Rangers fans are ready to light up the Bat Signal but you either die a hero or live long enough to become the villain

It’s up to Clement to determine whether he’ll be the hero or the villain of the story

A half-empty stadium, a board at loggerheads with the fans and a team ill-equipped for the fight. Sounds familiar, eh? But we’re not talking the grim here and now with Rangers, rather the climatic end to the club’s former ruling regime.

Next March will mark the 10th anniversary since the rag-tag bunch of hangers on hoisted into power by Mike Ashley were finally booted out. That shift in power came just a month after the club had reached the nadir of their bleak 2014/15 campaign with a Scottish Cup defeat to Raith Rovers in front of just 11,422 fans.

Things quite weren’t that bad this weekend as Philippe Clement’s men edged past St Johnstone in their Premier Sports Cup opener. Ibrox chiefs conveniently forgot to announce the attendance at their temporary accommodation by Mount Florida but it can’t have been more than 20,000. The picture it presented, though, was a seen of deep division with a board they once looked to for hope.

It was Dave King, Douglas Park, John Bennett and their gang of Ibrox investors who rallied to the Bat Signal sent up by the increasingly desperate Light Blues faithful seeking a hero to banish those they accused of holding their club to ransom. The demise of a cast of characters who wouldn’t have looked out of place in a dimly shot Christopher Nolan epic was supposed to end an excruciating period of darkness for the long-suffering Gers support. Their expectation was that they’d soon be basking in the shimmering light of silverware. But the arrival of the new board hasn’t proved to be the game-changer the fans assumed it would be.

Far from enjoying a new dawn, the club is caught in a nightmare they show no sign of waking from. Since ripping control of the club away from Ashley, the current custodians have watched Celtic pick up a vast 22 domestic trophies from the 30 they’ve contested, with that period of dominance soundtracked by the Joker-like cackles from their green rivals across the city.

Of course, the new regime had their chances to tip the balance. An undefeated league title triumph in 2021 and a run to the Europa League final and Champions League group stages the following year should have been the trigger point for a new era of success. But with Celtic caught beneath Gers’ boot, the board blinked and let all their handiwork come undone.

Now those directors find themselves back in the position of the men they usurped, faced with thousands of vacant seats and this weekend a banner outside Ibrox declaring ‘enough is enough’. It brings to mind the Harvey Dent line in one of Nolan’s blockbuster flicks: ‘You either die a hero or you live long enough to become the villain.’

The manager has been talking about a “rebuild” since May and yet with just 10 days to go until deadline day he’s still not able to speak with any confidence about bringing in new recruits while high-earning want-away figures like Todd Cantwell and Ianis Hagi continued to clog up the wage bill.

The new four-year contract Clement penned last week should insulate him against the backlash currently whipping up against the boardroom door. But if he and Nils Koppen cannot pull some habits out of the hat before next Friday, that new deal might only serve to keep him around long enough for him to become the next villain.