Rangers moral victories don't exist as Philippe Clement babbling shows he's succumbed to the nonsense - Hugh Keevins

Hugh doesn't really believe Clement's claim but tells Gers boss he doesn't need to immerse himself in Old Firm madness

I have never subscribed to the notion that you have to believe everything a manager says for public consumption.

Having a mind of your own is essential to tell the difference between black and white when that judgment has to be made. Take Rangers manager Philippe Clement as an example. Whatever words of scorn and condemnation he wishes to use over the postponement of Wednesday night’s game against Dundee, I will accept them without reservation. Every last syllable.

But that unquestioning approach doesn’t extend to Philippe’s flights of fantasy following the Old Firm game last weekend. What have we done to him in the space of six months? Clement came here as a man of sophistication with multiple title wins in Belgium and a spell at Monaco in France adding to his continental lustre. Now he’s babbling on about people having different coloured glasses. Or telling us he has it on good authority that Sky Sports' referee in residence Dermot Gallagher is more of a Celtic supporter than he is a neutral observer.

Young Kenneth Miller on the opposite page believes in the abstract. He’s constructed a case for the introduction of moral victories into our game. There’s no such thing. You win, lose or draw. There’s no other category based on morality.

Have we not got enough trouble already with folk in the VAR room guessing whether or not a goal’s been scored without going down that road? Incidentally, I won’t take umbrage over anything relative to the Old Firm game. I’m too old to jump to conclusions as a form of exercise.

I will simply sit in my rocking chair and ask young Kenneth a question. Would Walter Smith, a man we both greatly admired, ever have uttered the words “moral victory”?

At the end of a game that left Gers with one point from a possible nine in derby games for the season? A contest watched by a stadium full of Rangers supporters with no rivals to back the away team? I don’t think so.

The walkabout at full-time? Not a problem. Celtic do it after they’ve drawn matches as well.

But the job Clement has done in galvanising a team, their fans and a club in general is acknowledged without dispute. That’s exactly the reason why he doesn’t need to immerse himself in any of the nonsense that’s associated with the Old Firm.

Is it only a matter of time before the next caller on the line is Phil from Govan who wants to make a point on radio about the team across the road on the other side of the city? Phil has managed to turn a bad start to the season under the previous management into, potentially, a sensational finale.

And that’s what we need from him off the park as well. We have more whataboutery than we know what to do with, or is good for us, in this country. Suspicious motives are seen at every turn by Old Firm supporters without having managers join in the fans’ hunt for mendacity.

A caller last Wednesday accused me of orchestrating a media campaign to get Rangers the three league points from the game just cancelled at Dens Park. This was immediately after I had told the previous caller it was impossible to deduct points from Dundee and donate them to Rangers because that destroyed the integrity of the championship competition.

I love my callers dearly for the gaiety they bring to an otherwise serious world – but Clement doesn’t need to join the ranks of those
consumed by the never-ending madness associated with the Old Firm rivalry. We need him, and others, to be voices of reason and to bring the class they have demonstrated by their work with players on the park.

His undivided attention to our game has a shelf life. Episodes like the Dens Park fiasco will erode his affection for us and our strange ways. There’s only so long he’ll be fascinated by being in Dingwall on a Sunday afternoon as well.

For as long as he’s here, Clement could do all of us a favour and be sustained by the attraction of competitive levels which he
automatically helped increase. And not bother with the distraction of whether Dermot Gallagher has a photograph of the Lisbon Lions hanging in his house somewhere.

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