If there’s one thing you can always rely on from the Ibrox camp, it’s that their writers are more than happy to engage in the sort of revisionism we wouldn’t dare touch.
That’s why, as long as they continue down this path, our team and our writers will always be ahead of theirs, both in terms of quality and integrity.
Today marks the one-year anniversary of Philippe Clement’s tenure as the Ibrox club’s manager. As retrospectives on his first year are published, we already have the first from Steve Clifford, writing in The Rangers Review, which is the Ibrox club’s equivalent of The Celtic Way.
As always, I want to remind people that this a mainstream media outlet, not a blog, and it has indulged in the very sort of revisionism I am talking about.
Clifford begins by claiming that Clement inherited a title challenge that was insurmountable, but this simply isn’t true. The gap was seven points when Clement took over, which is hardly made the title a foregone conclusion. The fact that Clement actually managed to get his nose in front at one point during the season proves it wasn’t an impossible task after all. What really happened is that Clement couldn’t get his team over the line.
Clifford also talks up Clement’s League Cup win as if it were a monumental achievement.
Let’s not forget that Clement took over with the Ibrox club already in the final, and with Celtic out of the tournament. They only had to beat one team, which was struggling in the league at the time, to win the silverware. For a club with the highest wage bill in Scotland, this was the bare minimum expected of him.
Clifford then congratulates Clement for supposedly clearing out the Ibrox dressing room. Yet most of the players who left did so because their contracts expired or they chose to go elsewhere, despite the club’s efforts to keep them. The only significant departure was Connor Goldson, and even then, the manager had made it clear he wanted him to stay.
Clifford does acknowledge some of Clement’s failures, but he glosses over the club’s dramatic loss of form last season. He only touches on the subject when discussing Clement’s poor record against Celtic, dismissing it with the excuse that we simply outspent them.
The truth is that while their dip in form cost them the title, it coincided with Celtic hitting top gear, showing that we had the resilience and quality to claw our way back into the title race when it looked like we were losing our grip.
We still had to go to Ibrox and get a result—and we did. We still had to face them at Celtic Park and beat them—and we did that too. We capped it off by beating them in the cup final, leaving no doubt that we were the best team in the country, despite their fanbase’s attempts to deny it.
This isn’t just about spending money. Celtic is simply a better-run club. We’ve been the biggest team in Scotland for the last decade, and no single manager at Ibrox can reverse that decline. Clement was a poor choice, and he has lived up to every bit of his disastrous potential.
Clement’s biggest issue is that his style of football is so predictable that it didn’t take other teams long to figure it out. Once they did, their form fell off a cliff. The same thing will happen this season as well, once the mid-table clubs figure out how to counter his tactics. The collapse is coming—it’s only a matter of time.
In the year since he took over, there has been no noticeable improvement in the team’s form or style. I understand that some over there believe they can’t keep hiring and firing managers every 6-12 months, but we all know how this ends. As soon as it’s clear that Clement doesn’t have a plan to catch us—and he doesn’t—he’ll be shown the door like the rest.
Clement has been fortunate so far with a relatively easy fixture list, but he’s already dropped points at Tynecastle and Celtic Park. As Clifford points out, they still have to go to Kilmarnock and Pittodrie within ten days of the international break, and those matches will be very telling.
I suspect he’ll be lucky to see out the calendar year.
He may cling on with the promise of January signings, but I highly doubt that’s enough to save him. January will likely be their best chance to bring in a new manager and start building next season’s team. That decision might be the only thing that keeps him in place a little longer. He’s made it to his one-year anniversary, which is more than I would have predicted a few months ago. He’s even managed to secure himself a nice pay rise, which defies belief, but credit to him for that.
Yet despite all this, Celtic still sits atop the SPFL with a five-point lead. Clement wasn’t brought in to finish second, no matter how much revisionism they spin. He was hired to win the title. Most of their fans, who aren’t buying into this revisionist nonsense, can already see that he’s blown one title challenge and is now starting the season poorly.
There’s little patience over there for a slow rebuild, especially when the football is dire and there’s no sign of improvement. Revisionism only works as long as your audience is willing to believe it, and most of their fans aren’t.
They know the axe is coming, and I suspect, deep down, so does Clement.
They don’t have the money to catch Celtic, you could get Carlo Ancelotti, Pep Guardiola, and Mikel Arteta coaching Rangers and it still would not have the desire affect. We are the only show in town, the only horse in the grand national. All this talk about Aberdeen, they were very lucky against a dreadful Hearts side in their last match, in which it took them going down to ten men to win. They will also fall away, the league will be over by the time St Nicholas strolls into town.
You definitely will never get these elite coaches in charge of ‘Rangers’ goodguy as ‘Rangers’ are as dead as dead can be…
Perhaps Sevco – But most definitely not ‘Rangers’ (deceased c.2022) !
The ads on this site are killing enjoyable reads from yourself James, I would assume others feel the same.
Agree, plus difficult to write comments. This is the only site that does it.
I agree, I understand a man needs to earn a living, but it’s difficult to read the Blog a lot of the time.
Download AdBlocker – it works a treat.
See Leon Balohun in the Sun today raging and demanding to know why his Nigeria team-mates were left stranded in the airport for 12 hours! He wasn’t even in the squad! Can’t make this shit up…
“Clifford does acknowledge some of Clement’s failures, but he glosses over the club’s dramatic loss of form last season. He only touches on the subject when discussing Clement’s poor record against Celtic, dismissing it with the excuse that we simply outspent them.”
I really hate people who use levels of money as an excuse in football. Liverpool have vastly less resources than Man Utd, Man City, Arsenal & Chelsea and yet have been incredibly successful over the last 8 years (and look like doing so again this year). Only City have been more successful than them and even then they were pushed to the absolute limit by Liverpool twice – winning by a single point on both occasions.
Leverkusen won the Bundesliga last season (without losing a match!), Lille won the French league only 3 years ago and Athletico Madrid have won La Liga in the not too distant past. Not having as much money as other teams is a disadvantage, obviously, but it is NOT insurmountable and its ABSOLUTELY NOT a reason to be not being able to at least compete!!
The reason most of us on here look back in horror to the 88/89-94/95 years is because we were so shambolic that despite having the second biggest budget we were outside the top two in every single season – THAT’S SEVEN YEARS IN A ROW – and in three of those seven years we didn’t even manage to finish third!! Worse, in one of those years we finished FIFTH and were so bad that particular season that we managed to lose more games than we won (a mere ten !!)
Yes Rangers were spending a tenner for every one of our fivers (I know, I know lol!) but we were utterly abject in our attempts to compete – hell Aberdeen took them to a final day decider with a fraction of their budget – because were run horrendously from top to bottom wasting millions on the likes of Stuart Slater.
Rangers this summer alone spent something like £15m which is TEN times what Aberdeen spent and is more than the rest of the SPL combined (out with Celtic) – if they were properly managed they would easily compete with us given their financial size over everybody else – they fact they don’t is hilarious and Clement is a HUGE part of the reason!
You’re Second last paragraph is very true Woodyiom as it was actually ‘Rangers’ who bragged about spending a tenner for ever fiver of ours (Like yourself – I Know, I Know as well) !
But your final paragraph as ‘Rangers’ certainly didn’t spend something like £15 million in the summer just gone by…
Because ‘Rangers’ died in 2012 buddy !
In a weird way, I think the decision to extend Clement’s contract was one of
Bennett’s better decisions.
Yes, he’s a limited manager whose weaknesses are being exposed by Celtic,
and other teams like Aberdeen.
However, Clement is providing some stability within the club – and where it counts.
The fans can moan about him, but they must realise by now that any replacement
will not be getting a transfer budget, [aka War Chest 🙂 ]
Clement is unlikely to resign in the near future,
and sevco is not in a position ‘to resign him’ either?
…and it all makes for an increasingly frustrated support – and manager!
Clement must stay!
He only won The League Cup that ‘The brains behind Gerrard’ got them to the final of because of cheats with whistles, flags and monitors denying Aberdeen a stonewall last minute penalty…
Cheats with whistles, flags and monitors then…
Cheats with whistles, flags and monitors now…
Cheats with whistles,flags and monitors forever !
If it’s true a “strong” Rangers team lost a rubber match to Dundee during this international break & they follow that with poor performances against Kilmarnock & Aberdeen over the next few weeks I think that will be his time up. Maybe they’ll give him the League Cup Semi against Motherwell but I can see even that being unlikely if they drop points before hand.
Surely Sunday will be seen as an opportunity for McInnes to put himself in the shop window for the job too. I see in the Sky Sports Gossip column Jermain Defoe is speaking up about how difficult it is to watch Rangers struggles recently. Another person looking to get into management & possibly seeing an opportunity to follow Gerrards path.
The only reason I can see him potentially remaining longer term is if they simply can’t afford to pay the compensation & him refusing to come to a mutual agreement to reduce that cost for the club.