Rangers have made too many recruitment errors since winning the Scottish Premiership title.
Too many starters have been replaced by players who are barely good enough for a matchday squad, if they are available for selection.
The issue, despite Philippe Clement’s claim, isn’t money, as perfectly highlighted in Rangers drab draw with Dundee.
Philippe Clement deflects as £8m Rangers duo flop again
There were issues all over the park, however, two individuals in particular struggled with the pace and intensity of play.
Both are international footballers with plenty of experience, and both cost a lot of money – in terms of Rangers budget at least.
Nedim Bajrami arrived from Serie A for £3.5m with Mohamed Diomande signing for £4.3m, not exactly loose change for a team counting the pennies.
Bajrami had the chance to put Rangers in front before Dundee scored and failed to even hit the target from 10 yards.
For the money paid, he should have scored and, at the very least, made Trevor Carson work for his money.
Diomande, on the other hand, was anonymous for most of the game until he hit the cross bar as full-time neared.
What doesn’t help Clement’s cause is constantly pleading poverty and making comparisons to Celtic:
”It’s something that’s necessary in seasons like now with that amount of games,” said Clement in reference to his squad depth.
”We had talks about that and I don’t read everything but people tell me sometimes things.
”There was a lot of fuss about that, about rotation. I explained it’s a normal thing and it’s not only a normal thing here.
”Look at the weekend, our rivals in the city, how many people they changed towards the weekend before.
”They spent £30m on players who are not all the time in the starting XI, or by far not, so yeah it’s an important part.
”We don’t have the same chequebook in that way so we need to work in that way to make this depth better with getting talents in or to get players out of our academy to make them better.”
The £18m bench that still wasn’t enough for Rangers to beat Dundee
If Clement doesn’t have the ‘same chequebook’ why was he able to bring on Danilo (£6), Oscar Cortes (£4.5m) and Rabbi Matondo (£3m) off the bench against a team with an even longer injury list and still not win?
Not only this, but he left Cyriel Dessers (£4.5m) on the bench.
Clement can’t use one excuse when competing against teams like Celtic and Lyon, but then not accept that he has more than enough to beat the rest of the teams in the Scottish Premiership.
The excuses are as thin as the thread by which his job hangs.
