Alan Pattullo and Mark Atkinson discuss a crazy 24 hours at Rangers.
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00:00Hello and welcome to this episode of the Sportsman Football Show. My name is Mark Watkinson,
00:08Sports Editor, and I'm joined today by our Chief Football Writer, Alan Pattillo, who
00:12we're here to discuss a pretty bonkers 24 hours or so at Rangers. The headline news,
00:18manager Philippe Clement sacked and already an interim coaching team has been put in place
00:24headed up by Barry Ferguson, along with a few other Rangers legends in Neil McCann.
00:29Alan McGregor, Billy Dodds and Moroccan coach Issam Chahri. Alan, there's so much to talk
00:36about here. It's been a very tumultuous day or so at Ibrox. Can I just first get your
00:44views on the sacking of Philippe Clement as manager? His 16-month tenure has come to an
00:50end. In the end, was it a no-brainer decision for the Rangers board?
00:56I think it had reached that point. I was just thinking you get long odds on a Rangers management
01:04team involving Barry Ferguson, Alan McGregor, Billy Dodds and Neil McCann at the start of
01:09the season, wouldn't you have? Or maybe not, given this is Rangers. It's a club that's
01:14used to being in crisis. Just look back at the start of the season when they couldn't
01:21begin the season at Ibrox because of problems with the Copeland road stands. What a few
01:29months, what a few months, what a 16-month reign Philippe Clement has had. You have to
01:35feel some sympathy for him because he steered the club through some of these tough times
01:41at the start of the season when they couldn't play at Ibrox. He was the lone spokesperson,
01:47wasn't he? Given the flux at the top of the club with an interim chairman and chief executive
01:56having left. You have to have some sympathy for him because he's taken a lot of responsibility
02:04on his shoulders. But I do think it had reached a point where even he knew the game was up.
02:13You don't follow up a historic defeat against Queen's Park with a performance quite as paltry
02:21as they produced against St Mirren on Saturday. I was there and looking back through some
02:30of my photographs I took yesterday of Ibrox, I think it was ten minutes to go on the clock,
02:3619 minutes to go in reality because there was nine minutes of time added on and the
02:40ground was half full, half full at best. I put a couple of pictures on X and a couple
02:48of guys were saying it reminds me of the 1980s under John Gregg. This really was a return
02:54to a bleak chapter in Rangers history. Once you've lost the fans, as Clement clearly had
03:01done, you can't really carry on. Patrick Stewart, to be fair to him, he's tried his best to
03:07be supportive, hasn't he? He's come out a couple of times and given quite vigorous
03:12votes of confidence to Clement, although acknowledging the results would have to improve.
03:18I think he was in a tight corner, Patrick Stewart, wasn't he, after saying that and
03:23then Philippe Clement immediately following up those words with a home 2-0 defeat against
03:29St Mirren, which could have been worse. St Mirren, I thought, were very worth the three
03:34points and really, from the word go, were up for it and just basically bullied Rangers
03:42all over the park. Rangers fans weren't hanging around to watch that. They were up and off
03:47about the 70th minute when the second goal had gone in. I don't think many of us could
03:56have been too surprised by the news late on Sunday night that Clement had been relieved
04:01of his duties and Rangers were going to look elsewhere for the rest of the season. Although,
04:06I have to say, slightly taken aback at who they have brought in to replace him. Although,
04:13I suppose, what were the choices? I guess it was limited at this stage of the season
04:19when people are already in jobs. You need to find some people that aren't in jobs and
04:24he's come up with Barry Ferguson. Interesting.
04:28Absolutely. It's worth mentioning, Alan, of course, that there's a lot of tumult at
04:32Rangers behind the scenes. We learned last week of the potential takeover from the Port
04:38of London franchise. The club planned to bring in a sporting director. Normally, you go sporting
04:44director, then manager in such circumstances. I wonder whether that hierarchy has just gone
04:51we need to find some sort of interim. As you say, there weren't many names out there.
04:59Barry Ferguson's name actually immediately came to light on Sunday night once Clement
05:05had been relieved of his duties, which suggests that had been lined up. But it's quite interesting
05:10really, isn't it? When you look at this cohort of Rangers players who are steeped in the
05:16club, two of them have been managers in the past and one of them fairly recently led Inverness
05:23to a Scottish Cup final. Is it fair to say that while Barry Ferguson will front up this
05:30management team, of course, he's not been a manager for a few years now, three years,
05:35you wonder if Billy Dodds and Neil McCann might be the brains behind it, given that
05:39they've been a team before and we all know that they both speak well about the game and
05:46are well respected. There's a blend there, isn't there? You can see the logic behind
05:52bringing some of these guys in.
05:54Yeah, I always thought, as you say, Billy Dodds, he's got the credentials. He led Inverness
06:03to a Scottish Cup final fairly recently, a couple of years ago. So, yeah, he certainly
06:09knows what he's doing. He was at Ibrox on Saturday. I was speaking to him before the
06:14game, in fact. He was there as a pundit. So, yeah, he's still closely involved in football,
06:22Neil McCann again. I would suggest Neil McCann, I think, always impressed me when he was at
06:30Inverness, spoke well about the game. Again, he's come in at Inverness, did a fairly decent
06:35job there as well as an interim manager when John Robertson stepped back for a while.
06:40So, I think you can definitely see there's method in the seeming madness there, I think,
06:47definitely. And Barry Ferguson and Alan McGregor, possibly slightly more plain to the gallery,
06:55although I was interested to see some of the forum comments on Sunday night. And even
07:00the gallery wasn't convinced that Barry Ferguson was the way forward. And some Rangers fans
07:06sort of, I think, anticipating a lot of ridicule, shall we say, from across the city, from Celtic
07:15fans. And I'm sure that will come.
07:18It's interesting to point out, you're right, Mark, to mention the obviously takeover news
07:23last weekend. It's fascinating because it's putting into Ibrox on Saturday before the
07:28game against St Mirren. Even given the fact that the last outing at Ibrox was a historic
07:34defeat, a first ever home defeat to a lower division team against Queen's Park, even given
07:39that, there was a sense of slight sort of good vibes around Ibrox because of this takeover
07:46news. There was stars and stripes, flags on sale outside the ground by enterprising
07:51vendors and obviously Celtic being beaten in the lunchtime kickoff. And that always
07:58will put a spring in the step of Rangers fans heading towards Ibrox. And so you almost feel,
08:04God, this actually, it doesn't feel, it feels like for the first time in a long time, it
08:09feels like some optimism was breaking out at Ibrox. And then, of course, their team
08:14duly trot out against St Mirren and managed to completely torpedo that in the space of
08:2096 minutes. So, yeah, fascinating. Rangers continue to be fascinating, lurching from
08:27crisis to mini-crisis. And here we are with this management team. It would be fascinating
08:33to hear what Barry Ferguson says tomorrow. I guess he'll be fronting up the pre-match
08:36press conference. And then, again, a difficult match for his first game in charge, isn't
08:42it, away at Rugby Park against Kilmarnock? Yeah, a place that many recent Rangers managers
08:48have struggled against, up against Derek McInnes's well-drilled Kilmarnock team. It's quite
08:53interesting, Alan, hearing some quotes from Brendan Rogers. He was asked in his pre-match
08:57press conference ahead of facing Aberdeen today about his thoughts on Kilmarnock. He
09:03made the point that Rangers appointed a very good manager in Kilmarnock. You look at his
09:09CV, he was referencing his past work at Monaco and Club Rouge in particular. And while Kilmarnock
09:17clearly had lost the Rangers' support and by Saturday night the majority of the Rangers'
09:22board too, his CV stands up to a lot of scrutiny, given what he's achieved. And have Rangers
09:29downgraded in some respects, in terms of a stature of manager, by releasing Kilmarnock
09:37on, but bringing in a man who, while he's a very clear Rangers man, an iconic legendary
09:44player, 15 trophies he won across two spells. He's not managed since 2022, that was February
09:502022, so three years ago. And the clubs he's managed are Alloa, Kelty and Clyde. So when
09:58you strip away the emotion, is this new Rangers coaching team qualified to be a Rangers coaching
10:06team?
10:07Well, yeah, I don't think anyone's going to argue that Barry Ferguson has a slight downgrade
10:16on Philippe Clermont in terms of managerial experience and what he's done. That's plain
10:23to see, you're right. The last game I think Barry Ferguson was in charge of was against
10:28Alloa. I read somewhere that it was a 3-1 defeat to East Fife, that was three years
10:33ago. And Clermont, you can accuse Clermont of many things, but even a year ago today,
10:44a year ago yesterday, Rangers were beating Hearts 5-0 at Ibrox and they were ahead in
10:51the league and everything was looking very, very rosy. I was looking back at my match
10:54report, I was there that day actually, and I was looking back at my match report and
10:58it actually included a line, Philippe Clermont can do no wrong. And this is a year on, here
11:03we are. He did a lot wrong. In fact, it started to go very wrong very soon after that. The
11:08loss 2-1 to Motherwell at Ibrox, if you remember, and then obviously they had that crushing
11:13four or five day spell in April when they lost to Ross County and drew to Dundee and
11:18the league title was all but gone. But Philippe Clermont had got Rangers into a position where
11:26he might have won the league last season. Incredible, really, if you think about it,
11:29given the way you can look at Celtic and Rangers now and think Celtic have got so many advantages,
11:35don't they, in terms of the money that's rolling in and squad players. But yeah, Clermont
11:45had negotiated a way of getting Rangers in front of Celtic as recently as a year ago.
11:52So you have to acknowledge that, I think. You have to acknowledge the fact he's won
11:56a League Cup for Rangers as well, soon after he came in. And as I said earlier, he managed
12:04to navigate some fairly choppy waters off the field as well. And I did notice in Patrick
12:10Stewart's statement today that he did stress he will always be welcome back at Ibrox. So
12:19the case doesn't come back within the next six months. So I think in time, Rangers fans
12:24will possibly look back and acknowledge the difficulties he encountered. But I also think
12:33Philippe Clermont will sit and reflect and be furious with himself for getting himself
12:39into this position because all he had to do was get to the end of the season, I think,
12:43and not try and avoid too many embarrassing results. Obviously, he had done well to get
12:50to the Europa League last 16, a Jose Mourinho clash coming up against Fenerbahce. Fascinating,
12:56what an intoxicating clash that would have been. Yet here we are, he's on his way home
13:03to Belgium and he will look back and be furious with himself for the team letting themselves
13:10down the way they did against Queens Park and then against Samir. Because otherwise
13:14he'd still be sitting here with these games to look forward to.
13:17Absolutely, Alan. Absolutely. I think we agree that while the qualifications of Ferguson
13:21on a coaching and experience level potentially aren't as good as Clermont's, in a way when
13:26you talk about how much crisis there is at Rangers and how much Clermont had to deal
13:31with behind the scenes, having four club men in there who you know are going to work really
13:36hard and are there until the end of the season and they are there to basically keep this
13:40team going domestically in their remaining, I think it was maybe 13 league matches they've
13:46got left and potentially, well definitely two European ties and potentially more. It's
13:51not a lot of football. In that way, are they almost the ideal people to come in and just
13:57steady the ship while the people above them try and get the house in order?
14:02Possibly, yeah. Possibly. Yeah, I mean, they're on hand, they're nearby, live locally. So
14:09yeah, why not? As I say, the choices were limited. The hand was slightly forced in terms
14:17of once it reached a decision to sever ties with Clermont, you look down at a blank sheet
14:25of paper and think, who can we bring in now? And the choice was limited. So in that way
14:31I suppose Barry Ferguson, Neil McCann, I mean you could argue about who might be, who should
14:35have been brought in as perhaps the interim manager. I mean perhaps Neil McCann I suggest
14:39might have been the one to bring in as the interim manager or interim head coach and
14:44then have Barry Ferguson perhaps assisting as well. But yeah, you can argue about that
14:49but I think this possibly is this choice, this choice of management team as we're saying
14:57we were taken aback slightly by it but perhaps it was the obvious choice. And yeah, little
15:02strands come up, you know, just as we're sitting here talking about it, I'm thinking, my goodness,
15:07you know, as a sports writer, fantastic. Barry Ferguson up against Jose Mourinho, who'd have
15:13thought it in a Europa League last-16 clash.
15:16You're absolutely right, Alan. Just finally before we sign off, let's talk about the players
15:20at Rangers. There's got, as always with a manager, real change happens as a degree of
15:26culpability from addressing them. Do you see a group of players that have got more to give
15:33in terms of their performances on the pitch or did Clement max them out and it's now a
15:38question of guiding them home to the end of the season?
15:41No, I think you have to say they've got more to give. I mean, this is a team that shouldn't
15:46be losing at home to Queen's Park, shouldn't be losing at home in the manner they did against
15:49St Mirren. You know, and they've shown it recently, they've shown it recently that they're
15:56a team very capable. You know, they came within a poor refereeing call of perhaps winning
16:04the League Cup in December against Celtic and beat Celtic again in a 3-0 very comprehensively
16:10at Ibrox earlier this year. So, you know, it's a team that they have shown on occasion
16:18that they're capable and with clearly talented players.
16:22Philippe Clement will argue, possibly rightly so, that they've been badly served by injuries.
16:29He's had to, you know, as every manager does, but Rangers have had a lot of injuries. Just
16:35the sight of Daniil coming on against St Mirren as a sort of second-half substitute in a bid
16:41to try and save the days reminds you that, you know, some of the players that Clement
16:46had have not been available to him enough over the last 16 months. So, in that respect,
16:52again, you have to have some sympathy with Clement, but I think the team, the team are
16:56capable, the players are capable of far more than what they've showed over the last three
17:01or four weeks. And I include that game against Hearts at Town Castle when they did win 3-1,
17:07but it could have been anything. They could have easily lost that game 5-3. Who knows?
17:13You know, it was a poor performance, if a good win. But as events proved, it was just
17:20a stay of execution for Clement. A lot of people thought that was a good result, went
17:24to Town Castle, a difficult place. That was a very decent response to losing against Queen's
17:30Park, but as events proved, it was not to be. And I think I said in my match report
17:38at the weekend, I think that was the response against St Mirren was the absolute opposite
17:43of what was required to that defeat against Queen's Park.
17:47Indeed. Well, they've got Kalmona on Wednesday and then Barry Ferguson returns to Ivorox
17:52on Saturday when they take on Motherwell. Intriguing as well. It's been quite the season.
17:58We may have a champion already in waiting and Celtic, but there's so much going on beneath
18:03them. Alan, I'm going to let you crack on. I know you've got a piece to write about all
18:07this, try and make sense of all these crazy goings on at Rangers. And then you're off
18:11to see Barry Ferguson, we assume, on Tuesday, which will be quite the press conference.
18:16Never a dull moment with Rangers, as we said. Alan, thank you for joining us. And thank
18:20you to the viewers for tuning in. We'll have all the latest on scottsman.com and in the
18:25newspapers. From myself and Alan, it's goodbye for now.