Philippe Clement will stick to his guns. He has no choice.
The Belgian will point back to what happened at Hampden on Sunday afternoon and remain adamant that the wafer thin margin of Celtic’s latest cup final triumph is proof that the gap between these two old rivals is minimal at the most. But the truth of the matter is that the more Rangers believe this to be the case, the less inclined they will be to do something significant about it and the bigger the chasm is likely to grow.
The statistics will show that there’s not all that much in it. After all, when they placed the League Cup in the cabinet on Sunday night, Celtic took their major trophy tally to 119. Which is only one more than Rangers are currently standing on. However, those running numbers do not come close to charting the true scale of Celtic’s dominance since the turn of the century.
In much the same way as it required a penalty shoot-out to separate the two of them at the weekend, it all feels all a little bit like a sleight of hand. And Rangers are in danger of continuing to delude themselves if they chose to see it in any other way. The truth is, since the new millennium Celtic have been busy obliterating Rangers in the race to secure domestic silverware.
With 18 league titles, 12 Scottish Cups and 11 League Cups won over the course of the last 24 years, the Parkhead club have racked up a mammoth total of 51 major trophies. By comparison, during the same period of time Rangers have collected just 18 – six titles, five Scottish Cups and seven League Cups.
It’s not even close. And for years, while Rangers were clinging on to that manufactured, spurious claim of being the most successful football club in the world – a lofty assertion with which the likes of Real Madrid would have grounds to argue – they now can’t even claim to being the most successful football club in their own city.
Which is precisely why Clement’s post-cup-final suggestion that there is no great distance between the two sides has to be seen for what it really is – a statement of defiance made by a man on the wrong side of a largely hopeless, losing battle.
Of course, as the man currently carrying the can, the boss is obliged to make it sound as if he and his team are in the thick of the fight. And, yes, he deserves some serious credit for the recent upturn in performances which allowed his team to take Celtic all the way to the wire before Sunday’s thriller at the national stadium was decided by the brutality of a penalty shoot-out.
Clement may even have given himself and his supporters reason to believe that he might finally topple Brendan Rodgers at the seventh attempt when the pair of them collide again at Ibrox on January 2.
There are certainly signs that the Light Blues manager has stumbled on to something in recent weeks, now that he’s placed in trust in players such as Ianis Hagi, Nico Raskin and Hamza Igamane after previously concluding that they weren’t worthy of a place in his first-team squad.
But even if Clement can finally crack the Rodgers code next time out – that’s 20 derby days now with only one defeat – it will amount to nothing much more than a fleeting, momentary relief, won against the backdrop of Celtic’s overwhelming superiority.
When Rodgers lifted the Premier Sports Cup during his latest ticker-tape parade, he also notched up his 10th trophy over two stints in charge at Parkhead. In that time, Rangers have added just three to their total. With the Northern Irish gaffer’s team in a commanding position at the top of the league table, it’s very likely that he will stick at least one more shiny thing in the cabinet before the current campaign is over. And very possibly two.
When Rodgers needed to turn to his bench on Sunday, as bodies started to collapse all around, he was able to throw on the likes of Arne Engles and Adam Idah – two substitutes worth a combined total of £20million.
By contrast, when Clement reached inside the Rangers cupboard all he could come up with was Cyriel Dessers and Kieran Dowell. And somehow both of these players went missing at the crucial moment when Jack Butland took it upon himself to step up to take his side’s fifth penalty.
Clement insisted afterwards that Dessers was sixth on his list of takers but really, even if that was the case, what does it say about his No.9?
It can only be concluded that Dessers didn’t fancy taking one in regulation, or Clement thought his goalkeeper was a safer bet. Either way it’s a horrible look and one that is symptomatic of the mess Rangers have got themselves into over these recent years.
Yes, they gave Celtic a better game than anyone might reasonably have expected them to but in the end they couldn’t muster up enough to get the job done. And the reality is this near thing merely feeds into the narrative that too many of these players have a soft underbelly which allows them to be content with their status as the close-but-no-cigar brigade.
For the time being at least Clement will soldier on as best he can while knowing deep down that he’s got himself engaged in a fight that he has no real chance of winning. Eventually, it will be someone else’s turn to pick up the chalice and whoever that is will most probably make all the same empty promises of jam tomorrow.
But the truth is Rangers are stuck in a rut of under achievement, running all the way down from a boardroom which has never been properly functioning since Craig Whyte’s pointy plastic shoes first slipped through its doors.
So whether it’s Clement in the hotseat or anyone else for that matter, the same problems will continue to hamstring whoever is at the helm until the club has been recalibrated by some form of fresh thinking at the top or, better still, complete regime change. Put it this way, in the unlikely event that Celtic’s recent mini wobble in form was to worsen so significantly that their lead at the top of the table narrows going into the new year, then Celtic’s manager will simply go into the market to recruit more quality reinforcements.
Clement, meanwhile, will have to settle for what little he is given. And so on and on the gap will grow.