Caixinha’s stirring slogans look as empty as his diary

● Defeat by fourth team in Luxembourg leaves Rangers coach under intense pressure as supporters’ doubts multiply

It was just two weeks ago that Rangers supporters were prompted into a state of euphoria by chairman Dave King’s announcement of a positive settlement in the club’s retail dispute with Sports Direct.

It gave them the green (sorry, Pedro) light to rush out and buy the replica shirts they had boycotted for the past two years. Little could they have imagined the shame and embarrassment which would be perpetrated on their behalf by players wearing those blue jerseys in Luxembourg on Tuesday night. The recriminations from what is surely the worst European result ever suffered by a Scottish club must inevitably resound deafeningly around King, his fellow directors and the previously unheralded Portuguese coach in whom they have entrusted so much faith and investment.

As he returned to his office at the club’s training ground yesterday, Pedro Caixinha found himself confronted by a diary suddenly rendered blank over the next four weeks until the Scottish Premiership kicks off on 5 August.

Those assumptions of competing in at least the first three qualifying rounds of the Europa League have been shattered by the pitiful 2-0 defeat against Progres Niederkorn.outwiththenowdefunct Intertoto Cup, it stands as the earliest ever elimination from European competition by a Scottish club, eclipsing St Johnstone’s loss to Armenian side Alashkert at the same stage of the Europa League in 2015 by five days.

Caixinha had made it clear group stage football was his ambition, perhaps even his expectation, as Rangers made their return to the continental stage for the first time in six years. Instead, the only notable mark they have made in Europe this season was setting a new attendance record for any match in the first qualifying round of the Europa League.

That near capacity crowd at Ibrox for last week’s first leg against Progres, when even the slender lead provided by Kenny Miller’s goal should have provided a sufficient platform to complete the job, indicated the level of enthusiasm and anticipation which had been engendered among the Rangers fans for Caixinha’s first full season in charge.

That sense of optimism has been severely punctured by the performance and result in Luxembourg, even prompting one bookmaker to offer odds as miserly as 11-2 that Caixinha will not be in charge for the Premiership opener against Motherwell at Fir Park. That scenario can almost certainly be discounted. As painful as the early European exit is, King, pictured, and his colleagues will afford more time to a project which saw them hand three-year contracts to Caixinha and his backroom colleagues Helder Baptista, Pedro Malta and Jose Belman when they recruited them from Qatari club Algharafa in March.

Yet there can be no doubt Caixinha is now under the most intense pressure imaginable to hit the ground running when the domestic campaign gets underway.

There can be no honeymoon period for the raft of new signings he has made this summer as he reshapes the personnel he inherited from Mark Warburton.

Ripping up the squad may be regarded as a necessity but wholesale changes on that scale seldom provide instant results.

Those who played against Progres Niederkorn certainly struggled to make a positive first impression on the Rangers fans who are seldom reluctant to make snap judgments on new faces. A more rational assessment must wait until more games have been played and following the introduction of experienced internationals such as Bruno Alves and Graham Dorrans.

That said, time simply isn’t