Committing to the long-term rehabilitation of Rangers.

Four – One. 4-1 at home to the Romanian champions. The brave souls who stuck it out til the final whistle booed and jeered Rangers off the park and had every right to do so. We were garbage on the night – outfought by a group of players whose most expensive individual cost a tenth of the fee for our substitute striker. We go into a potentially top of the table clash with a Hibs side who know that if results go their way then they'll be looking down at the rest of the SPL from pole position and nobody should underestimate the magnitude of this game. The players need our backing, theres no doubt about that, but perhaps the club needs something more important?

Perhaps the club needs our criticism.

It's easy to boo your team off when they've just lost 4-1. It's easy to let the heat of the moment get to you. So what do you do for the next game? Do you forgive and forget? Kiss and make up? Sadly that doesn't help our players find a team-mate with a pass or our manager instill a sense of pride in our team. Last season we needed to win the title. Our nightmare encounter with FC Kaunas was always going to have longer term financial consequences but the prospect of Celtic going four for four was truly terrifying. Rangers were staring at oblivion. Did the title win really change that? For some? Undoubtedly. For David Murray it changed things – it allowed him to relinquish day-to-day influence at Rangers when the club were celebrating silverware. In Walter Smith's case it went some way to ease the burden of failure in Lithuania. For the players it was reward for a season of hard graft on the park, if lacking flair and entertainment. But what about for the long term good of Rangers Football Club?

The problem is that you can fool all of the people some of the time and you can fool some of the people all of the time but eventually you find out that people do pay attention to the man behind the curtain and all the cheap tricks and flashy stagecraft can't hide the lack of substance. The Rangers side that hobbled throughout last season - with a barnstorming performance at Tannadice unmatched by all but the 4-2 old firm victory - didn't get better over the summer. We reduced our wage bill and brought in a fee for Charlie Adam, but a former French international whose star was on the wane was never going to be the injection of new blood that the squad was crying out for. Walter Smith justified the negative approach to his early games by the fact that the squad he had was devoid of flair. Several transfer windows later and if he can still claim a lack of flair then it's entirely his own doing. What we have now is a squad of players with unrealised potential or dwindling ability. Our champions league winning midfielder is often posted missing, our young international midfielder has lost his box to box dynamism and the talented prospects hand picked from our SPL rivals have not only stagnated but in some cases regressed.

It's tempting to blame the players for a lack of commitment but then you do have to question who brought them to the club? And who works with them every day in training? And under whose custodianship were they recruited? What kind of long term progression the club can have when the assistant manager appears fearful of taking responsibility for the top job?

The truth is that right now there are more questions than answers at Ibrox. Murray stood down but we're no closer to a new owner than we were when he was forced to underwrite a share issue that the Gers support refused to commit to. Murray backed Smith's judgement to an extent his predecessors could only dream of and yet we're left with an unbalanced squad full of ageing pros filling in unfamiliar roles. Our youngsters are left looking on as our 39 year old captain struggles through a meaningless cup game against lower league opposition. And through it all, our long-suffering supporters are asked to pay top money at a time of financial uncertainty. When does enough become enough? When we realise that the current guise of Rangers FC is unsustainable?

It's easy to boo a 4-1 loss. It's much harder to keep on booing day after day, week after week until something finally gives. The Rangers support have rarely been ones for collective action but perhaps it's finally time to make a stand? You don't solve the problems our club suffers from overnight and by that same token a good result against Hibernian won't suddenly make our issues disappear. Criticism hurts, never more so than from within close ranks, but surely the time has come for the Gers support to look at the bigger picture before all thats left is a tawdry painting by numbers imitation of a once fine masterpiece?

The Unirea game was the symptom of a much greater malaise and not the cause. Similarly 3 points against Hibs can only be considered the placebo and not the abiding cure for our ailments. The alternative to meaningful, durable therapy is to allow our club to be ruled by its condition. For the Rangers support, it must surely be time to commit to difficult, long term rehabilitation before we're left permanently fractured.