Rangers season is all but over after Philippe Clement lurched from disaster to disaster in a season that will live long in the memory as one that fans will want to forget.
Small periods of improvement have been followed with performances and results that ramped the pressure up on the Rangers manager on a month, by month basis.
Clement has been relieved of his duties and the Rangers hierarchy now has three options in terms of what decision to make next.
Three options to replace Philippe Clement as Rangers manager
Clement’s demise has not been a sudden problem that needed to be solved by Patrick Stewart and the rest of the hierarchy.
When the CEO arrived from Man Utd, Clement’s coat was already on a wobbly peg.
With Clement gone, the club has three realistic options.
Appoint a short-term interim manager
An interim manager until the end of the season is the most likely option, someone to babysit the Rangers squad until the summer.
Steven Gerrard has been mooted as a short term option already after leaving Al Ettifaq.
Stewart has confirmed that a sporting director will be appointed, and it would be a surprise to see a manager brought in before one.
Rangers let Michael Beale have the run of the club and that is a large part of the current problem.
Appoint a new permanent manager
A permanent appointment just seems unlikely.
There is no rush now that the Europa League is the only silverware that Rangers can win and the chances of that are pretty slim.
There is also a shortage of quality options given that clubs in Scandinavia are in pre-season, with mainland Europe approaching the sharp end.
Promote from within Rangers
An internal promotion would probably only be accepted if it was Issame Charai seeing as he has only just arrived at the club and he at least has recent success with Morocco Under-23s on his CV.
Alex Rae would only make matters worse and either Steven Smith or Kevin Thomson should be left to get on with their job in the academy.
Stewart knew he was walking into a big job, that job just got a whole lot bigger.
