There’s definitely a tribalism about many Rangers fans these days, that no matter what the manager does, he’s beyond reproach.
This stems from the Mark Warburton era, where the Magic Hat was born, and fans gained a kind of fandom for ‘The Rangers Manager’, whoever he was, and trusted him implicitly.
He was the boss, he was the man, he knew what he was doing. 7-10 days and best plan B and all that.
This even applied to Pedro – there was a huge ‘staunchness’ about the Portuguese from so many supporters who backed him completely, giving him a bit of a cult-like persona.
And it entrenched itself deeply under Steven Gerrard who was an icon of football and who the supporters took to their hearts quickly. His exit was widely-seen as a horrific betrayal.
The only manager we think since Ally who hasn’t enjoyed this kind of overwhelming backing is Michael Beale, who was a very unpopular appointment in the first place (trust us, we polled it) at the time. Fans still got behind him as much as possible, and the signings of Raskin and Cantwell earned him trust and goodwill.
It wasn’t till that dire preseason and then hideous start to the new campaign that supporters finally lost patience.
Aside Beale? Our supporters really do back the Rangers manager more than they do the players, and right now Philippe Clement is still rather enjoying that benefit – doesn’t matter what he does wrong, the bulk of fans are still saying ‘trust the process’, or ‘Rome wasn’t built in a day’ or any other massive number of excuses to justify a horrific past 6+ months.
While slagging off the players as terrible, saying they’re losers, then conveniently forgetting it’s Clement/Koppen who has now either signed most of them, or has made said player his.
In short, doesn’t matter what the results or performances, a sizable chunk of our fans will blame the ref or players, and Clement will be absolved.
This is not us saying it all sits with the manager – it probably sounds like we are saying that.
But as any manager will say – the buck does rest with him. It’s his team, his system, his squad, his management.
To blame everything but him is just deflection.
At some point, Philippe Clement has to hold his hands up and admit he is doing a terrible job. What other way can we put it?