The plastic curse plaguing Rangers for YEARS as Kilmarnock ripping up their astro is music to Clement's ears

Unless Kilmarnock can get their stuttering season going and somehow salvage their top-six ambitions, this weekend’s trip down the M77 offers a tantalising prospect for visitors Rangers - an end at last to their plastic pain.

After 11 years, Killie chiefs are finally set to rip up their astroturf pitch at the end of the season and reinstall a grass surface at Rugby Park. The move comes a full 12 months ahead of an outfight Premiership ban on artificial surfaces in the top flight. But for the Ibrox club, it can’t come soon enough.

While Celtic have enjoyed some memorable, free-scoring afternoons on the 4G, Rangers have never quite found the fake turf so easy to tread. In fact, since the plastic pitch was installed at Rugby Park in the summer of 2014, Gers have managed just six wins from their 14 visits. The other results have been a succession of frustrating encounters in which the Light Blues have been left banging their heads against the wall as well-drilled Killie outfits have obstinately refused to budge from their stubborn shapes.

From Lee Clark to Steve Clarke and now Derek McInnes, a string of Kilmarnock managers have come up with game plans that have made the most of their artificial surface’s strange spins and befuddling bounces to bewilder the Ibrox players. Yet those cautious tactics have never quite had the same impact on Gers’ Old Firm rivals.

Last season, Brendan Rodgers’ men might have crashed out of the League Cup at Rugby Park as they found their feet once more under the returning Northern Irishman before suffering another slip-up in December, but they would get their brutal revenge by hitting McInnes’ men for five in the penultimate Premiership game of the campaign.

The year before, under Ange