Football News: Are Glasgow Rangers Progressing Under Philippe Clement?

30 Dec 2024 09:56:47
I think most of us accepted before the start of the season that this year would be a transitional one for Glasgow Rangers.

I certainly said it often on here that all I needed to see from Philippe Clement (PC) and the team was progress, that we were moving in the right direction, but that I expected us to finish 2nd and at least get a little closer in terms of personnel / quality to Celtic in terms of a combined 11, where I felt last season only Butland had any real argument for inclusion.

The problem isn't (for many of us, me certainly) that we're not winning the league, the problem is that not only has there been no measurable or demonstrable progress, we've gone backwards. A long way backwards. And not in any way that any reasonable fan could suggest seriously it's "taking a step backwards to move forwards". There's no evidence for that, in my opinion.

PC has become increasingly erratic in his team selections. His press conferences are abysmal; he tries to deflect every problem at someone else and says the most ridiculous things. Either he's lying, which is a problem, or he genuinely doesn't see what the rest of us do, which is an even bigger problem.

He also can't have his cake and eat it. He's made the point several times about how difficult it is to compete in Europe and against Celtic given the disparity in finances. I wasn't so annoyed at the comment he made about Celtic (other than it being the quiet part you don't say out loud even if it is true) because we are a long, long way behind them.

But that same point applies to EVERY OTHER TEAM IN THIS LEAGUE and he's struggling to put a team of far higher paid players on the park who can consistently beat teams with a similar (or greater) gulf in wages.

You can't in my opinion, have that both ways. I don't expect to win every game, especially in a transition year, but I expect to be doing a hell of a lot better than we are at the moment in these games.

On the question of progress, not only have we not made changes that push a few more players into a combined 11, we've gone backwards against their squad. Butland, on this season's form is nowhere near Schmeichel and there's not another player in our team makes a combined 11. Not one could you make a reasoned, non partisan argument for. Half of our strongest 11 don't even make their bench given what they have in reserve.

In summary:

1. We have a poorer squad quality-wise than this time last year, so recruitment hasn't been good enough

2. We have less players capable of making a joint 11 rather than more

3. We're struggling too often against teams we have far more resources than who simply have better game plans and out work or out fight us.

4. There are no signs of progress holistically (a few players look to be improving like Raskin, Jefte and Souttar but as a whole we look shambolic more often than not)

5. The manager talks nonsense in his press conferences, either lying to us or incapable of seeing what the rest of as are seeing

6. He tries to use the resources excuse when it suits but ignores it when it applies in most domestic games he's failing in

I mean, we have 11 points from 27 away from home and have only scored 9 goals in 9 games. The only team worse is Ross County. We're 14 points behind after 18 games, off the pace by 0.78 points per game with a -30 goal difference: nearly 2 per game. We're the same distance from 8th than 1st and not even completed half a season till Thursday where we'll likely fall even further behind.

So, I think the view that we can't expect to win them all and need to give PC more time is baseless (certainly for many of us). We're not coming at this from the angle of expectation to win the league this season. Our bar set in pre-season was to be moving forward and he is failing against that fairly low bar emphatically.

He's not the right man for the job. 2 or 3 more windows won't suddenly make all the red flags on PC over the last 18 months disappear.

Written by gdog55 December 30 2024 13:17:21