Few Ibrox bosses have so needed putting out of their misery. Do him a favour Celtic.

There’s something delicious, and there always has been, about an Ibrox boss in pain. But I’m probably having as much fun watching Phillipe Clemont come apart as I’ve ever had watching an Ibrox boss start to fragment.

Maybe it’s because he’s a big-mouthed braggart, even more so than Gerrard. He’s an arrogant **** who seems to think the sun shines out of him.

Right now, over in the States, they’re engaged in a hugely consequential presidential campaign. Tim Walz, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, has adopted a unique strategy for dealing with Republicans.

He doesn’t say they’re evil. He doesn’t say they’re dangerous. He says they’re just weird. And I love that. It might be one of the best political strategies I’ve ever witnessed. A lot of people didn’t understand what he was attempting to do with that right away, although I thought it was easy to grasp. He’s trying to make them a joke.

For years, people like Trump and his cronies have thrived on being controversial and always being in the news. The idea that they are dangerous plays into their image as strongmen. That’s the bubble Walz is trying to burst, and in JD Vance’s case, he has neutralised him about as effectively as I’ve ever seen simply by referring to him as an oddball.

And that’s how I’ve felt watching Clemont over the last eight or nine months he’s been in Scotland. He’s a strange guy; he’s an oddball. He’s not the kind of person you’d want running your dressing room or your club. He alienates people.

I mean, Cantwell was the source of a lot of his own problems. But what else was he talking about when he took his parting shot at the Ibrox club yesterday, saying that it’s not the club he joined? In short, it’s run by a guy who bears no resemblance whatsoever to the manager who signed him and whose ideas bear no resemblance whatsoever to those of the manager who signed him.

Don’t forget that Clemont arrived at Ibrox saying that some players just needed a hug.

He is long past that. I’ve referred several times to that bizarre interview he gave to The Sun last November when he talked about how he left his wife because she didn’t have his winning mentality, and how he wanted that winning mentality drummed into his kids to the extent that he would never let them win games when they were small children, so they would learn what it was like to be losers and hate it. And probably him as well.

I mean, who tells the media something like that? What impression does he think that makes on the rest of the world? He sounds off his nut.

On top of that, don’t you think he’s got a very big head for a guy who’s not done that much here? There was a period last season when he thought he was the dog’s nuts because his team had temporarily edged in front of us.

He finished the season even further behind us, and that from a position when he was in the lead for a time. So that collapse should have driven out of his head any ideas he had about being a superior manager to Rodgers or anything else.

But he still acts as if he believes that he is. And like other Ibrox bosses before him, he’s very comfortable embracing the delusion that a few close games mean there’s no gap.

He is not coming across very well in his interviews. Pedro Caixinha was mocked without mercy for less than what this guy has said since arriving in Scotland. But Pedro was an early target even for the hacks who built him up. This guy is still getting a free ride from a lot of them. Although questions are being asked about the style of play and the tactics, less interest is focused on just the guy’s erratic press conferences and generally weird behaviour.

Saturday was a case in point. He sat in front of the media, having missed the press conference the day before, and having rearranged it, made arrogant boasts about his team. He said they would match Celtic over the course of the campaign. He cheerfully threw a couple of players under the bus and told Hagi that his Ibrox career is over, no matter what he does in the B team, and he has pinned his future on the new guys that he signed.

And he complained. He complained about their Europa League draw. He complained about our Champions League draw. He said he watched both of them, making sure to put that in there, making sure to say that as far as his own group goes, there were Champions League groups that were easier, and it’s not particularly disguised who he’s talking about. He’s talking about us. He’s wailing, whining, whinging, bitching, and complaining about us.

And that is his inherent weakness as a manager. He spends far too long feeling sorry for himself and wallowing in self-pity, and way, way too long looking over the garden fence instead of focussing on his own club. He is just drenched in envy as a result, and it drips off him with every word that comes out of his mouth. He looks across the city at Celtic and says, “Why isn’t that us?”

He should ask his board of directors that question. He should ask his fans that question. He should ask Dave King that question, since he’s got a lot to say for himself at the moment, putting the boot into his former colleagues on the Ibrox board.

And don’t think I’ve forgotten about that, or even that I might have missed it. I did not. I’ll be returning to that subject soon enough.

But before I do, we have a game to play today.

And there has never been an Ibrox boss so much in need of a serious lesson in humility, and today I genuinely believe this Celtic team is going to hand one out.