Clement took a shot at the Ibrox board yesterday, not that the media wants to explore it.

Yesterday, in case you missed it, something interesting happened at the Ibrox manager’s press conference. And the reason you might have missed it is that no one in the media really wants to dig too deep into it—although it’s as straightforward as you could ever hope for. There was nothing complicated about it. There was nothing particularly controversial about it either.

He was asked a question. And he gave a straight answer—probably a more direct answer than the hacks expected.

He was asked if, in light of their qualification for the last sixteen of the Europa League, he felt that the team needed some new blood. He said yes. And he said he’d been clear on that from the start. But he also said it was up to the directors whether he got it or not. And this isn’t the first time this guy has done this. This is not the first time he has tried to put pressure on the higher-ups.

Anybody close to the action at Ibrox has to know that they’ve got one very unhappy manager over there. But he’s caught in a strange sort of bind. He can’t complain too much because they’ll just call his bluff. What’s he going to do—resign? Some on the Ibrox board would love it if he did. They don’t believe he has the stuff to get past Celtic. They don’t believe the so-called squad revolution is all that impressive. We’ve seen all this before at Ibrox, and so have they.

He’s not going to resign. He’s not going anywhere unless they fire him. And they’re not going to fire him because that would cost far too much money. They have a guy on the books right now who, at least for now, will work within the austerity parameters that have been laid down for him. The weird thing is that both sides are weak. He’s weak. The club is weak. But those weaknesses cancel each other out.

He’s not going to enjoy working like this. And the board isn’t going to enjoy having him gripe and moan about it at every opportunity. But neither of them has a choice. If I had to say whose hand is strongest, it’s probably his—not that it’s strong enough to get him what he wants, because there’s simply no way for the board to give him what he wants, even if they were inclined to, which they aren’t.

But they know that, aside from sacking him and having to pay him a whole lot of money, the next step would be to try and bring in a new manager who would also be told he has to work under severe austerity.

And there is no appetite out there for top managers coming in and doing that. There’s no appetite out there for even mid-ranking managers who want to come in and do that. Sure, some of them might be attracted by the money, and some of them might be arrogant enough to believe the SPL is an easy league, but eventually, all of them will look at the resources available to Celtic and the man in the Celtic dugout and think again.

This, of course, is nothing this blog didn’t predict.

After Patrick Stewart sat down with the media and gave them the news they didn’t want to hear, one of the things he was asked about was how many signings were likely in this window. And he said one, maybe two.

And when asked if the manager would support that, he said, maybe he will and maybe he won’t. “He will push me, but I will push back.”

There’s simply no way to spin those words. That was Clement being told, “You’ll take what we give you, and nothing more.”

And yesterday, Clement confirmed this.

He threw the ball back in the direction of the boardroom, making it clear that if this goes wrong—if this season completely falls apart, and I think it will—then the fans will know who to blame. It’s his alibi for failure. It’s his alibi for a catastrophic second half of the campaign. He is going to blame them.

Even as the pro-Ibrox media is spinning the promotion of youth players as a positive—as something the manager himself is the architect of—Clement is already getting his excuses in. These are, of course, the same people who spent last week praising the genius of the Celtic board before critical deals are done, on the assumption that Jota would be joined by Tierney in short order.

So, succulent lamb is being served on both sides of Glasgow. And the press, in its complete lack of wisdom, is eating it up.

But at least we have the resources to get this done. And so, there really is no excuse for our board failing at this hurdle.

What Clement is refusing to accept is that his club simply doesn’t have the resources to give him more than they are. They are literally at the limit of what they can do. And that’s not enough for him.

And so, they’re psyching each other out now. The great game of bluff goes into overtime. Will he get the extra players he wants? I don’t think so. But you never know. He may force their hand enough to find a little bit of leeway for him, but it’ll only be a little bit, and I still think his squad will emerge from this window weaker than it went into it.

Which, for him, is a disaster.

Which, for that club’s fans, is a nightmare.

Again and again, it is clear what the opportunity is here. All we have to do is emerge stronger than we went into this window. That’s it.

Even with the sale of Kyogo, that is a possibility.

That is something we can still do. And if we spend some money, and if we emerge from this window with a better team, the message that will send to Clement, the message that will send to his club, will be crystal clear.

The gap the media has spent the last week talking about will be opened for real. Clement and his board will resent each other all the more. We can light the blue touch paper over there—if we dare to. By Monday night, we’ll know.

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