Rangers fans split over walk-out protest as Philippe Clement urges unity

That in itself may have been costly and not helped Clement’s cause.

It’s clear, some of those who remain and have steered the club over the past few years are past their sell-by date in some fans’ opinion.

Alongside Stewart, Rangers have a new chairman in Fraser Thornton. Both men will have a major role in reviewing and revamping how the club operates.

However, they will need time and, in Glasgow, that is a limited commodity, especially when results are so inconsistent.

“I’ve been six, seven months sometimes feeling alone in the desert and addressing things to make better in the club,” Clement explained in reference to a lack of chief executive.

“That will help me, that will help the football department, but it will help everything inside the club. So I’m happy that we can have really open and sometimes critical discussions about it.

“We want consistency, I want consistency, and fans want consistency to get better results. We have the consistency in the home games, we have consistency in our European season, but we didn’t have consistency away at home. So those are things to work on.”

There seems much to work on. Domestically, the title challenge has disintegrated. In the Europa League, Rangers are well placed, but that’s not going to satisfy some.

Stewart indicated Rangers will recruit just one or two in this transfer window. With limited resource, it’ll be challenging to make that have significant impact.

A change in fortune for Clement seems to rely on him draining every ounce from the squad he has at hand, with little margin for error.

Otherwise, the vocal critics are likely to grow in calling for change – and that may lead to exactly what Clement doesn’t want, an even more fractured fan base.