Ally McCoist’s Rangers career hasn’t always been plain sailing. Despite his status as the club’s all-time top scorer, and, of course, the various winners medals he plundered as a player with the Ibrox club, there have been dark days along the way.
He was, it will be recalled, a frequent target of the notoriously impatient Rangers support as he struggled to make an impact after joining the club from Sunderland. And, later on, then manager Graeme Souness frequently relegated the striker to the substitutes’ bench, preferring a front pairing of Maurice Johnston and Mark Hateley for the most part.
Nevertheless, given his achievements in the game, McCoist’s natural ebullience has clearly masked a steely resolve, and it would be a mistake to assume that this gregarious character lacks the credentials to carve a managerial career in the higher echelons of the Scottish game.
It had been suggested that McCoist, a natural performer in front of the cameras, would be content with a lucrative job working in the media when he hung up his boots. But, for all that very scenario appeared likely for a while, that assumption would be to underestimate the more serious and competitive side of McCoist’s character.
When he was appointed Rangers manager last summer, following the departure of Walter Smith, a more cerebral school of thought was that McCoist might find it difficult to impose the necessary authority on a squad which had long since come to regard him as ‘one of the lads.’
However, despite the early setbacks of feeble exits from European competition last summer, things soon settled down, and Rangers quickly established a healthy lead at the summit of the SPL table as Old Firm rivals Celtic struggled to discover form and consistency.
However, that was then, and this is now. How things have changed, and in only a matter of weeks at that. The tables have turned dramatically, and McCoist’s demeanour of late has undeniably been that of a man feeling the strain. The serious, ashen-faced individual patrolling the Rangers technical area is virtually unrecognisable compared with the charismatic fellow we used to know.
Events of the past few days make you seriously question whether a remedy can be found before too much longer, particularly as Celtic, having now won fifteen consecutive domestic fixtures, have assumed the look of a side hungry to monopolise the silverware this season.
The main source of concern for Rangers, of course, remains the perilous state of the club’s finances. Within the next few weeks, they will discover the outcome of an HMRC case against the club in relation to their use of Employment Benefits Trusts, a case that could see Rangers being hit with a tax bill of £49 million.
Such a scenario would almost certainly lead to the club being plunged into administration, and, of course, the consequent relinquishing of their SPL champions crown to Celtic given the automatic points deduction that would almost certainly follow suit.
Rangers owner and chairman Craig Whyte has done (or said) little to allay fears thus far, typified with a newspaper interview at the weekend in which Whyte conceded that the club faces a torrid immediate future. “We’re certainly in the toughest time in the club’s history. I’d definitely say that much,” he said. No ambiguity on that score, then.
Fans would already have been bristling following the sale of top scorer Nikica Jelavić to Everton during the recent transfer window, their frustration being more than a little compounded by the fact the club failed to bring in a replacement.
Against that rather fraught backdrop, Rangers had a tricky Scottish Cup tie against Dundee United to negotiate at the weekend, and a third-full (or perhaps, given the circumstances, that should be two-thirds empty) Ibrox watched the home side meekly capitulate as United ran out comfortable 2-0 winners. It goes without saying that McCoist wore the expression of a haunted man at the final whistle.
The day before, Celtic fans had added a new ditty to their repertoire during their own side’s comfortable Scottish Cup win, at Inverness. “We’re having a party when Rangers die” went the tune, lustily sung throughout the match by a lengthy conga of fans decked in green and white.
But here’s the rub. The fact is – however unpalatable it might be for fans on both sides of the divide - the Old Firm need each other. Celtic boss Neil Lennon had denied this during an interview towards the end of last week, but for many his words failed to ring true.
Contrary to Lennon’s views, Celtic and Rangers feed off each other to their mutual advantage, and their dominance of the Scottish game is such that, should one half of the great rivalry disappear without trace – and let’s not underestimate that that’s exactly what Rangers are facing right now – then the other would become diminished by their absence rather than strengthened.
Meanwhile, Ally McCoist’s fledgling managerial career is already sinking within the murky realms of the dreaded ‘c’ word. Indeed, the man himself professed that the club he obviously loves is in a moment of “crisis”, and whether McCoist himself will stay the course long enough to help overcome this wretched period in the Ibrox club’s history remains to be seen.