Philippe Clement has Rangers questions to answer as John Bennett needs balls of steel to escape calamity unscathed – Keith jackson

Philippe Clement has Rangers questions to answer as John Bennett needs balls of steel to escape calamity unscathed – Keith jackson

An utter calamity of a close season might have begun with a missing cargo of steel. But pretty soon Rangers chairman John Bennett is going to have to front up for the rabbit hole that his club is in danger of disappearing down.

 

And he’s going to require balls of titanium if he’s to come through it unscathed. It’s impossible not to feel some sympathy for Bennett who has been left horribly exposed by the amateurism of Michael Beale and James Bisgrove – a manager and a chief executive who weren’t worthy of the roles and responsibilities they were given.

Even so, the buck stops with Bennett for appointing them in the first place, and now he’s the man who has to fix the mess they have left behind. It’s also completely understandable if he’s not comfortable being thrust into the spotlight having spent his entire business career operating in the background while overseeing investment portfolios worth billions of pounds.

But even though the numbers might have been huge, nothing he experienced in the financial game will have prepared him for the high profile nature of the role he took on in April of last year.

There’s a heavy emotional toll to be factored in too. Bennett is a lifelong Rangers supporter, so the thought of being held personally responsible for all manner of catastrophes at the club he loves is bound to sting him in a manner which is hard to imagine.

 

When he did reluctantly break cover a couple of weeks ago to confirm that Rangers would have to be rehoused at Hampden Park for an unspecified period of time, Bennett was also attempting to reconnect with a fan base which is currently teetering on the brink of a full-scale revolt.

But given that the one thing they needed to hear was the one thing he couldn’t tell them, Bennett was always going to be on a hiding to nothing. The word he used was ‘certainty’. Bennett went as far as to say that Rangers ‘crave’ it. And yet without having the first idea of when his stadium might actually be reopened, Bennett had no way of providing what he knew was required.