The new football season has barely got started. And, for Rangers, it can’t end soon enough. The Ibrox hierarchy have endured the week from hell. A £40million windfall was buried six foot under after the death of another Champions League campaign. A £4million life insurance premium went up in smoke when they failed to make the play-off round. Working their way through the five stages of grief, supporters rattled past denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance and moved straight to apathy. Just how apathetic will become clear when a team low on quality kicks off against St Johnstone in Saturday night's televised Premier Sports Cup tie at Hampden. If the crowd tops 20,000, they should substitute the half-time pies for medals of valour. Rangers players trudge off after disastrous defeat to Dynamo Kyiv at Hampden Clement rages at ref for Jefte's sending off but Rangers weren't good enough on the night A terrible night went from bad to worse when full back Yilmaz was stretchered off More than a few voted with their feet during a grim Champions League exit to Dynamo Kyiv on Tuesday night. For any club, the loss of £40m for making the group stage would be as painful as picking a scab from a weeping wound. When the club in question is shelling out rental cash for using Hampden to the SFA because they took a needless punt on imported steel from China, selling players in order to finance new ones, and thrashing out the terms of a kit deal legal settlement in the Court of Session, it’s like flushing a winning lottery ticket down the toilet. Even a hand round the U-bend won’t bring it back. An unjust red card for Jefte early in the second half was a poor decision, but shouldn’t obscure the fact that Rangers posed limited threat to Dynamo keeper Georgiy Bushchan with 11 men, never mind ten. The lack of an obvious plan from Philippe Clement was exacerbated by the manager’s failure to clock the danger signs when Jefte was booked in the first half and drew a long hard look from the Italian referee for another foul minutes later. In hindsight, management is easy. But, if Vaclav Cerny wasn’t fit enough to start the game, it’s fair to ask why he was fit enough to come on at half-time? Or, for that matter, why he replaced Ross McCausland instead of the booked Jefte? Cerny was the main man against Motherwell, and might have been just the man to lift the strange old atmosphere of the first half against Dynamo. It’s academic now. After sharp words for the ref on the pitch at time-up, Clement gave equally short shrift to reports of a video appearing to show striker Danilo limping on to the Hampden bench looking — for all the world — like a player towing a caravan. If that’s how the Brazilian walks when he’s fit, you’d hate to see how he gets around in a moon boot. In a new twist to the sodden Glasgow summer, the brown stuff kept falling from the sky. New club marketing consultant Blaine McConnell was shown the door after unfortunate images emerged providing compelling evidence that he was, in fact, Celtic daft and prone to rash outbursts on social media. While McConnell can console himself with a seat at Parkhead for the first derby of the season on September 1, actual Rangers supporters will be locked out. Again. Just when it seemed that sanity had prevailed with an agreement to restore away ticket allocations for this season, Celtic made it known that they don’t trust their city rivals to complete the work required to uphold their side of the bargain for the Ibrox Old Firm game on January 2. Many fans wondered why Cerny did not play from the start against Ukrainians Rangers lost a potential £40m jackpot by crashing out of Champions League Promises of jam tomorrow will not protect Clement and chairman Bennett With left-back Ridvan Yilmaz now facing six weeks on the sidelines, the only place Rangers fans will be watching that game is through the cracks in their fingers. Some have already seen enough. A statement from the Rangers Supporters Association has accused the club hierarchy of incompetence and demanded that they up their game with immediate effect. All in all, then, not a great week. Among supporters of both Celtic and Rangers, a new word is being used to sum up the current gulf between the two clubs. And it’s one you won’t find in the New Oxford Dictionary. ‘Espanyolification’ outlines a scenario where Rangers become the Espanyol to Celtic’s Barcelona. Rival clubs in the same city, divided by politics, finance and, accordingly, fortunes on the pitch. Since Dave King took control of Rangers in 2015, they’ve worked their way through six permanent managers and five caretakers. While Celtic have won 21 trophies, including five Trebles, their rivals have won just three bits of silverware. They have no chief executive, no academy director, they’ve been forced to decant from their own stadium, the player-trading model is behind schedule, and the squad is nowhere near the standards of the past. It’s all well and good chairman John Bennett handing a contract extension to Clement, vowing to break the cycle of ‘rinse and repeat’ and promising better days ahead. The trouble is that Rangers dropped two points at Hearts on the opening day, they’re out of the Champions League and, if they lose to Celtic in two weeks’ time, all those promises of jam tomorrow won’t protect the manager and chairman from a prolonged, bitter after-taste. Cautionary tale of two VERY different strikers Back in the summer of 2022, Aberdeen signed two new strikers from overseas. And what different paths they’ve taken. Bojan Miovski spent his two years in the Granite City carving out a big-money move to one of the world’s top leagues by being the model professional. By contrast, Luis ‘Duk’ Lopes started out like a runaway train before smashing head first into the buffers. He now spends his days brooding at home, toys scattered all over the floor and, inexplicably, that’s his choice. Duk, above, went AWOL while fellow striker Miovski has earned super move to La Liga This week, Miovski deservedly joined Girona, the third best team in La Liga, for a club-record fee of £6.8million. Blessed by a deadly eye for goal, the North Macedonian was a £3m target for Espanyol and, even when that was rejected, there were no huffs, histrionics or hissy fits. He kept his head down and left Aberdeen for Spain dabbing tears from his eyes, a modern-day folk hero. You’d pay good money for Duk’s thoughts on that now. From day one, the Cape Verde striker looked the more explosive talent of the pair, smashing in 18 goals. Even when the well ran dry before Christmas, he drew bids from clubs in the Netherlands and Spain. Both failed to meet Aberdeen’s valuation and, when pre-season training began last month, Duk had gone AWOL. Left with no choice, the Dons took disciplinary action. Miovski used the Premiership as a platform to propel his career to new heights and left for the highest fee ever paid for a non-Old Firm outfield player in Scottish football history. Duk used the Premiership as a platform to display petulance and a sense of entitlement. Daft enough to take some bad advice, he’s now persona non grata, his reputation shredded. Stupid boy barely covers it.
