Supernatural Rangers season still haunted by Celtic as Pittodrie power cut keeps Clement in the dark – Hugh Keevins

There have been elements of the supernatural about the progress of Rangers ’ season so far.

And if they beat Ange Postecoglou’ s Spurs at Ibrox on Thursday night in the Europa League that will definitely come under the heading of unexplained phenomena. Similarly, where did that six-goal dismembering of Kilmarnock come from at Ibrox on Wednesday night? It was other-worldly compared with the kind of earthly debris that had accumulated in the league and led to Ibrox being many thousands of seats under capacity in midweek.

Rangers have been more off a cliff than off the cuff since the domestic season began. If you watched Philippe Clement ’s team against St Johnstone on television last Sunday, followed by Liverpool against Manchester City, you would have understood it was evidence of one sport being played in two different ways. One was an exhibition of football and the other one was an imitation of football. I don’t think there’s any need to draw diagrams to demonstrate which was which.

At Perth, it looked as if Clement had assembled a team you would not pull back the curtains to watch if they were playing a game in your back garden. The question now is, are Rangers about to turn a significant corner in spite of, rather than because of, their manager?

The Belgian wasn’t exactly given a ringing endorsement from the top table at Rangers’ AGM on Thursday. Interim chairman John Gilligan said time would tell if the right decision had been made to appoint Clement in the first place, adding that they would “stand by” their decision. The time that will tell is starting now.

Ianis Hagi is in the team after Clement had publicly dismissed the player’s chances of ever making it at Ibrox. Until, that is, the manager’s back was up