Philippe Clement said this week, a year after arriving at Rangers as manager, that he hadn’t expected to fall in love with the club so quickly. That feeling was hardly reciprocated though by the thousands of Rangers fans packed into the away end after a dismal defeat at Rugby Park.
One year on from Clement’s appointment, those fans are still waiting for a clear identity to emerge around his Rangers side, and certainly on the evidence of their showing in Ayrshire, they are a long way from the finished article.
Which is rather reflective of the club as a whole at the moment, with the pointed banners that were unfurled just after the break here bemoaning the leadership vacuum that seems to currently exist at Ibrox.
As far as Clement’s leadership of his squad is concerned, there are still more questions than answers, with the Belgian admitting himself after the 1-0 loss to Killie that – worryingly - his men had lost too many duels and hadn’t matched the energy or desire of the hosts, particularly in the first half.
To his credit, he didn’t try to use the off-field issues at the club to deflect away from those shortcomings on the pitch, but owning those failings and remedying them may be two different things.
“I don't want to go into that because I don't want excuses about pitches, wins, whatever,” Clement said.
“We need to focus on ourselves, on the team, on the players, on the new players coming in, to get them at their best level, on the players who were here, to get to their best level also, and to play better than we did today.
“I was not pleased with that game, for sure, the first half. The second half was much better, but then you get this goal against...
“In the end, if you win this game, which was possible in the second half, and you scored the goal, you can have a totally different feeling.
“But we didn't do enough to get that feeling, so we need to learn out of that and be stronger on Thursday and the Sunday after, and the weeks to come.
“It's normal that [the fans] are unhappy. There's not one person in the staff or one person of the players who was happy after this game, after losing.
“So that's normal. The players showed respect towards the fans, the fans showed what they felt about the results, and that's a normal thing.
“So it's about getting back the results on the pitch, that's the main thing to do, and then the fans go behind you.
“I think the angriness has to do with a lot of things. So, I will be focused on the sporting side to get the best out of this squad, what the squad is now.
“To do that in one transfer window was impossible with the finances at this moment.”
Clement was adamant that his squad though does have the potential to improve, though that might not be evident at the moment to anyone outside of the club.
“We're going to work really hard with this squad, and there is a lot of potential in this squad,” he said.
“Much more potential than people see maybe for the moment.
“So a few weeks ago, people spoke also negatively about Jefte, and after you get the praise also.
“So it's about working hard with them and making them better. And for sure, getting to know each other on the field in all different circumstances.”
Clement also acknowledged that his team didn’t adapt to the rather unique circumstances of playing a match at Rugby Park in what was often blustery conditions, but his defence that only Celtic and Rangers had beaten Kilmarnock at their own ground in the last year omitted a 3-0 defeat to St Johnstone from earlier this season.
“It's a different kind of game to play at Kilmarnock today than to play the internationals game the last couple of weeks,” he said.
“You get the game that you expect, and all respect to Kilmarnock in that way.
“That's also why they've only been beaten by Celtic and us in almost the last year. But there's no excuse in that way.
“So we knew what conditions it was to play here. I was not happy with the first half in that way, that we didn't create enough chances, and we gave away too many situations in the duels, that we were not good enough. On the long balls, in the first ball, second ball, it was much better in the second half.
“And that's then the disappointing thing, the moment that you take much more control of the game.
"In general, if you had a ball in the game, I think it was around 70% of the time, the moment you have the second half, the control, you get the chances there, you hit the crossbar, you have several corners, you have blocked shots, then you need to kill it off, and then it's disappointing to get the goal against like that.
“So with one blind ball behind the defence in no man’s land, where our defensive line was not good at that moment, but those are things to work on with new players coming into the building.”
