This Geyser of Garbage- first Scottish journalist calls out Deluded Phil (A Proper Football Manager)

Gary Keown of the Daily Mail has called out the garbage that Philippe Clement has been spouting as his side’s title challenge falls apart.

Since his first day in the job the former Monaco boss has been drooled over as A Proper Football Manager but that title is more of a reflection on the guy that he succeeded as he stepped into the brogues and blazer.

Putting together a run of domestic wins isn’t the hardest thing to do when you are managing a Glasgow club, especially when you get awarded a a penalty every 135 minutes while Goldson’s Law is applied at the other end of the park.

The February Manager of the Month award was followed by a home defeat from Motherwell, since then things have gone downhill fast as supporters realise that there is only so much you can get out of a core leadership that their own fans acknowledge as bottlers and serial losers.

That is where management is supposed to kick in but after listening to Clement’s excuses after the Ross County and Dundee matches Keown calls him out in today’s Daily Mail:

Honestly. What’s got into Clement? From the voice of reason, an overdue oasis of sanity in the madhouse of Ibrox, to a havering mess in the time it takes Cyriel Dessers to put one 12 feet over the bar with only the goalie to beat.

It’s hard to know where to start with the Belgian’s ramblings as the prospect of an unlikely title triumph has gone from a real possibility to the edge of the abyss this last couple of weeks.

It reached a peak, of course, after that 0-0 draw with Dundee on Wednesday. His team, hard on the heels of losing at Ross County, where he let himself down by storming up the tunnel at the end without shaking hands with Don Cowie, were awful.

Never mind the lack of hunger, it was the lack of any strategy or variation in play to bring about a goal that horrified most. And the manager’s inability to deal with what was going wrong. It was a disgrace of a performance.

Yet, there he was afterwards, claiming his side were ‘the boss’, that he was happy with the display, that Dundee were ‘lucky’ and that the home goalie saved the day.

Did he miss Jack Butland’s saves in the first half? Did he miss the fact that Dundee could have been one-up after 40 seconds had Malachi Boateng’s shot gone just a few inches the other side of the post?

That was only the crescendo, though. This geyser of garbage had been building and bubbling up for a little while. There was the nonsense of watching his team fail to turn up for the first half of the biggest game of the season against Celtic at Ibrox and then branding them ‘moral winners’ after scraping a 3-3 draw at the death.

There was the stuff about defeat in Dingwall coming as a result of his players losing focus because of ‘really strange preparation’ brought about by the game at Dens originally being postponed for a second time.

Perhaps the greatest insult to the intelligence, though, was the assertion that his side should have beaten Motherwell 6-1 last month. To anyone who actually attended that game, it came across as complete detachment from reality.

Over and above the fact Motherwell scored twice in winning 2-1, they did a number on Rangers. Although the Ibrox side had chances, the visitors could have scored more too. Theo Bair had Connor Goldson and John Souttar on toast.

Today at Hampden Clement should be able to coach his side to a routine win over Hearts but starting away to St Mirren next Sunday the Proper Football Manager better start delivering results or Keown won’t be the only pundit calling out his garbage.