Philippe Clement is past the point of no return at Rangers as he enters the dogs and caravan stage – Chris Sutton

One of the big questions at Rangers right now is whether or not they can afford to get rid of Philippe Clement.

But that is looking at it the wrong way. The real question is, can they afford to let him remain in charge? The Ibrox club’s dire financial figures hogged the headlines for a day until events on the Pittodrie pitch surpassed them. And it does now look like Rangers are past the point of return with their manager.

Look, no one likes seeing anyone lose their job. But you’ve got to wonder how bad it has to get before someone – anyone – at Ibrox makes a big decision. We keep hearing Clement and his players saying they can still compete for the title. Right now it’s hard to see them even competing for second. The club is not in great shape off the park right now with no permanent chairman, no chief executive and no director of football.

There’s no money either. But those are no excuse to what’s being served up by Clement and his side. I’ve actually got some sympathy for the Rangers board. They keep making losses, but it’s their own money they are blowing and they are seemingly willing to keep shovelling it in.

There’s been so much wasted though – and not a single bit of progress. They deserve better – as do Rangers fans. You look at where they were a year ago. There was an initial bounce under Clement but they ran out of steam and now?

They have the Belgian Beale in charge. I can’t believe quite how off the rails the manager has gone. After his first few months there were positive signs. He secured a trophy and spoke a lot of sense. After the nonsense of Michael Beale, they looked to have a sensible, serious operator in charge.

They now have a Belgian waffler who is spouting the kind of gibberish that Pedro Caixinha