The cracked crest on the back of today?s Scottish Sun confirms it ? Rangers are officially in crisis.

Having fallen 15 points behind Celtic at the top of the SPL and following our 0-2 loss to St Johnstone in the League Cup, probably the worst defeat in our 134 year history, Rangers manager Paul Le Guen is in serious danger of becoming a managerial casualty by Christmas, this at a club who just don?t ever sack managers.

Radio Scotland pundit and ex-Ranger Billy Dodds said of Wednesday?s game:

?That?s the worst I?ve seen Rangers play?I?m not even going to say in years.?

Some comment from a guy who played in our infamous 6-2 loss at Celtic Park all those years ago.

The talk up here is that Scotland manager and former boss Walter Smith will be asked to return ? it?s getting that silly.

Fan protests have been the upshot of recent events, with the support whipped into a frenzy of discontent by a media pack who very clearly smell blood.

PLG has been blamed for making poor signings and for underestimating the Scottish game.

But the fact remains that he inherited an awful side and was given precious little to fix it with.

The problems at Rangers stem from the spending of the Smith/Advocaat era and from the subsequent selling off of quality players to save the club from financial ruin.

As a direct result of this entirely necessary asset stripping, we?re now in a situation where there are a plethora of sub-standard players at the club.

Who would you keep if you were given the chance to clear them out?

Personally I?d keep McGregor, Smith, Ferguson, Adam, Novo, Burke and Boyd. The rest are garbage, filler on an album that should be full of hits.

Alan Hutton can?t defend to save his life. He?s barely good enough to play for Stafford Rangers, no offence to them.

Julien Rodriguez is immobile and can?t head the ball. Sasa Papic looks to have modelled his game on Rodriguez.

Karl Svensson has spent every second of SPL football he?s played for us looking like a terrified rabbit.

Man United loanees Bardsley and Martin have looked like kids with some potential, but nowhere near the standard required for RFC.

Brahim Hemdani could be outpaced by an arthritic grandmother and Dado Prso is living off a reputation garnered two years ago ? an aging prize-fighter who hasn?t heard the bell.

Filip Sebo hasn?t had much of a chance to show us he?s an utter donkey yet, but all the signs are there - poor touch, witless running and very few goals marking him out as a real ?fud for the future.?

And then there is the impostor-in-chief, Belgian international Thomas Buffel. There may well be a league out there that Buffel can play in but it ain?t the SPL. Up here you have to tackle with rather more than the conviction of a man made entirely from meringue. You also have to play for the whole game and not just the 20 minutes you feel like playing. And, most importantly, when you have beaten 3 men and have a glorious chance you have to stick the bastard in the net, or pass it, preferably to a player wearing the same shirt as you. Buffel has been brilliant for about 120 minutes of his entire Ranger career. The rest of the time he has been posted MIA.

PLG is responsible for bringing some of these guys in certainly, but he can?t be blamed for struggling to get results with a squad that is 70% crap, guys brought in for a fraction of the cost of the players they replaced.

Where it does get worrying is when the manager talks about getting the best out of the players. It doesn?t seem to have occurred to him that this might be all these impostors have.

So has PLG underestimated the Scottish game, or has he simply overestimated the quality at his disposal? Perhaps his faith in men who have failed Rangers in the past has been his biggest mistake thus far.

Unless these players wish to be forever known in infamy by the supporters who pay their insane wages, they better start proving me wrong before they cost another manager his job, starting this Saturday against Dunfermline.

Anything other than a win and we?ll have moved from crisis to free-fall, and things might get really silly after that.

This entry was posted on Friday, November 10th, 2006 at 1:19 pm and is filed under Rangers. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.