Pugnacious Pedro poses a problem
By Hugh Keevins (@shinjukushug)
If you were to be given an A4 sized sheet of paper and asked to fill the blank page with a list of reasons why Pedro Caixinha should be kept on as Rangers' manager, where would you start?
If you were handed the same sheet of paper and told to write down the reasons why Pedro should seek alternative employment, how long would it be before you asked for more paper?
You could always start on a sarcastic note and say it is the Celtic supporters who make the most persuasive case for Rangers to start the search for a new manager in the wake of the club's Betfred Cup semi-final defeat from Motherwell.
They would have been even more disappointed than the Rangers fans to see that result at Hampden on the basis that their club had been denied yet another opportunity to beat their oldest rivals in the final on November 26.
League games. Scottish Cup ties. League Cup semi-finals. You name them, Pedro can't win them against Celtic.
And the Rangers manager who can't beat Celtic can't remain in office, and vice verca. It is the un-written law of the jungle.
Any big games on a domestic front for Rangers under Pedro? Consistent failure.
Big games on a European front? Two of them ending in aggregate defeat from the fourth best team in Luxembourg.
The only good money Rangers have made from Europe this season came via the Solidarity payment made by UEFA to the clubs outwith Celtic in the Premiership on the back of Brendan Rodgers' side making it to the group stages of the Champions League.
How much more ammunition do the Rangers board need before they start to review the manager's position?
The greatest fear the Rangers fans have in the world of club bragging rights is that Celtic win a history-making ten league titles in a row.
As things stand at present, the best chance Rangers have of preventing that from happening is that Derek McInnes' Aberdeen team can contrive to win this season's championship before Celtic make it to seven in a row.
On the face of it, there is no chance that Caixinha could fashion a title-winning side.
Not when the Portuguese has been in office for the best part of a year and has still to manage winning three games in succession for the first time.
That is a mind-boggling, almost laughable, state of affairs for a club of Rangers' size.
Pedro will start his next three game cycle when Rangers play Kilmarnock at Ibrox on Wednesday night.
It will be Steve Clarke's first match in charge of the Ayrshire side. He is there because Kilmarnock have been next door to awful and the people in charge of the club feared Killie would be relegated unless they changed tack, starting with the occupant of the manager's office.
If Kilmarnock get a draw, or even better, at Ibrox they will provide the grounds for Caixinha being summarily dismissed, assuming Rangers can afford the cost of sacking him and his backroom staff.
The irony is that Celtic are running out of steam at the same time as Rangers are running out of ideas.
If ever a side looked in need of the Winter break it is the Celtic team who provide more than half of the national side and have had to deal with a heavy schedule of domestic and European matches as well.
Celtic's sixty game long record of going unbeaten in domestic matches is now literally breathtaking and will come under the most intense scrutiny when they face Aberdeen at Pittodrie on Wednesday.
There would have been a time when Rangers would have been in a position where they could have taken advantage of those circumstances.
But this current lot? Not a chance.
Is there a schism between the foreign players and the British contingent at Ibrox?
Has Kenny Miller been ostracised on the basis that he does not trust the Ibrox management?
And is there a chance Miller will still outlive the man who appears to have exiled him following the aftermath of the last defeat from Celtic?
The hierachy at Ibrox have the answer to the last question within their control, and it had better be the right one.
Rangers need money and Caixinha has presided over loss making exercises in Europe and due to ill-advised moves on the transfer front.
It is a disturbing picture for the Rangers fans and if they withdraw their patronage of the club there will only be one course of action able to be taken by the board where the manager is concerned.
It must be a course of action that is on their minds today in any case.