Philippe Clement knows Rangers fans are hurting - but is certain they'd rather this agony than pain of 2012 meltdown

No-one has to tell Philippe Clement how much the Rangers support are suffering right now.

But for all the pain they’re going through as his side scramble in the wake of Aberdeen and Celtic, the under-pressure Belgian boss is certain they’d far rather go through this than the agony of repeating the club’s 2012 financial meltdown. And it’s for that exact reason that the Ibrox boss and his Gers paymasters opted to take this summer’s drastic action.

A failing operation on and off the park, Rangers were a club in dire need of a reset. That was laid out in the accounts that dropped just 24 hours ahead of Wednesday’s dismal 2-1 defeat at Pittodrie, a result which leaves Clement’s men nine-points adrift of the joint Premiership leaders. Record revenue numbers still weren’t enough to spare the club another massive £17million loss last year, with those figures compounded by the need to sack manager Michael Beale and clear out the mess he’d left behind.

So it was left to Clement to slash the wage bill by around £2.5million ahead of the new season. Those cuts have come with what Clement is desperately hoping is only short-term pain.

Whether he survives long enough to see if there are any long-term gains remains the question ahead of Sunday’s Premier Sports Cup semi-final showdown with Motherwell. But regardless of his own position, he’s adamant that the cloth-cutting that took place before the new campaign was both necessary and unavoidable.

“I know the project I started in June,” said the 50-year-old. “It was another project than I started in October. Those things were less clear. We had this talk in June that it was a really big challenge.

“That is also why there were negotiations about the contract [the new four-year deal he