Permanent anger and permanent crisis; Ibrox is caught in a revolving door of madness.

“I know that this is vitriol
No solution; spleen venting
But I feel better having screamed
Don’t you?”
REM, Ignoreland.

Ignoreland is one of those R.E.M. songs that only die-hard fans tend to remember. It’s not a greatest hit, and it’s rarely played when DJs are digging through their back catalogue, despite being on Automatic For The People.

Yet, it remains one of my favourite tracks of theirs.

It’s political, reflecting on the successive U.S. governments following the 1979 general election that brought the Reagan era to Washington. It’s an apt song for an election year but also resonates with what’s happening across the city at that other club.

Michael Stipe’s cry of frustration in the song echoes the rage you can sense over at Ibrox right now. They know that all this fury and screaming won’t actually solve anything, but if it gives them a few minutes of catharsis, they’ll keep doing it anyway.

But Ignoreland isn’t just about Reagan.

It references four elections—1980, 1984, 1988, and 1992—spanning Reagan’s presidency and into the terms of George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. Stipe’s point is simple: despite changes in leadership, it’s all the same cycle of politics, rooted in the same corrupt system. As the saying goes, “The more things change, the more they stay the same.”

Here’s a stat from CQN this morning: the Ibrox club has appointed a new manager in October or early November every year for the last three years.

Earlier today, I wrote about the sticky situation Philippe Clement has found himself in. Looking at the upcoming fixtures—including an away game at Aberdeen, a League Cup semi-final against Motherwell, and some tough European ties—it’s hard to see why they won’t make it four years in a row, proving how flawed their system really is.

Because today’s my birthday, I decided to spend it amusing myself.

One of the things I did was watch an Ibrox fan podcast to hear their take. The host did something interesting—he compared the opening game of last season, when Michael Beale’s decline began, with yesterday’s match. Both were against Kilmarnock at Rugby Park, both ended in a 1-0 home win, and the stats—possession, shots on target, total attempts, successful passes—were nearly identical. His question? What’s changed?

Here’s something else to ponder: if you exclude McCoist, who’s a holdover from the original Rangers, the current Ibrox club has had six managers. Mark Warburton got 80 games before being sacked. Pedro Caixinha lasted just 26. Gerrard got 193, though he was on the brink more than once, despite what his fanboys might tell you. Van Bronckhorst lasted 69 games. Michael Beale managed 43.

Clement is currently at game 55. He’s still got 14 to go before surpassing Van Bronckhorst’s record, and it’s unlikely he’ll get there, let alone match Warburton’s 80 games.

The real dilemma for Ibrox is this: what do they actually want?

Can they really sack their fourth manager in as many years at this same stage of the season? Or does this guy finally get something most of his predecessors have not had—time to bed in his ideas? And what if those ideas don’t work? Then what?

Their fans can rant, rave, and rage—and they’re doing all of those things right now, with great gusto. But are they doing it just to blow off steam, or because they genuinely believe it’ll change something? And what exactly do they want to change?

Do they want a new manager for the fourth year running? That would mean a seventh managerial appointment since 2012. That’s astonishing when you think about it. The average tenure of an Ibrox boss is roughly 20 months—that’s unsustainable.

It’s not just that each year sends them back to square one with a new team to build and a new plan to implement. That’s bad enough, and costly too, but it also drains their credibility. No manager with ambition is going to join a club that operates this way.

Every time another manager fails, the fans’ anger grows, but where’s it directed? At the board? The players? The system? At Ibrox, there’s no chairman, no CEO, no head of academy, and no head of football operations. How can they afford to start another managerial hunt on top of everything else?

When I saw that banner go up at the weekend and heard some of the fans ranting, I was struck by the sheer dysfunction of it all. Their anger is understandable, but it’s directionless. They’re shouting just to shout, venting for the sake of it. And that won’t work.

When Stipe says, “I feel better having screamed, don’t you?” I think he’s being deeply sarcastic. It’s not just helplessness he’s expressing—it’s a persistent anger that won’t go away as long as the situation stays the same. That’s exhausting, mentally and emotionally.

But for some of them, that might feel like business as usual. Ibrox has resembled this chaotic mess for the last seven or eight years, and it seems they’re used to it. But what solutions do they have? If they sack Clement, what’s next? What plan do they have? What strategy is there to unfold?

If you’re demanding change, you have to know what that change looks like. If you’re calling for a revolution, you’ve got to know what shape it takes.

If they fire another manager and hire a new one for the fourth year running, that manager will know he’s on the death watch clock the moment he’s hired. And a club that operates like that is doomed to repeat the same cycle of crisis over and over again until it collapses.