What would you consider to be a satisfactory achievement for Big Phil in his first season?

The time he has been in charge being time enough to identify the actual issues in our squad, root it out and clean it out.

I didn't expect much at all from this season when he arrived, our achievements this season upon his arrival have surpassed what I expected.

The last month has been every single thing most now expect from our squad and the mentality that is spread through it, it is now apparent that managers can't fix a lot of the messaging this squad is used to, it is a disease needing cut out.
 
JC85 said:
The time to ask this question was when he took over.

And almost universally the answer would've been "close the gap to Celtic and try to win a cup".

He's done it and more. He's already into the "exceeded expectations" realm with this squad.
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Whilst it's fair to adjust expectations as things progress, I do agree with this.

I'm a different type of supporter from most, which isn't said with any ego or anything, just with some self-awareness. If I feel like we're seeing everyone at the club giving their all, good decisions in the short and long term being made and that continual aim to grow the club (and I fully accept plenty of mistakes will be made in that area as well as successes), I consider that satisfactory as such. The rest is just what I want, and I won't always get that.
 
Punt13 said:
A Postecoglue team would be out of sight because of Beale's failings in the first few weeks of the season. Even though Celtic have been failing as you put it we still needed to win games which we have.

No sane Rangers fan at the time would think we'd be anywhere close to a league title in April.

I agree that the scar tissue from previous seasons is now beginning to bite but that's something Clement hasn't been able to fix because of the timing of his appointment. The summer will be the judge of that.
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Clement hasn’t really done more than Beale last season in terms of the league. They came in at a similar time and there's not much between them when it comes to results/performances.

The difference is that our rival has dropped more points. That's made it a title race.

There's an obvious limit to this squad. But the hope/expectation is that a new manager can get more out of the players than the previous one.

I look forward to a Clement/Koppen summer.
 
BrooklynBlue said:
Clement hasn’t really done more than Beale last season in terms of the league. They came in at a similar time and there's not much between them when it comes to results/performances.

The difference is that our rival has dropped more points. That's made it a title race.

There's an obvious limit to this squad. But the hope/expectation is that a new manager can get more out of the players than the previous one.

I look forward to a Clement/Koppen summer.
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Agree with all of that

If we come up short this season, I look forward to what the big man will do next season
 
The Spaniard said:
This probably doesn’t come across well but I don’t give a sh*t about cups.

They’re just nice additions to have on top of a league title.

I’d still be disappointed with a cup double.
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I get where you're coming from about the cups (obviously it's nice to win them)

But the League and Europe should always be our main priorities.
 
TBH and I might be in a minority here, but I'm gonna be realistic. Take away the "you should win everything" mindset and accept the total drizzling shits we were when he came in, and that we were looking at another embarrassing league campaign, but I feel he has done enough, even past "satisfactory" level. I get we pissed the league away at Ross County, but before he came in the league was already gone with Beale. He got a trophy, again under Beale I doubt we would have seen that. Next season he needs to get a team that doesn't shit the bed and fears a bit of pressure, and he needs to get wins over the mentally challengeds and have a team that can give them a game.
 
No.8MK3 said:
Can’t agree!

It was a fantastic achievement to get us back in the race never mind bookies favourites for a few weeks! Topping our Europa League group another huge achievement. We were a dodgy penalty away from knocking out Benfica

Satisfactory is winning a cup and another cup final. Pushing them all the way in the league is a bonus from where we were.

We are still in the running for a treble post split. Beale left an utter shambles behind him and what the current manager has achieved is more than just satisfactory
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The frustrating thing is we are probably only a competent centre forward away from winning it all! (Europa excluded)
 
jft1840 said:
He’s done better than could realistically have been expected when he came in.

League cup.

Topped group in Europe

Closed the gap with Them. Not his fault the players have a mentality issue.

Cup semi.

If we don’t win the league but can get a win over them somehow - league or cup final - he will set himself up very well for next season.

Potential to emulate McLeish.
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The league was never on when McLeish took over.

McLeish got 2 draws and a win from his first 3 old firm games. PC has a loss and a draw.

It’s only natural to look for parallels to the past, but the fact is if we don’t win this title from the position that the manager and players were in 10 days ago, then PC’s season will be a failure, cups or not.

We are Rangers. We should be winning cups.

The league is the elephant in the room.
 
wee bud's pit boots said:
The financial implications of them getting a third and last automatic entry into the CL changes the scenario next season very significantly.

That's the one and only big picture.

To be so close and then take zero points out of six against Motherwell and Ross County, which have put us in the driving seat is the footballing equivalent of suicide.

With your nom de plume, I'll wager even Ian Curtis would have been aghast at this folly.
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I've no idea what that last sentence even means.

It seems Rangers are the only club in world football who can't be allowed to lose a single game of football without being written off as serial losers failures etc. Its mental the overreaction.

Get the point about champs lge qualification and revenue but this squad shouldn't be anywhere near it anyway after how they started. Granted its galling to get so close and then fall near the end (by the way its not even over yet) but I'm not branding the manager a failure if it doesn't quite happen for him this season. If you do then I think your expectations with this manager have been too high given the dross he's inherited. Probably a victim of his own success in that sense because a long unbeaten run had us all believing. But the squad is shit. You can only polish a terd so much.
 
MancGer86 said:
It absolutely is unfair to class it as a failure. Unfair to label the boss in that way anyway. The players have had that tag for what feels like years anyway so it's probably water off a ducks back for them to hear that again but the boss is a different tale because he inherited a complete shitshow and in less than a season and one less than productive transfer window he's transformed a dire situation to one with optimism and hope. And delivered a trophy as the bare minimum. He's got us hoping again.

That being said, I'd want to finish this season with 2 trophies now even if it is just the 2 cups rather than the title. That's a fucking good start to his reign. Then we'll see more of what he's got to offer as Rangers manager if he's properly backed in the summer.

I think there's a lot of sulking going on currently because of where we were before last weeks OF, which I get...but bigger picture perspective is needed to assess the guys overall first season in charge. How it started, the journey we went on and how it ended up. Worst case scenario is 1 cup. We didn't even believe that was happening under Beale. So I'd say relax on throwing the failure word about until he's actually had a proper run at a full season with the club.
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I think that’s exactly the point. The goal posts have moved because of where we ended up - naturally it will be judged as a failure in isolation if we lose the league from being ahead.
 
MancGer86 said:
I've no idea what that last sentence even means.

It seems Rangers are the only club in world football who can't be allowed to lose a single game of football without being written off as serial losers failures etc. Its mental the overreaction.

Get the point about champs lge qualification and revenue but this squad shouldn't be anywhere near it anyway after how they started. Granted its galling to get so close and then fall near the end (by the way its not even over yet) but I'm not branding the manager a failure if it doesn't quite happen for him this season. If you do then I think your expectations with this manager have been too high given the dross he's inherited. Probably a victim of his own success in that sense because a long unbeaten run had us all believing. But the squad is shit. You can only polish a terd so much.
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It's not about losing one game. It's about continuing disappointment and humiliations, year on year from perenniel failures.
 
MosesMcNeil99 said:
I think that’s exactly the point. The goal posts have moved because of where we ended up - naturally it will be judged as a failure in isolation if we lose the league from being ahead.
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Really depends how much of a glass half empty/half full kind of fan you are tbh and how bought in on the PC journey you are. Some people just can't jump on the failure train quickly enough whereas if you take a step back its clear to see the boss has worked wonders with piss poor resources for us to even be anywhere near the position we're in in the first place.
There's no abject failure here for me. Even if we lose the league now we're likely to finish a lot closer to them than we have since we last won the league. So it's progress.
 
Loyal Latina said:
I'd expect that if we needed 4 points from Dundee and Ross county to go top of the league that he'd have exceeded that total.
Especially over 6 months into the job.
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Exactly. We still have better players than these sides, by miles.

He was overseeing the squad during the January window. He could easily have pushed for a defender if he didn’t trust Goldson or whoever. He didn’t, he backed them.
 
MancGer86 said:
Really depends how much of a glass half empty/half full kind of fan you are tbh and how bought in on the PC journey you are. Some people just can't jump on the failure train quickly enough whereas if you take a step back its clear to see the boss has worked wonders with piss poor resources for us to even be anywhere near the position we're in in the first place.
There's no abject failure here for me. Even if we lose the league now we're likely to finish a lot closer to them than we have since we last won the league. So it's progress.
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Progress is the most frustrating word when it comes to Rangers. The time for progress finished when we won a title - anything less than a title is a total failure.

For Clement specifically no one is doubting he’s done an excellent job closing that gap, but it’s a failure to lose it from the position we were in, for players and manager. Both can be true.
 
This 4 points ahead thing seems to have been used as a stick to hit the manager with now, 4 ahead I think they had a game in hand so effectively 1 point, we were never more than 2 points ahead of them

We were 11 behind then, if that’s the measure, in December. Win tonight we are 1 point behind going into split

Do I trust these players? No

Do I trust the manager? 100% even if that means he delivers next season, he’s won one trophy out of 1 and still has us in 2 more

From where we were when he came in it’s remarkable and if we can’t judge him on that alone then god help us
 
JC85 said:
The time to ask this question was when he took over.

And almost universally the answer would've been "close the gap to Celtic and try to win a cup".

He's done it and more. He's already into the "exceeded expectations" realm with this squad.
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In many ways Clement has been a victim of his own success. The fact he dragged us back into the title race and gave us a very real chance of winning it threatens to make the fallout for failing to do so far less forgiving.

I think he / we have also benefitted from Celtic’s form being poor all season. Had it been their team of the previous couple of seasons, chances are they’d always have been just a bit too far ahead of us to make catching them a realistic proposition and perhaps expectations would be more moderate as a result.
 
MosesMcNeil99 said:
Progress is the most frustrating word when it comes to Rangers. The time for progress finished when we won a title - anything less than a title is a total failure.

For Clement specifically no one is doubting he’s done an excellent job closing that gap, but it’s a failure to lose it from the position we were in, for players and manager. Both can be true.
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I've no right to tell you how you should view it. I just don't see it like that though. I feel you ask way too much to expect this group of players to be champions or else abject failures. I think the word progress has to be accepted more by fans especially if they want this manager to stick around and build something that might actually last a few years or more.

All not quite lost yet where this season concerned. If there's any optimism left let's pile it all on tonight and the last 5 games and you never know what could happen. I feel there's a couple of twists yet because both us and the filth are well capable of dropping daft points between now and season end.
 
wee bud's pit boots said:
If we get through to the final but lose the title our already psychologically damaged squad will go into the final pysochologically damaged.

And we know how great the team resolve is.
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I generally agree the squad is fragile mentally but last time we won the Scottish Cup we done so just a few days after one of the most disappointing nights in the clubs history.
 
From what he inherited, both cups and a reduction of the points gap between us and them would have been a good achievement.

But there is no point in hiding that from where we were a month ago to not win the league now would be a huge disappointment. We were the favourites at the bookies and they looked to be on the verge of imploding. The Motherwell game and the first 45 of the Old Firm have let them back in it when we should have had them dead and buried
 
No gonna lie, if we don’t win the league then it’ll be very very disappointing
I can see the “where we were” argument before PC arrived, but still, to be in the position we were in and loose the league will be painful
 
Making us competitive in the title race was more than we could have really expected. Both domestic cups would be a great season considering how it started. Our fans are becoming tiresome with this what have you done for me lately attitude that doesn't seem to factor in any sort of logic or rational thought.
 
GovanFront4 said:
I generally agree the squad is fragile mentally but last time we won the Scottish Cup we done so just a few days after one of the most disappointing nights in the clubs history.
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Again it's a fair point.

However if they win the league, it'll most probably be down to beating us at the cesspit and they'll be flying heading into the final because there's no way dolly are going to beat them in the semi.

Our transformation and getting back into it, has to start tonight.
 
MancGer86 said:
Even if we lose the league now we're likely to finish a lot closer to them than we have since we last won the league. So it's progress.
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Where is the progress?

We won’t beat last season’s pts total and Clement has already lost more games than Beale. In addition, we’ve failed to beat Celtic.

Beyond stats, what in our performances and general play suggests “progress”?

I’m a Clement fan and I look forward to him (hopefully) gutting this squad in the Summer.

I’m a little reluctant, though, to heap too much praise when the team is showing the same deficiencies we saw under previous managers.
 
BrooklynBlue said:
Where is the progress?

We won’t beat last season’s pts total and Clement has already lost more games than Beale. In addition, we’ve failed to beat Celtic.

Beyond stats, what in our performances and general play suggests “progress”?

I’m a Clement fan and I look forward to him (hopefully) gutting this squad in the Summer.

I’m a little reluctant, though, to heap too much praise when the team is showing the same deficiencies we saw under previous managers.
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Being closer to them in points at this stage of the season and having a trophy in the bag already in a nutshell. That's your progress basically. It might not seem like much now but given what was likely in the middle of October its a start and a decent base for PC to build on for next season.

If you want to bring squad development into it then that's pretty much a non starter because this squad will probably be ripped to bits in the summer anyway and hopefully some genuine Clement type players will be brought in to help fulfil the style of play he wants to see going forward. PC has just had to work with what's here and he's done very well. Yes it's tailed off a bit lately which is disappointing, and probably fresh in fans minds when saying this season is an out and out fail that we haven't won the league or beaten Celtic. The squad has regressed significantly since we last won the league and we haven't beaten celtic in a meaningful game since the Cup semi a few years ago. So to act like it's an expectation to beat a side we haven't beaten for years is above our station given where we are with the current squad. Both OFs with Clement in charge have been extremely close even with supposed poor selections from the manager. A far cry from the 4-0 pasting we were taking last year against the same side. The team is showing the same deficiencies because there are players that have been here for years making the same mistakes over and over. Too deep rooted for the manager to suddenly eradicate overnight. Which is why he's done tremendously well to drag us where he has.

If you want to see no title as a fail, use that against the players. Not the manager. For me he gets a pass given what he's working with this season. The time to pass judgement will be next season onwards.
 
Before he came in I would have said a cup or two but to get into the position we are in then chuck away the league losing to Motherwell at home and Ross County is terrible.
 
Clement’s been a victim of his early success. If he’d dropped the Motherwell and Ross County points early on, he’d have been cut more slack, and everyone would be raving about how much he’d recovered the situation since then.

Objectively, reducing Celtic’s 7 point lead to 1 point (if Rangers win tonight) is an amazing achievement. The more so with the injury list.

But Scottish football is a two horse race, and it’s always the same two: Rangers and their bitter rivals. Success is measured in relation to them. The league title this season will be decided between Rangers and Celtic, and could go either way: winning it is success; close second is failure. The Scottish Cup, with all due respect to Aberdeen and Hearts, is pretty much the same.

Winning the treble will be glorious success; being a close runner-up in both league and cup will be abject failure. Normal rules don’t apply here.
 
MancGer86 said:
Being closer to them in points at this stage of the season and having a trophy in the bag already in a nutshell. That's your progress basically. It might not seem like much now but given what was likely in the middle of October its a start and a decent base for PC to build on for next season.

If you want to bring squad development into it then that's pretty much a non starter because this squad will probably be ripped to bits in the summer anyway and hopefully some genuine Clement type players will be brought in to help fulfil the style of play he wants to see going forward. PC has just had to work with what's here and he's done very well. Yes it's tailed off a bit lately which is disappointing, and probably fresh in fans minds when saying this season is an out and out fail that we haven't won the league or beaten Celtic. The squad has regressed significantly since we last won the league and we haven't beaten celtic in a meaningful game since the Cup semi a few years ago. So to act like it's an expectation to beat a side we haven't beaten for years is above our station given where we are with the current squad. Both OFs with Clement in charge have been extremely close even with supposed poor selections from the manager. A far cry from the 4-0 pasting we were taking last year against the same side. The team is showing the same deficiencies because there are players that have been here for years making the same mistakes over and over. Too deep rooted for the manager to suddenly eradicate overnight. Which is why he's done tremendously well to drag us where he has.

If you want to see no title as a fail, use that against the players. Not the manager. For me he gets a pass given what he's working with this season. The time to pass judgement will be next season onwards.
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I don't think many, if any, are using the recent failings against the manager.

There's definitely been a sea change on here towards the defence overall since Sunday, but to be frank we're a couple of seasons too late and it shouldn't have taken losing to Ross County away as a warning sign.

This is not on PC, I'm talking about the fans with blinkers on.

Tonight really is the last chance saloon. Which from where we were last Sunday morning is quite preposterous.
 
The fact he has managed to get us back in the fight is enough for me this season, we were a mess when he took over, winning the league from 7 points behing would be amazing, we need to beat the scum this season though, losing out on the league at this point would be a major kick in the stones. Any season we dont win the league is a shit season, look forward to seeing what he can do with his own players.
 
Tough one. Beale's first season was deemed more than satisfactory based on his record and where we seemed to be headed at the time under him. He messed that up with some rotten recruitment... of which Clement has had to work with.

Beale had 23 games left in the season when he took over and had W20 D2 L1 with a poor Gio team he inherited. Clement in his 24 games till now has W19 D2 L3 with the poor team he inherited. Same circumstances, the difference is, Celtic have dropped more points during Clement's spell than they did in Beale's. Beale never had that luxury or had the advantage Clement had with games in hand albeit.

The advantage was ours going into the old firm seeing we were at home and although circumstances in that match led us happy with a draw being down at HT... fact is, we/he should have won that match. Ross County was disgraceful.

Phil has had us play some lovely competitive football in Europe, so that's a big plus for me. A cup (hopefully two) under his belt also a positive. Ultimately for me tho, I'd consider it unsatisfactory if he doesn't win the league given the position we were in.

We can still win it tho and he's got a summer window to develop his own team. Hopefully he can do better than Silva and he reconsiders his views on players like Lundstram signing new contracts as a positive.
 
If we win the league I’d forgoe the treble

Whatever the outcome, he needs to go through the squad like a hot knife through butter and get rid of the majority

The fatal mistake of the board was not gutting the squad after 55 whilst their transfer value has peaked

We cannot let the squad become more complacent and accepting of mediocrity than it currently is
 
in short we need to see progress. from where we were when he took over, i need to think we`ve improved and be confident if we don't win the title this year we will give it a right good shot next year.

I was thinking that before the Ross county game when the bottler mentality appeared to return and our seeming inability to beat them appears to continue.
 
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