Big Phil must learn major Rangers lesson from Fabio Silva | OneFootball

Departed loan striker Fabio Silva has admitted Rangers never really played him in his correct position, and while he only has good things to say about his-now-ex-manager Philippe Clement, and thinks it made him a more complete player, it’s abundantly clear the boss completely messed up with this kid.

The Fabio Silva stuff is a major reason Ibrox Noise does not entirely subscribe to ‘In Big Phil We Trust’ because the manager repeatedly selected a player who was absolutely terrible for the club, and said only a month or so into his loan spell that he’d have made Silva permanent if we’d been able to afford him.

And while Silva was positive about the manager, and maintained he’s a better player now for playing the different slots, it’s pretty clear that’s lip service because the boy was stinking in Govan.

Fabio Silva and Dujon Sterling are two of the major reasons we have some misgivings about Philippe Clement.

If he had won 56 and the cup with those decisions, then yes, we’d have kowtowed to Clement’s eccentricities and not breathed a word of criticism about them.

But we didn’t. We collapsed after the Motherwell loss and never recovered, and despite this he refused to change what abundantly wasn’t working.

He DID, finally, with about 3 minutes of the season to go, drop Connor Goldson after an abysmal 2024 (in fact 23/24) but by then that was only one piece of a much bigger picture.

But left Sterling as either LB or RW, and kept picking the hopeless Silva.

When fans shout at us ‘let the manager do his job ffs’ or ‘trust in the boss’ or our favourite one ‘judge him on his own players’, well, we have. Silva, Dio and Cortes are/were his players and Silva especially he stood by like some proud father unwilling to accept his son isn’t very good.

And it contributed in major part to our mammoth crumble from March onwards.

Indeed, Ibrox Noise alerted our readers to the alarming decline, only to be abused by a few who mocked the assertions, the site, and assured everyone all was fine and to trust the boss.

Well, no.

New Manager Bounce is done, and Fabio Silva’s admission that he’s not a winger (he’d already announced himself as a striker in a presser months ago) is yet more reason why we question the boss a lot at the moment.

Some fans will back the manager (whoever he is) even to the bitter end when he’s howling about barking dogs and caravans and chanting mindlessly in a dark room. They will never back down on this.

Unfortunately, Rangers just won’t win under that mentality.