GIOVANNI VAN BRONCKHORST spoke about taking the defeat to Liverpool 'on the chin' as he came to terms with a barrage of blows that left Rangers punch drunk on Wednesday night.
In reality, only the knockout one remains to be landed. It is no longer a matter of if, only one of when and time will tell who delivers the shattering shot that will see Van Bronckhorst counted out at Ibrox.
There has been a cloud hanging over Rangers and their manager since those successive humiliating defeats to Celtic and Ajax. That put Van Bronckhorst on the canvas once again and coming out swinging with wins over Dundee United, Hearts and St Mirren is not enough to convince the crowd that Rangers are serious title challengers.
While there is a faint light at the end of the Premiership tunnel, Van Bronckhorst will remain in situ. European calamities will be taken into account, but it will be domestic failings that will ultimately act as the catalyst for change.
Once the supporters turn and have made up their minds, the situation cannot be salvaged. Those that have full faith in Van Bronckhorst are now in the minority and it is almost impossible to see a clear path that takes the Dutchman from his current predicament to a place of safety and success.
Rangers got away with one in the first fixture against Liverpool. They didn't get lucky second time out, though, and the margin of the 7-1 defeat encapsulated the gulf between the teams - not just technically and tactically but mentally too - as Jurgen Klopp's side swept to an emphatic victory.
It was billed as the Battle of Britain. Yet it was a fight that Rangers never looked like winning at Anfield and one that they simply gave up in at Ibrox.
That was the toughest blow of all for supporters to take. There is a manner in which Rangers are expected to win, but there is also a way to lose and Van Bronckhorst's record now contains too many black marks.
Wednesday was a mismatch in every measurable way, a bout that could have been stopped to prevent Rangers suffering further emotional and psychological damage as Liverpool piled on the misery on an utterly wretched night.
In isolation, Liverpool could have been put down to a one-off, a freak result. But the evidence stacked up against Van Bronckhorst some time ago and this latest capitulation, the worst of the lot, has seen him go from on the brink to over the edge.
He is clinging on by his fingernails, for now. You get a feeling when it comes to how scenarios will play out and all senses point to Van Bronckhorst's reign - one of incredible highs and crushing lows - coming to an end unless something remarkable happens out of the blue.
Rangers teams should not concede six goals in one half of football to anyone. And Rangers managers cannot survive when that happens and he has also presided over a collapse in the title race, two humbling defeats to Celtic and that abject night in Amsterdam.
The allegation put towards Van Bronckhorst in midweek was that his players had thrown in the towel and it is not the first time that goals have been shipped in such quick succession. It points to a dearth of organisation and leadership as well as discipline and feeds into the lack of faith and trust that supporters have in Van Bronckhorst and his players right now.
The Champions League will always expose any failings to a greater degree but such cracks cannot be papered over for the duration of a campaign and there is a frailty about Rangers that Motherwell will look to take advantage of on Sunday afternoon. In the handful of fixtures between now and the break, every opposition boss surely has to fancy his chances against Van Bronckhorst's side.
The differences in budgets and squads can be used as a mitigating factor over the course of a European campaign but they do not offer ready-made excuses when Rangers find themselves outfought and outplayed in such an appalling manner at home and abroad.
This is a club that should not accept second best. But it is a team that have been in that position in four Group A fixtures now and Van Bronckhorst's side could yet end the section with the ultimate ignominy of being the worst performing outfit in Champions League history.
The Ibrox boss addressed the need to change the mentality of the squad but that should have been done with proper recruitment over the summer and this is a group that has too much scar tissue to deal with now. Their time has come and gone.
A changing of the guard now seems inevitable but it would not act as a panacea to the myriad of ills that plague Rangers. Van Bronckhorst's position is an issue, yet it is arguably not the biggest one as supporters examine the reign of chairman Douglas Park and the record of sporting director Ross Wilson.
Rangers have been swatted aside by the European heavyweights but Van Bronckhorst is not the only one in a forlorn fight. Others in the blue corner can only duck and dive for so long before they too will hear the bell for the final time at Ibrox.
