Clement is not going to meekly accept austerity. But his resistance has no teeth.

We’ve gotten so used to people at Ibrox trying to impose sanity and austerity on their managers—and failing—that it looks genuinely strange when you see a manager facing genuine austerity, with no way out of it, acting as if nothing has really changed.

This is the first of two pieces I’m writing about Philippe Clement’s press conference yesterday. Each will focus on different aspects of the series of delusions this guy seems to be operating under. Of the two, I think this is easily the most dangerous.

Clement talked about Cyril Dessers, and if Dessers leaves, the plan to replace him with a similar type of player.

It dawns on me that this guy is neither hearing the drumbeat in the background nor reading the writing on the wall. Can he really be so deep in denial that he doesn’t grasp what’s going on at his club?

Doesn’t he realise that any hard choices he tries to avoid now will only come back to bite him in the summer, possibly with an even bigger sting attached to the tail?

It’s long been a truism of football that managers—regardless of their skill level—are very good at spending other people’s money. But for Clement not to grasp the financial reality surrounding him? He has to be completely oblivious.

There are two broad scenarios facing their club at the moment. One he’ll hate, and one the board will hate—and which they’ll ensure he hates even more. I can’t believe he’s unaware of this.

The other day, I wrote about how he’s facing a transfer window at the end of which his squad will likely be weaker than when he went into it. I wondered how he felt about that. Well, yesterday, he made his feelings clear. Clement is not in favour of a weakened squad, and if the board tries to impose one on him, he won’t take it lying down. He couldn’t have been more explicit.

But while he’s laying down the law about what he won’t accept, the truth is he’s going to have to accept certain limitations, whether he likes it or not. He can stamp his feet and complain bitterly, but no one on the board will care. Certainly not the CEO, whose specific mandate is to bring sanity to their financial mess—something he’ll try to see through for as long as he’s able.

None of us believes that club will ever be run on a sane and rational basis. No one trying to enforce such a regime will get away with it for long.

That’s a fan base that hasn’t supported a club living within its means for over 30 years, and they’re not about to start now.

But for a while, austerity will bite. It’ll bite in one of two ways: the squad gets materially weaker in this window, or it gets materially weaker in the summer. Either way, it’s happening. Right now the scale of the summer damage can be limited if they can make the cuts they need in the here and now.

But if they fail to offload some of these guys, for the second summer in a row, they’ll be coping with downsizing whilst they scour the bargain basement for players who may or may not have potential. Clement needs to understand the position he’s in.

If he’s staying on as Ibrox boss, it must be because he agreed to the club’s direction. That’s what we’ve been told by people in the media who’ve spoken to folks inside the club. The manager himself speaks as if he agrees with the policy. At times anyway. Yesterday he did not sound like a man who either understands or supports a policy where the squad is weakened to balance the books. He doesn’t sound like someone on the same page as those who’ve told him what has to happen.

A significant chunk of the first-team squad will leave in the coming months. Whether it’s now or in the summer doesn’t matter; it’s going to happen. The players Clement depends on will head for the exit, and he won’t have a say. He might resist in the moment, but he’ll have to accept it in the end, and the more he resists the harder the acceptance, and the greater the pain will need to be.

I do believe the lunatic fringe in that fan base will eventually force the club into another round of reckless spending. That’s just what they do. They always have. But for now, some form of financial sanity will prevail. That’s what the new regime was brought in to deliver, and it will happen, whether Clement likes it or not.

He doesn’t have the power to fight it.

If he threatens to walk and they call his bluff—and it would be a bluff—what’s he going to do? He’s at the mercy of the bean counters, and he knows it.

This will happen now or not too far down the line. Either way, that squad will be cut to the bone. Top earners will leave, even if they go for nominal fees. For the time being, this is their new reality. Clement can either accept it now or accept it later. But he will accept it.

Photo by Craig Williamson/SNS Group via Getty Images

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