What the Rangers end game looks like for a manager in peril – the rinse and repeat Philippe Clement is staring down

This is a Rangers movie that's been playing on repeat for years

A new cast of stars are signed in the summer, they fluff their lines before the clocks go back, and the director, or boss in this case, is fired when it becomes apparent the Ibrox board have another big budget flop on their hands. The credits aren't quite rolling for Philippe Clement yet, but this could well be his final act if he finds himself even further upstaged by Jimmy Thelin, let alone the Premiership's usual leading man, Brendan Rodgers. Autumnal agony at the box office has become a commonplace at Ibrox.

Gers produced a turkey of a performance against Kilmarnock following the Dons' box office draw at Parkhead the day before, actually managing to lose ground as both above them dropped points. Assuming the gap remains the same after this weekend, then Rangers head for Pittodrie next Wednesday facing the real prospect of falling nine points behind the Reds in second. They could even be leapfrogged by Dundee United and fall to fourth.

That would move the current campaign into the disaster genre, and punters don't want to see that again having sat through at least a trilogy of the same thing before. Record Sport looks at how Clement's predecessors' arc's played out.

How it ended

Ominously, with defeat to Aberdeen. Beale famously waited in the wings, taking his seat while Giovanni van Bronckhorst tried to keep the show going, also against the Dons. It had been coming for Beale, who had blown his summer budget and it wasn't exactly a major plot twist when he paid the price with his job.

Result that cost him

A 3-1 home defeat to Aberdeen was the finale, but repeated failures to get the best of Celtic when it mattered played a huge part as well.