Keown’s poison pen drips again as the Ibrox club continues to spiral.

Earlier in the month I wrote about an article by Gary Keown which dripped with spite and nastiness. I thought it was absolutely ludicrous. This week he’s turned in something way worse, and it has in it some of the worst trash that has ever flowed from his poisonous pen.

And really, there is no way to do this proper justice without presenting it in full. I don’t usually do this for articles not written by Keith Jackson, but here I’m making an exception.

Gary Keown: Clement needs to take a firm grip of second place or he will soon go the same way as Warburton

Aaaah. Do you remember the time when an Ibrox club had to actually win the league to be considered successful? Those were the days, eah?

Mark Warburton was given a new, long-term contract at (Ibrox) shortly before the start of a season when he hadn’t done all that much to deserve it. 

Nothing ever changed. They’ve done that with players galore over the past few years. And, of course, they’ve also done it with managers …

He then went on to spend his time pleading for time and patience and claiming the gap between his side and Celtic really wasn’t all that big.

Haha. Yeah. That was funny, wasn’t it?

Philippe Clement had better make sure the similarities between him and The Magic Hat end there.

The Magic Hat. Big Phil. Gio. Mick. They do love their wee pet names for their managers over there. We called Warburton The Bread Man which was a good joke in more ways than one. I’ve always regretted not entitling the final article on his Ibrox tenure “Pan Bread.” That was the one where they claimed he’d resigned and he said “Whoa, wait a minute … when was that?”

And the best way to start doing that is by getting it clear between himself and his players that, no matter the chaotic state of the Ibrox club off-the-field, there can be no excuses for not beating everyone else in the Scottish Premiership other than their Glasgow rivals.

The reason I think that particular paragraph is important is that this is not the first time lately I’ve heard a hack obliquely suggest that Clement should not be judged any longer on games against us. As I was planning to discuss later today (I may as well do it here and now) Graeme McGarry at The Herald wrote something similar last week. That Clement can’t be judged in opposition to Celtic any longer and now has to be judged against “the rest.” This is the media’s brilliant new line to prop up the Ibrox fans and the club itself; second is a triumph. Maybe they’ll mint a special trophy for it.

Despite his many, many faults, that’s pretty much what did for poor old Warbs in the end, 24 games into the 2016-17 season and just seven months or so after penning that contract extension ahead of (The Ibrox club’s) first campaign (ever) in the top flight after winning the Championship.

Warbs! Haha! His many, many faults? Isn’t that the guy some people in the media thought was one day going to be a future England boss? I am fairly certain that many of the hacks picked his team to win the league that season. Some had Joey Barton as the player of the year before a ball was even kicked. We have better memories than these muppets give us credit for.

And it will do for Clement as well unless he can show, starting with today’s visit to Dundee United, that he can put that fundamental building block in place following the collapse which saw his team throw away a league title last term against a brittle Celtic outfit that was very much there for the taking.

This gibbering halfwit is at it again with this “there for the taking” guff. If he believes that he’s an utter moron. That “brittle” Celtic side rode through the high-pressure last month’s of the campaign like William Munney returning to Big Whiskey for the climax of Unforgiven. They didn’t “throw away” anything. Celtic prised it from their fingers and took it home. We lost three leagues out of 38 matches; two of them were in the same week. We beat the Ibrox club four times out of five including wins at home, at Ibrox and at Hampden. Brittle? There for the taking? In your dreams Keown.

No one with the Ibrox club at heart will need reminded of the damage done during an awful spell over March and April in which losses to Motherwell and Ross County and a draw at Dundee destroyed the impressive momentum built by Clement’s initial five months as manager and put to bed all hopes of a most unlikely championship triumph.

No-one with the Ibrox club at heart? You mean like yourself, Gary? And what impressive momentum? We had already beaten him during that so-called spell of unbelievable form, so this is what it has always been; tiresome pish.

What must be of some concern, though, is that the same old issues which proved their undoing back then have still been evident this term.

Yeah, they are terrible. Clement hasn’t got a clue. For a few months he got by on being the new guy in a big job and clubs didn’t know how to play against them. Once they got a sense of how poor his approach was and that he’d actually made some of his players worse these teams started getting results. That why so many bad ones came in quick succession. Has Keown never watched what happens when a gamer learns how to beat a tough level? What had taken days to accomplish can be done in a matter of minutes and eventually becomes so routine players can do it with their eyes shut. Once you figure it out, it will never test you again.

(They) limped over the line after a strong start against Motherwell and did put six past Ross County, but their performance at Tynecastle on the opening day was absolutely grim.

And it’s the only point Hearts have won all season. Ponder that for a moment.

Thanks to that goalless draw against a Hearts side that couldn’t beat eggs at the moment, Rangers find themselves eight points behind Celtic and Aberdeen — and that’s why winning at Tannadice this afternoon is so important.

Eight points behind us and Aberdeen. Fellow fans, try and say it without the smile on your face. I dare you. Ha! Can’t do it, you? Me neither.

No one expected Warburton to rival Celtic for the crown in 2016. Likewise, it is pretty much accepted that (this side) are not winning the title this season either.

Ha! We’ve covered that already, haven’t we? Want me to get you a list of the people in your own profession who did expect them to rival us for that title? It’s embarrassing.

Whatever Clement believes, the gap is too big in terms of on-field quality and off-field resources, with Celtic having stabilised and strengthened.

We’ve won three titles in a row. And we’ve won four out of six of the domestic cup competitions in the same period. We were unstable at some stage? When was this?

What is not acceptable, though, is being dragged into a dogfight to finish second against rivals with a fraction of your budget.

Arrogant rubbish, but arrogant rubbish I’m glad this eejit believes. Wait to you see how that script is flipped if we lose to Dortmund or Atalanta or Villa in the Champions League though. Then this muppet and others will be questioning Rodgers again and digging out the old broken badge … tell you what; I’ll pivot back to that point before the end. Still, in the meantime, I stand by what I said; this is rubbish. The budget itself matters not one bit. There are players at Aberdeen, Hearts and other sides in this league who would walk into that Ibrox team. The issue is the players and the coaching, and they could find themselves in that kind of trouble.

And for all the cuts that have been made to what was a frankly stupid wage bill at Ibrox, (their) financial advantages over the rest mean they should be establishing clear daylight between them and the other 10 pretty soon.

Funny, that was the wage bill people were boasting about last season as having finally overtaken Celtic’s. That was a sign that the club was in “good financial health” back then. Seems a long time ago, doesn’t it? And again, this repeated rubbish about how they should be putting daylight between themselves and the rest. But even a win today would still leave them five adrift of us and Aberdeen. So again, where is he getting this from?

For those who like to dress Scottish football up as something it isn’t, visiting Tannadice today is being painted as a challenge of monumental proportions for Clement and co. Yes, United have started the season well.

If Scottish football is being painted as “something it isn’t”, pray tell us what that something is, and what it should be dressed up as instead? That sounds like mumbo-jumbo to me. And nobody has said it “a challenge of monumental proportions.” But it’s a test. It’s a difficult 90 minutes for them, or it should be. This is all spook-story bollocks that Keown is trying to tell himself, that the Big Bad Ranjurs Are Coming and that all at Tannadice should be paralysed by fear.

However, they have only just returned to the Premiership with a new-look squad and remain a club that has been run scandalously badly under their American owner Mark Ogren.

Ha! And the club they are playing against, which just cut its wage bill by two thirds and replaced seasoned players with footballers from the leagues of Cyprus and Morocco and who haven’t been able to play at their own stadium yet because of screw ups, who don’t have a CEO and whose chairman just did a runner are a model for a what a well-run one is!

Even yesterday, they were attracting justifiable opprobrium for advertising some ridiculous plan to charge their own punters £30 to own ‘a virtual piece of the Tannadice turf’ and get an e-certificate — whatever that may be — to prove it.

That “e-certificate” is probably worth more than a handful of that toilet paper Ibrox prints its share certificates on. And this is rich coming from a guy whose favourite club have charged fans for bricks, for nameplates on their seats, for worn strips, who wanted to open a “memorial garden” where you could pay to have your own ashes interred and where your family could visit you and charge their IPhone at the same time; the club who just last week charged their own fans £40 a time to write down a question on a piece of paper and hope the club approved it for presentation to the manager at a venue they co-own with the extortionists masquerading as a kit manufacturer. Does United’s idea sound ludicrous? Of course. But Ibrox had not one deal in place with NFT peddlers but two of them … and one of them was probably a scam. And MyGers anyone? Spend £1000, get worthless points and a cheap Ibrox themed toiletry set. Wow. Just wow.

Good God. An institution that was once feared across Europe reduced to this? United should blow them away.

Keown actually wrote “Rangers should blow them away.” But I laughed so hard reading those lines and everything that was wrong with them, including the sheer reek of hypocrisy and dead club off of his statements, that I had to change the whole bit to something more appropriate. Yes, an institution that once took itself seriously really did do everything I’ve mentioned above and a lot more besides. They make whatever Dundee Utd have done look like a model of dignity and professionalism.

The fact there are doubts over whether this will happen, though, does not reflect well on Clement. In truth, he’s had a bad six months and needs to prove he can get a grip on things again.

He’s had a bad nine months, actually, but as the man himself is fond of leaning on when things don’t go his way “But we started well and if you look at the stats …” And wasn’t the point of the earlier bit of ranting that Ibrox should see this side off with no difficulty at all? Now all of a sudden there are doubts about it? Make up your mind for God’s sakes man.

He blew a title, can’t beat Celtic and saw a potential £40million Champions League lifeline go up in smoke after exiting to a mediocre Dynamo Kyiv.

Are you getting the distinct impression that Keown regrets, as so many others do, getting so far up Clement’s posterior earlier in his tenure that you can still see the outlines of their boots on the back of his legs?

His reaction to being played off the park in the three-goal Old Firm derby defeat two weeks ago — taking solace in irrelevant stats, talking about a good first 10 minutes, going on about long-term rebuilds and denying there was a gulf in class — carried too many echoes of Warbs when his team got fizzed 5-1 at Parkhead in the September before his inevitable departure.

Oh, come on, you can’t judge him on games against us! That’s just not fair! Wasn’t that what you were hinting at earlier? Your man McGarry has actually said it out loud.

“‘I didn’t see a major gulf,’ said the Englishman. ‘We just have to work harder. Where we did have spells — 20 minutes in the first half, 15 minutes in the second half — we were fine. We’re still gelling. We’re five games in. Judge us in May.’”

Ha! Yeah, that worked out well, didn’t it?

It didn’t need that long. Nowhere close. When Warburton left in February after a 4-1 whacking at Hearts and a 1-1 draw at home to Ross County, Rangers were 27 points behind Celtic and third in the table behind Aberdeen.

And Niko Kranjcar had played about 6 minutes in total and Barton had already been thrown out the door after doing not a hell of a lot better. Aah, happy memories! But let me remind you of something; Clement has asked to be judged in November. But he may not make it that long, which is the one place where I sort of half agree with this clown pretending to be a writer.

They had lost to the Dons, been beaten twice by Hearts and drawn with the likes of Hamilton, Kilmarnock, Ross County and St Johnstone. Jabbering on about patience and rebuilding and all the rest of it had worn thin.

And that’s what Clement has been doing every minute since he walked in the door.

‘If (Celtic) won four games less, they would be 13 ahead. If we had won one of our games, it would be 10,’ reasoned Warburton shortly before the curtain fell.

And in between they had Pedro ranting about caravans and vampires, Van Bronckhorst sounding like a man who had lost his mind, The Mooch coming out with something preposterous every other day and now Clement bragging on how he divorced his missus because she didn’t share his winning mentality. Where do they find these Peepul?

As mumbo-jumbo goes, it’s right up there with claiming a 6-0 win over Ross County is the best result of the past four years or telling the world that scraping a 3-3 draw at home to Celtic after forgetting to turn up for the first half makes you ‘moral winners’.

Clement’s version might just be my favourite. He’s about one step shy of talking about how at Celtic the fans are eating the dogs and cats of the players.

Clement needs to snap out of this tout-suite and show he can get a team on the park capable of winning consistently and justifying what remains a very sizeable wage bill. Kilmarnock away on October 20 stands out as a good marker in terms of testing resilience, but it is Pittodrie on a Wednesday night at the end of next month that has red lights flashing all around it.

Incredible that this eejit is this cavalier about every game until then. This guy is just begging to have egg on his face, and you can feel the rising dread seeping from every word that they will conspire to blow it way before those games come around.

Sure, Clement needs to start laying a glove on Celtic, but proving he can get the better of everyone else in the league time and time again and stretching out in second spot is a more immediate requirement.

Actually, getting past Dundee Utd and into third comes before that, but as Keown has already written today off as having significance maybe the home side should give them the three points just now and save everyone the bother of watching it.

Yes, he has a lucrative new contract signed on the eve of the campaign. Yes, he has a fanbase willing to give him breathing space in spite of some dreadful results.

Oh does he? Lol. I suggest you stop looking in the mirror and start looking at the forums; their patience with the old Belgian Waffler, Manneken Piss, is just about up.

But so did Warbs. And we all know what happened to him when the diddy teams just kept on blowing a hole in his bluster.

He “resigned” and then professed not to know anything about that? What a ridiculous reference that is at the end about “diddy teams.” Arsehole comment, but about what you expect from this halfwit.

I don’t often provide an addendum with these pieces, but Keown usually has supplementary columns and the one he’s done on Celtic is just too good to resist covering as well. I’m not doing the whole thing, so here are the bits I find appropriate, starting with his opening.

Assuming he is there for something other than his ego, it’s fair to say it’s crunch time for Brendan Rodgers at Celtic.

Way back in the sands of time, I know not when, Brendan Rodgers walked into this guy’s house, diddled his missus in the kitchen when this guy was out raking through bins for stories, and before he left, he pissed in his cornflakes. That’s the best I can do in trying to work out where Keown’s pathological hatred for Rodgers comes from. I accept that might not be accurate, but it’s got to be something on that order. Either that or his trophy count has broken this guy. Here’s another highlight from the piece, and I did promise you we’d pivot back to this by the end …

Celtic are a laughing stock in Europe. A disgrace, really. This has to be the season they show a genuine determination to change that rather than just judge their success on the end-of-term balance sheet.

Celtic frequently goes up against clubs with budgets more than five or six times what ours is. We very often go up against teams whose budgets are ten times or more higher than ours. Why is it not permissible for teams like Utd to beat the club from Ibrox without heads rolling and we’re supposed to hang our heads in shame when we lose to teams like Real Madrid? These people never can get the story straight, and their anti-Celtic bitterness means they don’t even try.

His whole column is a laughing stock.

Even amongst his fellow hacks this guy is a joke figure, and based on this you can see why.