Reality for Rangers is facing low-block St Mirren, not FCSB | OneFootball

As Ibrox Noise alluded to in an earlier piece, Rangers manager Philippe Clement’s battle wasn’t with FCSB on Thursday night, it is with St Mirren this weekend before the big one v Aberdeen in midweek.

Rangers are 6 points behind the Dons and Celtic and that is what Clement and all Rangers managers are measured on – winning the league, beating Celtic, and being top of the table.

And the victory over the Romanians while welcome, screamed to Ibrox Noise a bit of the win over Ross County – beating easily a very poor team, making a big song and dance about it and over selling its gravity.

Yes, it was Rangers’ biggest European win for 17 years, but it meant nothing in itself because Rangers Thursdays are legendary – this club, under Steven Gerrard, was built for the Europa League, and all managers since him have experienced success at this level for this club. Even Michael Beale!

No, we give Clement very little slack for this result, we will give him slack if he starts producing consistency in the league, beating St Mirren at the weekend for a start.

The Buddies have had an alright start to the season, they sit 5th bottom and on the cusp of breaking into the top 6th, and their manager Stephen Robinson has just signed a new deal.

He will very much want to finish top 6 this season, he’s a very good manager with that kind of team, and he’d love to really get their season going by overcoming Rangers, a huge scalp.

But of course the difference in Europe compared with the SPL is night and day – in Europe the football is generally open, expansive and there’s space for players to run into. Both teams in European matches tend to go for it more.

In the SPL though teams sit in, they defend against Celtic, Rangers and these days, Aberdeen. The low block is a big thing and a big weapon for these lesser teams, and Philippe Clement hasn’t been able to handle it for the bulk of 2024.

Indeed his solution has been to pass the ball in our own half to death and sit off the opponent, ‘waiting for an opportunity’ but unfortunately not having the tactical nous to overcome that low block.

Tactically, Clement has been found totally wanting.

He was fine at Brugge and Genk, they didn’t face much of a low block in the same way – Belgian football is nothing like the SPL.

But here in Scotland Clement needs to face against sides in this league and understand how to beat them.

Otherwise we can beat all the FCSBs and Malmos that we like, but we’ll still get gubbed by Kilmarnock.