After the civil war we saw among fans and at us following Saturday’s atrocity, the response to Tuesday’s desperate defeat to Malmo has seen a tonne more self-reflection and rethinking.

Following his insistence that Rangers could/would ‘flip the mood’ v Malmo, Steven Gerrard has literally repeated himself word-for-word after that loss in advance of tomorrow’s League Cup clash with Dunfermline claiming a win v the Championship titans would cheer everyone up.

We do not suddenly distrust Steven Gerrard, but fans will know from 2018-2020 we more than asked questions of him, and we had every right to. We got papped out of every cup, and until last season, league form was pretty patchy. Things changed last season, and he earned a mass amount of blind faith, which, had that form continued this season in front of fans, would not have had any reason to be questioned.

But it hasn’t, and indeed it’s been the worst run of form since Stuart McCall was the boss. That’s how badly we’ve started this season.

So we don’t distrust Stevie more we see fans raising all kinds of pre-55 issues once again – favouritism, inflexibility, lack of halt time turn arounds. All the weaknesses which were common themes till last season have now resurfaced, and this dreadful run is exposing those weaknesses.

Stevie is right – a win and a performance can help with the mood, but there is a feeling, just at the moment, that a great number of fans don’t exactly trust the regime right now. Too many bumbling losses, clueless answers, and a lack of cohesion anywhere in the club at present are making fans look twice.

Are they correct to? Fans should always hold Rangers to account, we invest enough in this club (literally now thanks to the share issue) that we have every right to question when things aren’t right.

Supporters don’t just blindly follow, they demand as well, and if things go wrong, they have the right to back the club while expecting a level of improvement.

Even a win tomorrow doesn’t fix everything, in fact we’re not sure it fixes a lot – too much damage has already been done this season. But it can’t hurt, and it will buy the team and manager a little goodwill to prep for the UEL playoff next week on the back of a win.

It goes without saying tomorrow’s match, a mere League Cup match v Dunfermline, takes on gigantic significance now. Anything less than a convincing passing to the next round spells massive trouble for this club.

And we really don’t want that.