Rangers played through a strangely subdued atmosphere of underlying discontent to beat Premiership bottom side St Johnstone 3-1 at Ibrox.
New Light Blues chief executive Patrick Stewart had given boss Philippe Clement the board’s backing on Saturday after pressure on the Belgian intensified following the 1-1 draw against Dundee on Thursday night, which further shredded their title hopes.
The Rangers Supporters Association called for Clement’s sacking while the Union Bears, Rangers’ ultras-style fan group, initiated a walkout in the 55th minute which, paradoxically, was loudly booed by many of remaining Gers support, who watched three goals in a nine-minute spell in the first half from Hamza Igamane, Vaclav Cerny and Mohamed Diomande.
Saints defender Jack Sanders reduced the deficit in the 54th minute as the home side’s performance dropped off amid long spells of silence from the stands.
The Govan side moved to 15 points behind leaders Celtic but the title will almost certainly remain at Parkhead.
How Rangers beat St Johnstone
Hamza Igamane and Mohamed Diomande were both on target for Rangers
Clement’s troubles have not been helped by injuries to several key players and again there was a makeshift look to his side.
Midfielder and stand-in captain Nicolas Raskin returned from suspension and Brazilian striker Danilo was also reinstated, with 20-year-old defender Clinton Nsiala starting his first game at Ibrox.
St Johnstone manager Simo Valakari was looking for a first win in nine games and he made five changes.
Andy Fisher, the 26-year-old goalkeeper signed on loan from Swansea City, made his debut with defender Aaron Essel, midfielders Fran Franczak and Max Kucheriavyi, and attacker Mackenzie Kirk, returning.
The hum of conversations came from the Gers faithful amid silence from the usually boisterous Union Bears, who displayed anti-board banners and sang ‘sack the board’, albeit the rest of the stadium did not join in to any great extent.
Moments later, in the 16th minute, Diomande took a pass from Cerny and cut the ball back for Igamane to slam the ball into the Saints net from 12 yards for his 12th goal of the season.
The stadium quickly fell back to almost total silence but came to life again when Cerny raced on to a Danilo through ball and poked the ball past Fisher for his 12th since signing on loan from Wolfsburg.
When Sanders inexplicably headed a Cerny cross into the air, it fell perfectly for Diomande to head past Fisher and at last some songs came tumbling down from the stands, if only momentarily.
Igamane celebrates after giving Rangers a first-half lead against St Johnstone
Cerny should have scored early in the second half but a weak shot was easily held by Fisher before the out-of-sorts visitors pulled a goal back.
Sanders headed in a Kucheriavyi corner just before the Union Bears departed – the time was symbolic of the club’s 55th and last title win in 2021 – to boos from fellow supporters.
Fisher made a fine save from Gers defender Oscar Cortes’ powerful drive but the Perth men carried as much threat in their sporadic attacks, substitute Graham Carey testing Gers ‘keeper Liam Kelly with a drive to his near post.
The final whistle brought some applause. but these are uncertain times at Ibrox.
What the managers said…
Rangers manager Philippe Clement reacts to some fans walking out of Ibrox on the 55th minute in a pre-planned protest directed towards the board
Rangers boss Philippe Clement: “I want everybody to be united. Simple. You can see it as a positive that still a lot of people are behind everything.
“But I want to have everybody united. So, that’s what I wanted last year when I came in, and it was also totally not the case at that moment.
“But it has to do with performance, and that’s normal. We want consistency, I want consistency, and fans want consistency to get better results. We have the consistency in the home games.
“We have now 31 points out of 33, I think. We have consistency in our European season, but we didn’t have consistency away at home. So, those are things to work on with all the squads.”
St Johnstone boss Simo Valakari on taking a break from a “catastrophic” league position to face Motherwell in the Scottish Cup next week: “I want to move very quickly from here. You can call me crazy, but I know this club and this team, and I can feel it’s starting to turn.
“There is no better time than the cup this week.
“For seven days we don’t need to think about the catastrophic position in the league. Now it’s the cup and it doesn’t matter how badly we have played in the league or what has happened.
“It’s the Scottish Cup and we have exactly the same possibility to win as Rangers or anyone else has.”
