Clement can’t escape Rangers’ wretched reality

There were any number of desperate displays from Rangers players as their Old Firm rivals pulled them from pillar to post at Celtic Park.
However, perhaps the most concerning — and downright bizarre — contribution was that of the manager, Philippe Clement, who was surely fooling no-one in his attempts to dismiss just how far off the pace his team had been.
Even with Celtic, over the piece, not hitting their stride to the same extent we had seen in their other domestic fixtures so far this season, Brendan Rodgers’s men had too much zip, pep and quality for the gap between the sides to be anything other than visible from space.
Clement’s day had started badly, the Belgian opting for a high press as his weapon of choice to combat a front three — Daizen Maeda, Kyogo Furuhashi and Nicolas Kühn — who had been shredding all and sundry with that lethal combination of speed and movement.
Celtic were happy to sit off, waiting for the inevitable turnovers from which they could — and would — exploit the space in behind. There were indeed spells where Rangers saw plenty of the ball, but it was largely pointless, non-threatening possession; safe five- or ten-yard shuttles between the centre backs, John Souttar and Robin Propper, the goalkeeper Jack Butland and the deepest-lying central midfielder, Connor Barron.
And yes, Rangers did pass up two gilt-edged opportunities to open the scoring in the opening 11 minutes, even if — as Clement failed to acknowledge — Cyriel Dessers was flagged offside at the first and a VAR check could very well have left Rabbi Matondo in the same predicament had he managed to beat Kasper Schmeichel with his header.
Clement’s insistence on focusing on these chances, but not the full story around them, brought to mind his complaints about the failure to award a handball penalty against Alistair Johnston in his first derby in charge last December. These lamentations spilled over into the following weeks, with Clement all the while refusing to accept that Abdallah Sima being in an offside position rendered all subsequent considerations moot.
Before speaking to the written media on Sunday afternoon, Clement had been reminding a radio reporter that things were not “all bad” because his side had managed to thrash Ross County 6-0 the previous week.
It is hard not to have sympathy for the former international defender as he labours under the weight of years of other people’s ineptitude — both in the boardroom and in the dugout — but such misguided commentary does nothing to suggest a man primed to become the exception to the norm in an environment that has chewed up and spat out so many other senior figures in recent years.
When Clement and his players returned to Ibrox later on, a group of supporters had gathered to vent their frustrations in characteristically blunt fashion. Very little good can come of such interactions, and it is to Clement’s credit that he elected to engage, but your heart sank afresh at the footage of him again recounting statistics about possession and efforts on goal.
You can only hope that a much more honest and robust conversation has been launched internally, even if no amount of straight talking can compensate for a lack of tools or the funds through which to improve them.
Arguably the biggest indictment of where Rangers are right now came when Rodgers sat down in the same press room that Clement had just vacated. The Northern Irishman carried and expressed himself in the same way he might have after a 3-0 win over Motherwell or St Johnstone.
If this felt similarly routine to Rodgers, the facts support him: Rangers are winless at Celtic Park in eight visits, and have suffered five consecutive defeats there for the first time since 1980. Celtic have lost only one of the last 13 derbies at any venue, and that was a dead rubber late in Ange Postecoglou’s second season with the title already secured.
Rodgers, then, was within his rights to answer “not really” when asked if his team had made a “big statement”. The more accurate description was that they did what they just about always do to Rangers these days.
The big characters within the Ibrox dressing room now need to step up, but who are they? Butland, for one, made an excellent start to life in Scotland, but that now well-trailed deficiency low to his left was again exploited by Furuhashi, and the former England goalkeeper was similarly unconvincing in his attempts to defend himself after the event.
“I looked at my position on the second one. I think I’m in a position which is suitable for where we were at in the game, being in possession of the ball. In giving the ball away, I’m trying to get back to my optimal position where I want to be in that moment. And perhaps a little bit I didn’t quite get back to where I wanted to get to, ideally.
“It [Furuhashi getting his shot away so early] was no surprise. You could see he was shaping up for it. As I said, my optimal position was where I wanted to get back to. I didn’t get the opportunity to get there with us turning over the ball. Again, I’ll look at it again.
“Could I have been somewhere different to start with? Have I got after it as well as I possibly could do from the position I was in? Yes, I have. Yes, I’m disappointed with it as I would be with conceding any other goal.”
In fairness to Butland, he did emphasise that the whole experience was “going to be fresh on people’s minds for a while. And it needs to be because that’s how important it is to us and to the club. So, yes, there are things to work on, things to get better at; be more efficient [at]. But I think the belief is there and I hope that shows at least that we’re still fighting.”
Right at this moment, though, Rangers cannot fight reality, however much Clement might like to wish it away.