Glasgow Rangers fell further away from the top two teams in the Scottish Premiership last time out as they succumbed to a 1-0 defeat to Kilmarnock.
Marley Watkins scored a late winner for the home side to seal a second defeat of the season already for the Light Blues, who are already six points behind their rivals.
Aberdeen and Celtic have won seven and drawn one of their opening eight games each and the title race already appears to be slipping away from the Gers.
The Ibrox giants, who only finished three points adrift of the Hoops in the title race last term, need a major uplift in form and have to hope that their two biggest rivals in the league, at the moment, start to drop more points to close the gap.
With the January transfer window still over two months away from opening for business, the board may be considering their short-term options to change things on the pitch.
It has been just over a year since the club opted to appoint Philippe Clement as the successor to Michael Beale, who had failed to win a single trophy during his time in Glasgow as the head coach, and they are now weighing up another change.
The latest on Philippe Clement's future
According to Football Insider, Rangers are preparing to sack Clement if results do not improve over the coming weeks, as the start to the season has been less than ideal.
The report claims that results have fallen below the expectations of the Gers board and that the Belgian head coach’s position is no longer secure, despite recently putting pen to paper on a contract extension at Ibrox.
It states that a decision on his future is not imminent, as in before the clash with FCSB on Thursday, but that they are preparing to pull the trigger on him if the poor results continue.
Rangers have already, as aforementioned, lost two games in the Premiership and drifted six points off their rivals, whilst they also failed to reach the League Phase of the Champions League, losing to Dynamo Kyiv over two legs in their play-off clash.
Football Insider reports that the pressure is growing on Clement to turn things around, or risk losing his job, and this means that the ex-Monaco boss needs to try new things to get his team firing again.
The Rangers head coach may wish that he had a player like Alfredo Morelos to fire his team up the table, as the last Gers boss to win a title – Steven Gerrard – had.
Alfredo Morelos' Rangers goal record
The Colombian marksman, who left the club on a free transfer in the summer of 2023, enjoyed an incredibly prolific spell with Rangers under several managers.
Morelos racked up 124 goals and 57 assists in 269 appearances in all competitions for Rangers, playing under the likes of Gerrard, Giovanni van Bronckhorst, and Beale.
The impressive centre-forward hit double figures for goals in the Premiership in all six of his seasons at Ibrox, which shows that he was a consistent and lethal striker for the club for many years.
In the 2020/21 title-winning campaign, Morelos produced an eye-catching 17 goals and 13 assists in 44 appearances in all competitions for the Gers – including 12 goals and five assists in the Premiership.
These statistics show that the Colombian sensation was a quality scorer and creator of goals from a centre-forward position for Gerrard that term.
His return of 12 goals, with only ten ‘big chances’ missed, in the Premiership also shows that he was an efficient finisher to help them to win the title.
Appearances
35
8
Goals
16
3
Big chances created
27
6
Conversion rate
16%
19%
Assists
4
1
As you can see in the table above, Clement has not had a reliable finisher or a creative player in the number nine position since he arrived just over a year ago.
Cyriel Dessers has missed a staggering 33 ‘big chances’ and only scored 19 goals in the Premiership since the start of last season, assisting just five goals in that time.
Clement could now save his job and get Rangers firing again by brutally dropping the Nigerian dud and unleashing a Morelos-like talent in Hamza Igamane.
Why Hamza Igamane could save Clement's job
The summer signing is in his first season away from his home country, Morocco, and has needed time to adapt and adjust to life in Scotland, which may be why he has not featured much so far.
Igamane has only started one of his six appearances in all competitions for the Scottish giants and this maens that he has not had a chance to find his feet and gain confidence with a run of matches under his belt.
Former Dundee United goalkeeper Trevor Carson recently claimed on the Open Goal Podcast that there is “a wee bit of Morelos about him” in the way that he controls the ball with his chest and uses his powerful frame to push into the final third.
Ex-Rangers striker Kenny Miller also wrote for the Daily Record that the signing of Igamane reminded him of the move to sign Morelos from an obscure league, in Finland.
At the age of 21, the Moroccan youngster still has plenty of development left to go through and playing games will only help him to gain experience and improve as a player.
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In the 2023/24 campaign, he started 16 matches in the Botola Pro for FAR Rabat and contributed with seven goals and six assists, which shows that he can provide quality as both a scorer and a creator of goals.
The young whiz, who scored six goals in 18 matches in the Botola Pro as a teenager in the previous season, has created one ‘big chance’ in one Premiership start so far this term, but is yet to score his first goal for Rangers.
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It is now down to Clement to make the bold decision to drop the wasteful Dessers from the starting line-up to unleash Igamane on a regular basis, as the Morelos-like star appears to have the potential to develop into a lethal forward who can score and assist goals – improving the team’s attack and, ultimately, helping to save the manager’s job.
