Nothing sums up the dog’s dinner of a season Rangers have endured on the domestic front better than Queen’s Park’s five-goal defeat at home to Airdrie on Wednesday night.
The team who put Rangers out of the Scottish Cup, sabotaging their last chance of winning a trophy, have subsequently binned their manager Callum Davidson.
They might yet find time to get themselves relegated to the third tier of Scottish football while losing the financial backing of Lord Willie Haughey in the process.
Now they’re losing goals a handful at a time to the team who have been rooted to the bottom of the Championship table since the season began.
On reflection, how in the name of God does a club of Rangers’ size contrive to lose to a side like that at Ibrox and yet, concurrently, be in the quarter-finals of the Europa League on undeniable merit?
Rangers are losing the league to Celtic by the length of Sauchiehall Street yet give the impression of living on easy street when it comes to Europe.
In spite of having a dodgy goalkeeper, a porous defence and a tendency to exasperate as much as they exhilarate. Even Jose Mourinho, a man with a phrase to fit any occasion, got confused by it all.
He told Rangers not to celebrate too much after they had beaten his Fenerbahce side in Istanbul and predicted Athletic Bilbao would be too much for them in the last eight. The last act of a desperate man.
But now Barry Ferguson, the beneficiary of, among other things, that cup defeat to Queen’s Park, has arrived at the location that is between a rock and a hard place.
A buffer for the Basque country has to come in the form of a win over Bilbao at Ibrox this week.
And by the time Rangers head to Aberdeen on Sunday, Celtic could already be crowned champions.
The last time Rangers were at Pittodrie, in October, the home support were chanting about winning the league themselves
Of course, Jimmy Thelin’s star has been on the wane since then.
But, such is the rancorous nature of the clubs’ rivalry, it would be in the ascendancy again if Dons inflict another blow after Celtic landed their 13th title out of the last 14.
Assuming, of course, the defending champions beat St Johnstone in Perth today and Kilmarnock at home next weekend.
In between times, there is not a Celtic-supporting man, woman or child who wishes Rangers anything other than ill-fortune in Europe.
It is at times like this that the well-intentioned talk about the good that would be done to Scotland’s place in the European co-efficient table if Rangers triumphed.
They need to be taken quietly to one side and educated in the facts of life. Street life.
National prestige is for other countries to think about, not this one. Rangers’ continued presence in the Europa League is a source of concern for the Celtic support.
And it’s an on-going reminder for Ferguson that it would be impossible not to get the manager’s job on a permanent basis if he were to win a European trophy.
Rangers’ prospective new owners are from America, not the moon. They would recognise that incredibly high achievement isn’t rewarded by hiring somebody else in your place.
But the coming days are the most crucial in Ferguson’s time of temporary control.
He has presided over games that have been compelling to watch but mainly due to Rangers making life difficult for themselves at places like Kilmarnock and Dundee.
Bilbao aren’t fourth in La Liga because they tend to crumble from a position of strength, as happened in Ayrshire and on Tayside.
It’s now all about the optics for Ferguson. You know for certain that if he had been in charge against Queen’s Park, instead of Philippe Clement, embarrassment and humiliation would not have come in tandem.
What you don’t know is when, or if, the day will come when his team’s eccentricities catch up with them. But we’re about to find out whether it’s when, or if, that comes first.