Last season, Michael Beale had the excuse that it wasn't his team. But Chris Sutton insists it was deployed too often and that it wasn't something he could fall back on when things went wrong this term.
Beale oversaw an expensive Rangers rebuild this summer, bringing in the likes of Danilo, Sam Lammers and Cyriel Dessers for big money, along with Jose Cifuentes, Kieran Dowell and Jack Butland.
Only goalkeeper Butland has performed to the level expected, resulting in the man who signed them being sacked on Sunday night.
It is certainly Beale's team that have fallen seven points behind Celtic already in the Premiership title race. And without being able to claim he was working with someone else's tools, Sutton reckons it was a matter of time before Beale was found out and that him getting his jotters from the Ibrox board was inevitable after the fans turned. "He had the excuse last season of it not being his team," he told BBC Football Daily. "I think he used that excuse far too many times. "He lost all the big important games - three huge games against Celtic.