GLASGOW, SCOTLAND - DECEMBER 20: Raners Manager Philippe Clement during a Rangers training session at the Rangers Training Centre, on December 20, 2024, in Glasgow, Scotland. (Photo by Alan Harvey/SNS Group via Getty Images)
Gary Keown has made another passionate plea for Phil Clement to be removed from the manager’s job at Ibrox.
Two weeks after finishing runners-up in the League Cup goodwill towards the Belgian Beale has evaporated with fans further angered by the excuses and deflection tactics offered up for the failings of his exciting young side.
In today’s attack on Clement comparisons are made with Ruben Amorim. It has taken the Manchester United boss 10 matches to realise the extent of the job that he has taken on, that he is being paid to deliver victories and success rather than discuss long term projects and finding some mugs to spend Dembele Dollars on Jefte or Nicky Raskin.
Clement’s task is to win trophies, to stop Celtic adding to their trophy haul with the former Monaco boss having just one Moral Victory to his credit in six clashes with Scotland’s Most Successful club.
Most Ibrox fans know that Clement is as much of a failure as Micky Beale and Giovanni van Bronckhorst, spelling out why he should be removed Keown reminds Daily Mail readers when it started to go wrong for A Proper Football Manager:
It was March 2 that this project under this head coach all started to go south. Yes, that long ago. Rangers were moving ever closer to an unlikely title triumph against a wobbling Celtic only for Motherwell to travel to Ibrox and win 2-1. Deservedly, by the way, despite Clement insisting afterwards that his side should, somehow, have been 6-1 victors.
A calm, considered, forceful voice in his first five months or so in the job, it is now clear that was the moment the mask started to crack under the pressure. Now, a large section of the Light Blue fanbase can no longer face even listening to him.
From being ‘moral winners’ after scraping a 3-3 Old Firm draw at home to babbling on about shots at goal when you’ve been taken apart 3-0 at Parkhead, the guy’s credibility has gone.
Steering a straight course towards last season’s Premiership crown from a winning position would have banked Rangers £40million of Champions League cash. They blew it.
They got a second bite at the cherry in this term’s qualifiers against a rotten Dynamo Kyiv, who then went out to a limited RB Salzburg, and blew it. This is a Dynamo Kyiv side currently sitting rock-bottom of the Europa League table with no points from six games and 15 goals conceded.
That failure, given the financial issues at Ibrox and the leeway Champions League money would have provided, could have been the end for Clement. Collapsing at Aberdeen in October, with Clement branding it the best performance of the season, should have been the end.
And, yet, here we are. Rangers are 12 points behind Celtic before the year is even done and have won three games out of eight away from home in the league, losing four and scoring a paltry seven goals.
With a contract running until May 2028 it is going to be an expensive business sacking Clement but the new CEO will realise that he is now at the stage where it is going to be even more costly to prop up a manager that has failed every time against Celtic.
Phil must stay!
Lol the positive spin on the defeat from Thursday at ibrox noise is that it’s only second loss in the league since October 20th,one lost game in 11 games apparently.
Whoever the next coach is and when he arrives ,will definitely want to bring in his favoured players and divide the wheat from the chaff currently in Ibroxland. That’s going to be expensive as they obviously are rooked financially and do not have anyone there who they can sell to pay for another ‘ revolution ‘….in other words whoever puts their career on the line by accepting theRangers coaching job next , will have to constantly fear for his job because of severe cutbacks in dough ,and always look over his shoulder , fearing the sack . How can anyone work in an environment as chronically bad as that ?
I still maintain that the Contract extension Phillipe Phillop got …will keep him in in his job.
Based on our understanding of their financial plight…they are surely not in a position to pay him and his backroom staff off…and then offer contracts to new incomers ?
Yes there is a chance that Fud 1 and Fud 2 might offer their services at a reduced rate …but I just can’t , from a financial perspective, see them sacking the current management team.
We shall see.
Another one using The ‘We’ word as in ‘Here we are’ –
They’re not even trying to hide it these days are The Scummy’s !!!
You,s are up shit creek again if they go out of league again then it should be from non league as another new club like any other NEW club looking to play in Scottish football league