Where has it all gone so wrong for Rangers and Philippe Clement? | OneFootball

When Philippe Clement arrived in Govan, it was with real hope for Rangers fans. Ibrox Noise was among those who were very much in support of this Belgian champion manager, with titles at Genk then Brugge, and everything about his CV seemed to suggest a game-changer for Rangers.

And that debut v Hibs promised even more – a ramshackle Beale squad now looking organised, and easy winners on Clement’s maiden bow at Ibrox.

But when it crumpled very quickly against Hearts, the first bad sign was already evident under this manager – instead of criticising the performance, which was dire, and calling a spade a spade, Clement praised the team instead and fans far and wide claimed the ‘we’d have dropped points under Beale in this match’-type nonsense.

Things did continue to look more promising than not overall though – he won the League Cup at the first time of asking, even if he’d already stumbled at Pittodrie against the same side, and lost at Parkhead (like everyone else), but hosting Celtic at Ibrox things were, overall, on the upside.

That’s where it changed for good, for Ibrox Noise.

After scraping a draw in an epic 3-3, Clement didn’t express any disappointment at not winning v the big rival, but claimed a ‘moral victory’.

That was the day Ibrox Noise was done with this manager, even if that 90%+ of the fanbase still believed the sun shone from Clement’s backside.

We knew definitively already this was the wrong guy – didn’t understand rivalry, didn’t grasp that we need to beat Celtic at tiddlywinks, didn’t grasp that drawing any match unless in Europe was the end of the world. And even in Europe…

And Ibrox Noise realised we’d been wrong about Clement ourselves, that a good manager in Belgium does not make one for Rangers, even if the fanbase ‘wanted him judged on his own players ffs’.

We on this site didn’t trust him with budget, and we sure didn’t trust former Director of Football Recruitment now Technical Director Nils Koppen after he and Clement brought in Diomande and Silva, and now, in massive hindsight, Cortes.

The summer saw more rot, woke-style ‘progressive’ nonsense instead of the kind of player Rangers need.

Rangers signed only two players this summer that Walter would likely have approved of – Connor Barron and Vaclav Cerny. The rest are a random mishmash of mercenaries and injury crocks.

And slowly, but surely, the first real sign Clement was losing fan faith was after losing (again) at Parkhead and justifying it with stats and extoling the win over Ross County as defence. That 90% went down to 75%.

The final curtain was his loss to Aberdeen – that was where the previous 75% or so was stunningly now at 10%.

We would not pretend the board has nothing to do with this, we’ve criticised them heavily. They’re a litany of how not to run a football club.

But the football buck always stops with the manager and Clement’s decisions as manager have been abundantly poor and not what Rangers need.

It’s time for a change, yet again.

Is there anyone out there at all who knows what he’s doing?