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Neil Lennon Is The First Manager To Take A Piece Of Pedro. He Certainly Won’t Be Last.

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Pedro’s Grand Experiment is on the ropes after just two league games of the new season, and it was Neil Lennon who did it.

Not surprising, really. Caixinha has turned his team into long ball merchants and their European defeat, the worst in the history of Scottish football, cannot be as easily airbrushed from history and memory as many in the media and the Ibrox stands would wish.

It is a matter of time before their board terminates this joker.

After two league matches we’re already out in front of them.

Today their fans and the media will try to take heart from the way they fought to the end, with the word “fought” used literally in a game where there were a rash of bookings and, of course, the red card which many are already hiding behind.

What they didn’t do was impress with any football.

Dorrans was anonymous.

Herrera looks like a League One target man.

Pena came on for a late cameo that was ineffective.

Had Tavernier not scored a speculative effort the boos would have been ringing round Ibrox long before the end.

I’ve seen bad Sevco teams; we’ve seen nothing else for the past five years, but this is one of the worst in terms of their style of play.

They don’t even try to play the ball on the deck.

Earlier in the week, Neil Lennon gave a number of fulsome interviews to the media where he laid out the game plan for this match, and it was simple enough; play the men, not the jersey. Ignore the name on the stand and the Survival Lie.

He told them to approach the match as a game between two sets of players … and on that basis I knew Hibs had a chance.

Because I’ve long argued that part of the problem for teams playing against them is that too many fall victim to this idea that Ibrox is the home of Rangers … not anymore.

It’s the home of Sevco … and Sevco are pish.

If other clubs line up with the same attitude they, too, will take points at that ground. There’s no need to fear this team, their cartoon manager is clueless when under pressure. Hibs pressed them today and they were easy pickings. Young Simon Murray tore them to pieces every time he went up the park. Had Stokes played just a few more games and been a little more sharp he would have had them on toast. John McGinn, as per usual, was excellent.

Sevco will claim this happened today because they went down to ten men; I’ve seen us go to ten men under Brendan and not fall apart. But the truth that won’t speak its name is that they were already fraying under the pressure at 1-1.

They had squandered an early lead, which in truth was one of their only shots on target in the game.

There was a moment of high amusement near the end of the match, when they were awarded a late free kick. The excitement of the commentary team was palpable. Bruno “Ronaldo” Alves stepped up to take it. I would say the real Cristiano could not have done better, but that would be a lie Neil Doncaster would have taken pride in. It’s hard to know who was in most danger; the Hibs goalkeeper or the bird that was perched on top of the stand behind the goal.

He was signed as the key to settling their defensive woes.

They lost three goals today. It could have been more.

Don’t let anyone kid you that this team is remotely up to the job of challenging anyone.

Their new players are not going to “get better” as the season goes on … when these guys have to play on wet Wednesday’s in Inverness how do you think they are going to do? They lack bottle. They lack commitment. And they’ve yet to fall far enough behind for the heads to go down.

But that will come.

The euphoria over some friendly matches, a single goal win courtesy of a soft penalty and a win against Dunfermline … it was incredible. The bubble has burst already. They were awful. They deserved to be beat. Other defeats will come, many of them, and there will be calls for the manager’s head long before Christmas.

They are a car crash in slow motion.

Enjoy the show.

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