Ally McCoist has not enjoyed the smoothest of starts and Rangers faces difficult games against Dundee United and Celtic
Rangers' flawless record away from home in the SPL so far this season acts as a counter-point to the theory that Saturday's trip to Dundee United will be fraught with danger. Nonetheless, an eight-day spell that also includes the first Old Firm derby of the season has a significant look about it.
Ally McCoist experienced enough as a Rangers player to suggest he will not be overly troubled by the pressure. Nonetheless, the manager's words in the aftermath of a recent, comfortable win at Motherwell highlighted at least one thing; McCoist knew his ability to succeed in the role he inherited from Walter Smith had been questioned.
It remains wildly early to judge McCoist as a manager. The embarrassment of European exit for Rangers has been offset by a decent start to the league campaign, which belies a sense of unease around the club that is impossible to ignore.
That feeling, of course, stems from off-field issues. Rangers' biggest challenge in the coming months will not be for McCoist and his players, it will come in battling a case with Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs which, if it goes against the club, is likely to cost them tens of millions of pounds.
Put simply, it seems impossible that Rangers could handle such a bill. Their best hope is the confidence shown by separate Ibrox owners that this is one tie they can win.
In the meantime, Rangers are contesting a second tax bill of �2.8m plus a �1.4m penalty; a matter that has triggered headlines on the front pages of newspapers once again in recent days.
The regime of Craig Whyte argue the penalty fee should not be applicable as it was Rangers' owner who uncovered the liability, which preceded his purchase.
This issue aside, subsequent reports say Rangers are being vigorously pursued for a �35,000 lawyers bill. If the chase for compensation from Martin Bain, Rangers' former chief executive, is perfectly routine and almost certain to be resolved outside of a courtroom, it is another example of a fraught picture. Whyte is yet to convince many onlookers that he has the ability to make his first foray into football a success. An indicator of the general picture at Rangers is the intense level of speculation about the business's financial state. Amid a stream of negative tales, Whyte's silence is deafening.
Rangers' summer transfer dealings were more pertinent for who remained at Ibrox than who arrived. Without being disrespectful to the rest of McCoist's squad, his four key players are Allan McGregor, Steven Naismith, Steven Davis and Nikica Jelavic. The retention of that quartet was surely essential in Rangers' attempt to retain their championship.
The argument against Rangers being in monetary crisis is that a �6.5m bid from Leicester City for Jelavic was knocked back, with subsequent information emerging that an even more lucrative offer from another English club was thrown out. Add the fact that Aston Villa were rebuffed when asking about the availability of Davis and it hardly looks as though a meaningful injection of cash was required.
To be fair to Whyte, when Rangers were in the tight grip of the Lloyds Banking Group, it would seem impossible that such overtures would be rejected. New contracts handed to McGregor and Davis were a positive step, whether to protect their asset value or otherwise.
Yet the level of incoming personnel at Ibrox was less notable. McCoist was foiled in attempts to sign David Goodwillie, Wesley Verhoek and Roland Juhasz, with those he did sign probably not in the top bracket of the manager's thoughts when he succeeded Smith.
It is sensible for Rangers to be run on a reasonable fiscal basis and Whyte is not to blame for much of the expectation levels at the time of his takeover. Nonetheless, the Rangers support have cause to feel hard done by over the general level of player brought into their squad.
An absence of European revenue, of course, is a decent explanation for that. Whyte had, though, offered to "front-end" a transfer investment of �25m over five years.
As story, rumour and counter-rumour rumble on, there is a group of Celtic supporters almost on their knees in prayer, hoping desperately that Rangers will be dealt a fatal financial blow. As opposition obsessions go, nowhere beats Glasgow.
Other Scottish football supporters are unlikely to feel much sympathy for Rangers either, given the superiority complex which surrounded the Ibrox club for so much of the past two decades. Rangers clearly had aspirations well above and beyond Scottish football at the height of their David Murray era, a matter they were never shy to broadcast.
Still, both halves of the Old Firm have bemoaned a lack of competition against them in Scotland when suffering poor European results from the 1990s onwards.
With that ? and the current economic climate in Scottish football ? in mind, plenty learned onlookers will point to Celtic hardly benefitting if their toughest competitor is crippled. A weak half of the Old Firm helps the other in the short term, but that's about it.
Rangers' own fans need not panic just yet, but they should remain vigilant over Whyte's running of their club. Victories over Dundee United and Celtic would not be sufficient to change the public relations landscape, but they would show McCoist is doing his bit.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2011/sep/09/rangers-difficult-spl-spell
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