Ibrox Giving Clement A Contract Extension Makes No Sense At All And Even Keith Jackson Knows It.

Today, for the first time in a while, I don’t feel the need to do a full-on number on Keith Jackson, and for once it’s because Jackson has written something which is reasonably accurate and with which few people could disagree.

The decision to offer a long-term contract extension to the Ibrox manager Philippe Clement doesn’t make much sense, and in fact has the whiff of lunacy about it.

As Kris Boyd pointed out, Clement still had multiple years left on his deal. The extension is perplexing. Jackson’s perfectly reasonable question as to why he felt this necessary is valid. But as he’s noted, it’s also a strategy that comes with a high degree of risk.

Tuesday night’s match against Dynamo Kiev is crucial for them, with a place in the Champions League groups and a substantial sum of money at stake, money the club desperately needs, and if you look at their forums, and the media reaction to their performance over the weekend, you’ll see that confidence is low. Typically, the media hypes everything happening at Ibrox, and we joke about them winning the Close Season Cup.

But this year, it’s a different story.

The close season, and the pre-season, have been an absolute mess over there, and with points already dropped, they are trailing Celtic at a time when this guy has little room for error. No recent manager at Ibrox has started a season under this much pressure.

Perhaps the board is trying to support Clement by offering a contract extension, giving him security and the illusion of time to bed in his players and get his ideas across.

But an illusion is all it is, and Jackson knows that full well.

Clement operates in one of the most high-stress football cultures in Europe. Scottish football might seem like an easy place from the outside, but it’s a pressure cooker. I’ve described our landscape as a killing field. A few bad games can shatter a manager’s reputation almost overnight.

Historically, managers with dazzling reputations have come to Ibrox, only to crash and burn spectacularly. When there was still a club called Rangers playing in the SPL, managers like Paul Le Guen and Dick Advocaat were undone by the intense pressure.

Le Guen came here with all sorts of plaudits ringing in his ears; he was the Moonbeam Murray promised the fans would be lighting their way for years to come. He was highly rated and expected to dominate, but couldn’t cope with the unique environment of Scottish football and left with his reputation in ruins.

Advocaat, although initially successful, eventually saw his reputation damaged beyond repair.

This high-stress environment has always made managing at Ibrox difficult, but since the death of Rangers and the birth of the NewCo things are a lot worse.

The pressure to beat Celtic is so intense, and the fans and the media so unforgiving that an Ibrox boss who has a crisis is virtually guaranteed to come unglued under it.

And the crux of Jackson’s piece is that there have to be signs of improvement and there aren’t. For all the hype Clement generated last season, it’s hard to see what big changes he has made. In contrast, Brendan Rodgers has already started to imprint his style on Celtic, and the players look as if they’ve adapted brilliantly to his methods and changes.

This stark contrast makes Clement’s lack of progress even more obvious, and dangerous to him, and if the crisis continues to grow, the Ibrox board will face a tough decision with no easy answer.

How long do you give a manager who doesn’t seem to have fresh ideas or a new perspective? Clement was supposed to use this summer to hit the ground running. The stadium situation is not ideal but that shouldn’t affect his ability to do something with the players he has, and their fans had expected to see some modest changes and improvements during the pre-season games … and they were a shambles.

None of them is convinced by the idea of starting from scratch again.

And the problems at Ibrox aren’t just on the pitch or limited to the situation with the ground. There are rumours of dressing room bust-ups, they have a captain who knows he’s not wanted, and senior players being pushed aside. If Clement has lost the dressing room, he’s already finished, and the lime pit is already being dug for him.

Ibrox is a full-on disaster area right now, with the fans already on the edge of revolt. If Clement doesn’t start to look like he knows what he’s doing, and the season continues to unravel he’ll lose the backing in the stands completely and then what choice have they got but to add him to the list of managerial casualties, and another trophy for Brendan Rodgers’ wall.

Jackson’s right; for all the dysfunctionality we’ve come to expect over there, the decision to give Clement a contract extension might be the most baffling development yet. It gives a four-year guarantee to a manager who might not be in the job in four months.

There is no other word for that but lunacy.