The cycle is over. What comes in the next few weeks (or months) will be the oppressive prolongation of the irreversible decline of the reset to take another path, a fresh start. There is always time to change the course of the ship (when it is obvious), but then it is too late. A cycle that did not revolutionize at all, without progress in different departments and that did not know how to change in time, neither in tactics nor in strategy.
The problem didn´t start at Rugby Park, did it?
It was February 2024, and we were beating Kilmarnock 2-1 after a first half in
which the home side had won the midfield, exposing the “vulnerabilities” of the
Clement system. A breakdown had occurred which later became evident in dull and
ugly football. At that time, still in the fight for the title, everyone was
saying that we had to wait, “when Clement chooses his own players this will
change” etc etc (We should stop making self-indulgent statements for a while). But
there was no tactical improvement, warning of what was to come. The succession
of defeats followed, including Motherwell at Ibrox and Ross County away.
If there is a game that defines and will define
the title, it is the Old Firm. It is the kind of game that you must study, analyze
and over-analyze until you are sick of it. Clement played it the same every
time he had the chance, as if reality had to automatically adapt to his idealized
vision of the game. Without revising the forms and the specific characteristics
of the personnel involved, if it was necessary to defend in another way, if
celtic played with a midfield with continuity. If they put pressure on
Tavernier´s vulnerable zone (putting the Japanese running next to him),
something had to be done, and not in one game, but in a succession of games that
include this season´s. This seemed to be just a matter of hitting quickly and
seeing what happens, nothing more.
Dessers is undoubtedly a player chosen by
Beale, but Clement gave him continuity, choosing him as his number 9. Even in
December he preferred to bring in players in another position, although Shankland
was talked about for two months. And this season he only brought in an unknown Moroccan,
who is not a striker in the box either, or Danilo, most of the time injured) as
his only replacement.
Clement can´t do anything else, his few ideas
have run out. His changes are incomprehensible most of the time, he hasn´t
provided the team with the planning to modify the game plan if it fails or
motivate the players to return to the pitch with a different spirit. How is this going to unravel? The big problem
is the contract and the bad decision to extend the contract. We knew that the
accumulation of frustrations had to end. A club like Rangers cannot afford such
things.
