Jackson lacerates Clement and warns that Celtic will likely be too strong at Hampden.

Of all the factors that may or may not conspire to save the Ibrox boss, let me tell you what won’t save him: reordering words into a different context and meaning. What do I mean by that? Well, there are a lot of people in the media today who think he simply has to “avoid defeat” against Brendan Rodgers on Sunday. That’s not actually true.

In the normal run of things, if this had been the Ibrox game or the one at Celtic Park, then avoiding defeat might, on its own, be enough to buy him a brief respite. But when they talk about avoiding defeat at Hampden, what they really mean is that he has to win the cup. This isn’t a game where a draw will suffice—there will be no draw. Someone will win this game, and unless it’s him, I don’t see much chance of him surviving.

Some in the media are already seeing the writing on the wall.

Keith Jackson has made it clear today that Clement’s survival chances are still somewhere between slim and none, and he doesn’t think he’ll make it. Others might want to entertain fantasies of parallel universes where reality is bent out of shape, and that club goes on to win the Europa League or some such nonsense. But in the real world, where most of us live, they’re facing a very challenging seven days, and there’s no fairy tale ending on the horizon.

As ever, some Ibrox fan forums are getting carried away, talking about dazzling new formations, brand-new styles of play, and the manager supposedly having found his best starting XI. But Jackson is right to point out that this new theory is largely a farce, as it includes Hagi—the very player Clement was adamant would never play for his team and wasn’t good enough to feature in it.

So, as Jackson asks, does this mean Clement’s original judgment was fundamentally flawed? It almost has to, doesn’t it? Yet Jackson, a hack for the Daily Record, is the only one in the media pointing this out. That’s because, as usual, a slight uptick in results has the usual suspects freaking out and imagining Clement has conjured some magical winning formula.

Jackson thinks they’re still on course for a bad week … quite possibly even a shattering one.

I strongly suspect he’s right.

Their little “run” is not exactly a surprise, when you think about it.

Let’s be blunt. They’re the second-biggest club in the league. They have the second-highest wage bill in the country, even accounting for recent cuts, and they’ve spent more money than every other club in the league combined—except for ours. So there was always going to be a spell where they strung together a few wins in a row and managed to look semi-convincing.

But that’s all this is—a brief rally.

The fundamental problems with that team remain exactly as they were. And as for the manager? He’s contradicted himself at almost every turn, stumbling over his own feet. Jackson might not be the sharpest tool in the box, but he’s correct in pointing out that this is still a club without a recognised style, and Clement still seems to be searching for validation for his ideas. It’s not an impressive approach, and it’s certainly not something to keep any of us up at night—far less managers of substance like Brendan Rodgers or Ange Postecoglou.

At the start of this massive week for their club—and for ours too, of course—they would have been desperate to avoid any negativity. But the negativity is there whether they like it or not. As Jackson pointed out, whatever their supporters may be saying in public or private, there’s a lot of concern about this weekend.

And those concerns are far more justified than any confidence they might be fronting.