Philippe Clement sack: Senior Rangers source shares new Ibrox update
Rangers will keep faith with Philippe Clement for the rest of this season as they look to break the “cycle” of manager sackings, Jonny McFarlane has been told.
Speaking on The Rangers Review (13 January), McFarlane said he’d been told by a “very, very senior” Ibrox source that the Light Blues hierarchy will not move to sack a manager midway through a season.
Clement has already been given a vote of confidence by Gers CEO Patrick Stewart, and after mid-season sackings in each of the last two campaigns, the Belgian’s job appears to be safe regardless of results.
McFarlane said: “The [managerial] cycle repeats – I was told by a very, very senior Rangers source at the start of this season that this cycle would be broken, that they would not sack a manager mid-season.”
Philippe Clement sack pressure grows despite Rangers stance
While it’s been said the Belgian wouldn’t become the third Gers manager in a row to be sacked mid-season, circumstances at Ibrox since have left Clement on very shaky ground.
Not only are the Light Blues a staggering 15 points behind arch-rivals Celtic in the Premiership table less than two weeks after beating them, they also failed to reach the Champions League play-off round.
That failure came right at the start of the campaign, resulting in the Bears missing out on a £4million windfall from UEFA and immediately putting them on the back foot compared to their Old Firm rivals.
The financial chasm between the two Glasgow giants is ever-growing as a result of Clement and the board’s failings this season, and any notion of strengthening in January is only likely to be for stop-gaps.
Clement may have outlasted both Michael Beale and Giovanni van Bronckhorst‘s tenures in the two seasons before he arrived at Ibrox, but it remains to be seen if the Ibrox board will stick to their promise.
In other Rangers news, the Bears missed out on appointing a highly-rated out-of-work manager after developments this week.
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