sudden, Rangers might begin to matter again.
But, for the time being, the club will continue to drift aimlessly and without any sense of purpose, like some ghost ship on the horizon. Rangers are not just in the wrong hands but they are a club which is going nowhere.