Forget all the nonsense about a young team, a transition period and needing two or three transfer windows to get things right.
Philippe Clement has promised a media update from Rangers chief executive Patrick Stewart. And the only thing the new CEO can do In fact Saying now to appease an angry fan base is that Clement is a goner. Nothing else will suffice.
When a club has lost £17.2m and cut wage bill, it's hard to put lipstick on a pig.
Stewart could promise to take the Rangers out of the January window stronger than they started. You can put the kettle on to talk more about developing a player exchange model capable of giving Celtic a run for their money. Most likely there will be a call to give the manager more time to get it right.
That may well be the only realistic and pragmatic line to follow at a time when Celtic enjoy a huge financial advantage, play in the Champions League and sell players for tens of millions of pounds every year.
The problem is that followers don't want to hear those things. They've heard enough promises of jam tomorrow.
It's agony for Clement as his Rangers team drop more points away, this time in Dundee.
New chief executive Patrick Stewart to address fans on current situation at Ibrox
Igamane, centre, has been a bright spark for Rangers, but even he looked dumbfounded at Dens.
A 1-1 draw with a threadbare, bone-deep and injury-hit Dundee team felt like something from the end of days. The night an angry fan base reached the point of no return.
The team bus had barely loaded the equipment into the basket when the Rangers Supporters Association was calling for “true leadership from our new president and chief executive” and “decisive action” to relieve the coach of his duties.
The Rangers board does not want to say goodbye to Philippe Clement. they don't want go back to the rinse-and-repeat cycle of laying off a manager at the end of the year, launching another team to clean up, and building another one from scratch. Why would they do it?
They tried it by throwing away Giovanni van Bronckhorst and Michael Beale, and what did they get? A crippling compensation bill and a guy dropping points left and right in football hotspots like Paisley, Motherwell and Dundee.
Under Clement, the Rangers are a team with bipolar tendencies. Put them under the Ibrox floodlights on a Thursday night in the Europa League against Tottenham or Steaua Bucharest and they are upbeat and optimistic.
Put them under the Dens Park floodlights on a Thursday night against a team with a fraction of the budget, 10 injured and two goalkeepers on the bench, and they lack creativity or depth to beat Dundee. And that is not an isolated example.
Since Christmas, Rangers have dropped more points away from home than Celtic in the last nine months. Former forward Kris Boyd calls that record a “shame” and he's not wrong.
Clement looked lonely and frustrated as he was booed from the field in Tayside.
Rangers players Propper (left) and Cerny look dejected after another away failure.
A fans association has already decided that Clement should be fired
After that performance on Tayside, the statistics turned to Clement's side winning just three of their 11 away games in the Premiership this season.
If we step back further, the bigger picture is even more damning. Since January last year, this Rangers team has won just eight of their 21 away league games. That's a 40 percent win rate and, for a team with its enormous wage bill, 24 points out of a possible 63 is a dismal record.
The consequence is that league points are now less of an issue than they should be. Fifteen behind Celtic, with an inferior goal difference, the Premiership hardly matters one iota now.
The only real question is whether Clement is the man to move the team forward. And if not, who will look at the last three years at Rangers and think that the job of coaching is anything but an act of professional hari-kari?
For now, Clement is clinging to the position. And directors could see an opportunity to buy themselves some time with back-to-back home games against struggling St Johnstone and Aberdeen sides, followed by a Scottish Cup shootout against non-league Fraserburgh.
They could even fancy their chances of going to Old Trafford and getting a Europa League result against a Manchester United team even more unstable than them.
Starting at the end of the month, away games take on a dark tone. A dreadful run begins with a trip to Tannadice to see in-form Dundee United, followed by games at Hearts, Kilmarnock (on a surface they hate), Celtic, Dundee (again) and then Aberdeen. They have already dropped points this season with five of six.
Ironically, the only thing showing real signs of improvement under Clement are the performances against Celtic. Like so many teams in the Premiership, the depth and quality is not there to play three games a week and rotate key players and, given the sums spent, it really should be.
While the Belgian repeatedly talks about a young and inexperienced team, the average age of the starting eleven at Dens Park was actually 25 years old. Goalkeeper Liam Kelly is 28, captain Robin Propper is 31. Goalscorer Vaclav Cerny is 27, while Ianis Hagi is not far behind. rookie at 26 years old. While Jefte and Hamza Igamane can legitimately be considered raw talents with potential, the youth and inexperience are much less. problem for this Rangers team than the most basic component of all. Ability.
The directors accepted Clement's vision for the future by putting another 12 months on his contract last summer and that raised a question. Can the Rangers really afford to fire him?
If fans turn away and season ticket renewals are threatened, Patrick Stewart might be asked to answer a slightly different question. When things are so bad, how can they afford to keep him?
Who can blame Taylor if he's not happy being Tierney's puppet?
To hear the way people talk about Kieran Tierney, his performance at Celtic should be quite a spectacle.
The press conference will begin with Brendan Rodgers being pushed down Celtic Way in a wheelchair, cheered by teary-eyed fans.
Once you reach the main stand, you will be loaded onto a stairlift to continue your journey to the meeting room, where you will carefully pick up your pen, trying not to break your wrist, and sign a contract guaranteeing no more than 20 games. per season. In a good year.
Some of the concerns raised about Tierney's injury history are quite fair. His only first-team appearance this season came against Crystal Palace in the Carabao Cup and was interrupted by cramp. Before that, his last start was Scotland's 1-1 draw with Switzerland at Euro 2024, when a hamstring injury sidelined him for four months.
Injury-prone Tierney is stretchered off during Scotland's match against Switzerland
Brendan Rodgers comforts Greg Taylor after Celtic fans chant Tierney's name
Knee surgery played a major role in his fall from Arsenal. By the time he returned to fitness, Mikel Arteta had signed Oleksandr Zinchenko and he was out of fashion.
Lately it seemed like Arteta would rather pluck a random retiree off the street than play one of the most talented Scottish players of his generation at left-back. Even when he was in top shape.
The Tierney who returns to Celtic, then, is not the young forward of yesteryear. While he is still only 27, the last time he managed 60 appearances in a season was in 2017-18, when Brendan Rodgers could say what he wanted about the fans without the Green Brigade bothering.
For that reason alone, Rodgers will need another left-back capable of playing 20 to 30 first-team games per year. And the perfect man for the job is Greg Taylor.
The problem is that recent events have made Taylor feel undervalued. Celtic appear reluctant to pay him the salary of a 27-year-old senior player with international and Champions League experience. A support sector clearly does not like him at all. Even the manager who talks about him weekly is making plans to replace him.
Celtic clearly need a ready and reliable partner to fill in for Tierney when his body lets him down. If Greg Taylor feels he is more than an unwanted substitute who was picked for the odd home game against Ross County and Dundee, he might consider he is better off elsewhere.