This time last week Pedro Caixinha was all about wanting respect.
He was not asking for it, mind. He was demanding it.
The lack of respect for his club was the reason Hibs were able to get a victory at Ibrox. They came and they played without fear. In demanding respect he was admitting that they are incapable of getting a result against any side which is not afraid.
Yesterday he said Hearts showed them the appropriate amount of respect in that they came to Ibrox and played for a point.
This, he says, is progress.
Progress is being five points behind Celtic, apparently.
Has someone told him you don’t get points based on your respect level?
I have no idea, but whilst he talks about the positives generated by a 0-0 draw at home against a club which doesn’t have a manager, the fans have largely made up their minds.
They’ve been debating who the worst manager in the last 20 years was.
He’s not worse than McCoist.
That’s as good as it gets for him.
The most absurd thing about those who defend Pedro is that they talk of him needing time to bed in his players. He failed, miserably, spectacularly, with the team Mark Warburton left behind. That’s his alibi; it wasn’t his team.
But as Waghorn and others are showing right now, they have the firepower to score goals and do well in the English Championship and in the SPL.
That squad was good enough to get past the Luxembourgers.
No amount of flannel will disguise that simple fact.
“Ah but Brendan lost to Red Imps in his first game …” is invariably the excuse you hear.
Yeah, he did.
But it was his first game, and Pedro had over a dozen to work with his squad.
And we went through, we qualified in that tie, to have an unbeaten domestic campaign.
They’ve already lost this season to Hibs.
The comparison doesn’t stack up.
The Sevco fans know this.
Listening to Derek Johnstone yesterday on the radio was positively surreal.
If he believes this Sevco squad is better than last years, if he believes Caixinha can be saved, he never watched the same game as me and he never listened to the manager in the aftermath of it; what I saw was a long-ball team who were easy to contain. What I heard was a manager who has completely taken leave of his senses.
The trouble is, there are a few clubs who do still “respect” the Rangers jersey as worn by Sevco.
But I would dispute that yesterday’s Hearts team wast one of them. That was a performance from a stand-in boss who wanted to make a case for his job; it was less about respecting the Ibrox club than it was about Daly putting on a show for his prospective employers.
Neil Lennon’s side showed them no respect at all.
Neil Lennon’s side saw what was in those blue jerseys and they weren’t the least bit impressed.
The amazing thing about Caixinha’s comments yesterday is that he seems to be suggesting that respect is what he craves most; for him to have said he was pleased by that, by a draw that leaves the fans bereft and his team already adrift, is quite extraordinary.
Clubs will give him the “respect” he craves. All it will cost him is a shot at the title.
Which, let’s face it, he never really had in the first place.
Whenever I hear this guy talk now the mental image I get is of a guy in a hole. Digging down.
He is talking his way to trouble, but it was coming for him anyway.
As I keep on saying to Sevco fans, and to quote another character who took grim satisfaction in the sadistic torture of others, “If you think this has a happy ending you haven’t been paying attention.”