Philippe Clement is starting to sound like a broken record.
With each and every poor result he presides over, there is an increasing sense that this is a manager who has lost his grip on reality.
We saw glimpses of this last season. After a 3-3 draw against Celtic at Ibrox in April, Clement made the bizarre claim that his team had been the ‘moral victors’.
That was, of course, utter nonsense. Everyone knew it.
That game was a huge missed opportunity for Rangers against a Celtic side who were there for the taking in the title race.
Clement looks crestfallen during his team’s defeat to Aberdeen at Pittodrie
Some of Clement’s comments have brought former Rangers boss Caixinha, above, to mind
Clement has words with referee Craig Beaton and his officials at full time
Then, following a crushing 3-0 defeat to Celtic earlier this season, he was filmed arguing with furious punters outside Ibrox.
Clement continues to plead for time and patience, insisting this is a young team and a new group of players.
But his comments after the 2-1 defeat at Aberdeen on Wednesday night felt like a new low – and, frankly, fans are fed up listening to it.
The Rangers manager claimed it had been one of his team’s best performances of the season and rattled on about how a goal had been disallowed due to someone’s toenail being offside.
Seriously, is this guy for real?
His comments were mortifying and demonstrative of a manager who fundamentally fails to understand the job he’s in.
Pedro Caixinha was hounded out the door for this kind of thing, standing knee-deep in shrubbery arguing with supporters and talking gobbledygook about dogs and caravans.
He was an embarrassment.
Granted, Clement is a manager of greater substance than Caixinha and has won league titles in Belgium, but his comments are no less ridiculous.
After losing at Aberdeen and spouting all kinds of excuses in his post-match press conference, this was the night when he entered the realms of total delusion.
This is not a young team, as he claims. Sure, it has one or two younger players in the likes of Ross McCausland, Connor Barron and Nana Kasanwirjo.
But it also has plenty of seasoned campaigners as well.
James Tavernier, Jack Butland, Robin Propper, Leon Balogun and Tom Lawrence are all the other side of 30.
Clement asks questions of his team during the damaging 2-1 defeat at Aberdeen
The Rangers’ manager’s excuses after games are becoming tiring for angry fans
The Belgian is utterly dejected as his team fall nine points behind Aberdeen and Celtic
Tavernier is the club captain and has played over 450 games for Rangers. Butland is an ex-England international.
Lawrence is an international midfielder with Wales. Balogun is 36 years old and has almost 50 caps for Nigeria.
Nedim Bajrami is 25 and played for Albania in the Euros in the summer. This isn’t a team of young kids, despite Clement’s claims to the contrary.
His excuse about them being a new group won’t wash either. We are now in November and Rangers are showing no tangible signs of progress.
If anything, they are regressing further. Aberdeen have a new manager and some new players, but it hasn’t stopped them from making a stunning start to the season.
What Jimmy Thelin has engineered at Pittodrie absolutely drives a bus through Clement’s arguments and his incessant pleas for patience.
Clement is clutching at straws.
To all intents and purposes, he’s finished as Rangers manager.
The only saving grace may be the fact there is nobody above him at executive level to pull the trigger.
