The crosses mounted. The corners racked up. And yet, if you try to think of a clear-cut chance Rangers carved out against St Johnstone today, you may struggle. They huffed and puffed, exerting plenty of energy - but little made an impact.

According to early data, Rangers carried an xG of just 1.35 from 29 shots. This means the average shot would be expected to hit the net 4 percent of the time. In their excellent performance against Aberdeen last weekend, they carried three times as much threat in their shooting. The lack of danger created here is stark and alarming but of little surprise to those who have seen this movie before. 

It's important not to get lulled into thinking Rangers were unlucky here. St Johnstone used a rope-a-dope strategy as old as the Ochil Hills that envelop the Perth club. They largely controlled the game despite giving up the ball and looked far more dangerous in the final third than their more exalted opponents. The Saints sat in a tight low block knowing they had the pace and cuteness up top to cause problems on the break, and so it proved.

It's a domestic gameplan that's proved troublesome time and again against this Rangers squad over four seasons and seems likely to end the reign of Giovanni van Bronckhorst in disappointment, little more than a year after it began.

Why? Simply put, the manager has lost the fans. They are fed up with insipid performances and an inconsistent application of a philosophy that seems more than a touch opaque at times. And once supporter faith is lost, the situation becomes near impossible to recover. It's a scene very reminiscent of the dying embers of Alex McLeish's reign, if not quite as bad on the field. 

Seven points is a mountain to climb in any title race, but against Ange Postecoglou's Celtic who flood forward in a way that few Premiership sides can cope with, even the staunchest optimist will be well aware that a second season without the title is in the offing. You would get very long odds indeed on a turnaround now.

The manager has been unlucky in some ways. A terrible Champions League draw put the club's growth to the test and you can only say it wilted under intense scrutiny. The damage to morale by the weekly continental batterings will have been significant. They may play for a great institution but the players are as human as the rest of us, with the same foibles and frailties. Being so embarrassingly battered on such a grand stage and branded the worst team in the competition's history will have been as difficult psychologically as it was physically.

Van Bronckhorst is a very amenable, clearly thoughtful man who is liked by those who deal with him. There should be no doubt he's a good coach, nor should his time in Govan be categorised as a total failure. A Scottish Cup win and especially a Europa League final, where he was an Aaron Ramsey penalty kick from immortality, are not to be easily dismissed as accomplishments. 

He showed excellent man-management skills to bounce back from an alarming defeat at Parkhead last season and lead the team to European nights the likes of which Ibrox hasn't seen for decades. These successes need not be expunged as part of a cold assessment of his reign.

A tactical tinkerman to his core, van Bronckhorst would be ideal for a team looking to employ a boss who can use his football brain to make a team punch above its weight. What he's not is a philosophy manager whose consistency of message encourages a level of automation that leaves domestic defences under constant siege. Ultimately, that's the plan needed to wrest this title back from across the city.

In the modern game, with ultra-organised defences even at the relatively lowly SPFL level, such a philosophy has become important. Recent winners Brendan Rodgers, Steven Gerrard and Ange Postecoglou are all such managers. Of recent titles, only Neil Lennon stands as a non-idealogue and his crown was won by ballot in Neil Doncaster's SPFL boardroom rather than on the pitch. 

Regardless of what's gone wrong in the past, in the here and now it's impossible to escape the feeling Rangers will have to act sooner rather than later. Such is the anger, frustration and disharmony, to not move now would only delay what seems inevitable and risk bringing down structures that have been carefully built over years to provide stability and continuity to the club when a manager leaves.

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