ARCHIE & RAY: Rangers are in deep whatever-you-call-it

THE difference between Rangers chairman John McLelland and Jacques Cousteau is that at least the Frenchman had a diving suit to protect him from the depths to which he sank.

Unfortunately, as Rangers plumb unprecedented depths, the Ibrox club's financial plight means he can barely afford a pair of water- wings.

In the past, Rangers could buy themselves out of trouble with the aplomb of Dick Turpin persuading a coach-load to release their assets.

But now the phrase "Stand and Deliver" seems to be as out of date as "We arra peepul".

They are in deep whatever-you-call-it.

The funds they need to take back their assumed role as number one in Scotland must be based on the hope that out in Siberia somewhere there is another Russian about to strike oil and whose granny came from Govan.

The odds are somewhat slightly against that.

Make no mistake, the awfulness of Tuesday night's European fiasco was not freakish.

It was simply the outcome of weeks in which some remarkably close finishes have masked the brutal fact that they were running on empty.

To be fair I was present in Copenhagen when they pulled themselves up by their bootlaces and found a European ledge on which they have balanced precariously since.

They were running empty on talent, on class, on skill, and on killer instinct.

With none of these what chance do you have at the higher levels of football? So the Greeks' kiss of death came as little surprise to me.

Perhaps some of the players don't realise how bad they really are.

For instance Peter Lovenkrands after the game took an eternity to come off the field as he paraded around clapping at the meagre couple of thousand who had stayed to the bitter end.

To thank them for what? Booing them as they did at the end? If he had any shame, and he should have had for his utterly anonymous performance, he should have used his great pace to run for an exit and hide.

Now I feel sorry for Alex McLeish as there is nowhere for him to turn and normally I don't shirk from criticising managers.

But he has been bequeathed a situation from the Advocaat/Murray era that is about as helpful to him as the curse of Tutankhamen.

For if you have any talent at Ibrox you apparently get injured easily.

Six significant players sitting in the stand watching important games isn't the easiest way out.

There is a theory fast gaining ground which states that McLeish's worries have been compounded by the fact that they won a treble they didn't deserve last season which gave rise to false expectations.

And it would have been better had he not achieved that. That's nonsense.

Not winning it would simply have made the position even worse now.

He has made mistakes in some of his acquisitions. Ostenstaad is an embarrassment.

Capucho and Emerson sound like a faded variety act and indeed are as close to that as you can get.

But Berg and Kishanizvilli have been excellent.

If he had had funds available to him like his predecessors, the first three players would never have darkened the Ibrox doorstep.

McLeish is being asked to do what no other manager has done and that is to juggle thin resources with a bank reserve equivalent to the biscuit tin.

It can't be done in that post.

The baying for his blood would be unfair.

For worse than not being allowed to buy a player, he can't now even buy time.

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