As Rangers drift towards the end of a “dead duck” of a domestic campaign, the biggest danger is now complete apathy from the fed up fans.
That’s according to Record Sport’s very own Keith Jackson, who spelled out what comes next to the Ibrox hierarchy on the latest episode of Hotline Live. Philippe Cement‘s side were back in Premiership action for the first time since their Scottish Cup calamity against Queen’s Park, and they not only survived the trip to Tynecastle, but left with all three points.
That they did so owed a lot of goalkeeper Jack Butland, Elton Kabangu’s finishing and John Beaton missing, then VAR not reviewing, Clinton Nsiala shoving James Wilson over in the box at 1-1. That’s before you factor in Jamie McCart’s two own goals. It was not the fast out the traps reaction that would have been demanded after being dumped out of the cup, and on another day Hearts would have been out of sight before half-time.
Little appears to be changing on the pitch, and Clement is still speaking like a man absolutely sure it won’t off it either. And that, Keith says, is what could lead to fans simply having enough of seeing the same old pattern repeat itself and they stay away not because they care so much, but becasue they simply don’t any more.
“I think the big danger now for Rangers in terms of where they go from here and how they move forward is that apathy becomes the overriding emotion amongst the Rangers supporters,” he said. “They just lose the stomach for it and find something better to do with their Saturday afternoons.
“Through all the moments and obviously Rangers had the financial chaos in 2011/12, the fans stayed with it through thick and thin and they’ve continued to do so. The little moments where they see that this could be getting better or moving in the right direction, I think they’re just looking at this and shrugging their shoulders and losing heart.
“Something needs to happen to make them re-engage with their football club. Right now, it just seems like hard work for them.”
Even the protests of the 600 odd travelling fans in Gorgie at the weekend lacked any sort of conviction. A few choruses aimed at the board and extremely subdued goal celebrations pointed to a fanbase that has had the fight sucked out of it over recent weeks.
Keith continued: “The fans have reached a point now where they’re just close to switching off from the thing. That would be the really alarming thing from the Rangers perspective. If they lose, they’re not even angry any more. They’re just scunnered with it. They’ve hardly got the energy to complain.
“You saw the Rangers fans, they were supposed to protesting and they sang at Tynecastle: ‘Rangers Football Club, is in the wrong hands.’ But it was a sort of half hearted thing. It wasn’t an angry, full scale revolt. It was oh, we should criticise the board here, that’s right.
“You look at Rangers and there’s a lifelessness about them just now. Let’s not forget, they’ve had a really quite successful and impressive European campaign and that’s still got some legs in it.
“But domestically it’s a dead duck. The season’s over.”