With Joey Barton still on the books – in spite of media suggestions that he would be tearing up his contract today and walking away with a pittance – Sevco needed another major crisis involving a senior player like global security needed the election of Donald Trump.
(Don’t even get me started on that. I’m depressed as it is.)
But today that’s exactly what they’ve got as internet rumours and press reports are rife suggesting that Martyn Waghorn is on the verge of a January exit after falling out with the manager.
This is hot on the heels not only of the Barton saga but other reports about fights between senior players including Forrester and Tavernier and the bust-up at the end of last season which saw Warburton himself do walking away for an entire summer, before lack of an offer from a club in England brought him back to Ibrox instead.
That club is disintegrating faster than the Clinton wing of the Democratic Party.
They are in freefall.
You wonder what else can possibly go wrong.
Their dressing room is riven, factionalised and filled to the rafters with egos who’s talent doesn’t justify the arrogance. The club manager is a man wracked by self-doubt and fear. Above him there’s turmoil as Stewart Robertson tries to dodge responsibility for the Barton fiasco and their chairman is, of course, a convicted tax crook who’s facing mounting legal difficulties even as he tries to steer them through an epochal financial crisis with no end in sight.
Over all of it falls the shadow of the league table, of Celtic ascendant.
Their fans are on the edge of open revolt, demanding proof of a plan.
Barton may very well accept a pay-off today or tomorrow – don’t bet on it, but he might – and that will please some of their fans enormously. But as I’ll point out later (after I get some sleep) that’s no victory and it has a vicious sting in the tail, which should give them all pause.
There is no good news to come out of that place at the moment. Their fans must be delighted that this is an international weekend; I am not sure how much trauma they can endure before they snap. Brace yourselves for a long winter, and get the popcorn ready.
This will get ugly long before the fixture at New Year.