Why is it that the most important conversations are almost entirely those you would prefer not to have?
These defining moments can be awkward, uncomfortable and, more often than not, they evoke a sense of resignation that, inevitably, everything ends with a variety of undesired outcomes. Some marginally less palatable than others.
For Giovanni van Bronckhorst, the discussions going on behind the scenes at Auchenhowie this Christmas may also make all the hours of hard graft he’s put in on the training ground over these last few weeks seem like the easy part of his new job.
That’s not to underestimate the extent of the work that’s gone into fixing the deficiencies which Van Bronckhorst inherited when he agreed to take on the team that Steven Gerrard left behind in a cloud of dust.
On the contrary, the impact the Dutchman and his coaching staff have made in such a short space of time has been bordering on pretty remarkable.
The numbers he’s stacked up from his first eight games in charge tell their own story. Seven wins and one draw, 15 goals scored with only two conceded. Six clean sheets, six successive top flight victories. And a partridge in a pear tree.
Almost all of it compares favourably to what was going on under Gerrard earlier in the season as the previous boss and his players gave off the impression of a group who felt their work here was already done from the moment they shattered ten years of Celtic ’s dominance.
Before Van Bronckhorst, the best run they had managed between them was three league wins on the bounce.
In the eight games leading up to his appointment they cobbled together four wins, three draws and a humiliating defeat in the Premier Sports Cup semi final - keeping only one clean sheet in the process while conceding a whopping 12 goals.
And all of that demonstrates that the new manager’s tactical tweakery - asking wingers to play on the wing and defenders to defend - has harvested overwhelmingly positive results.
But, perhaps even more significantly, Van Bronckhorst appears to have done a job on the mindset of these players. Where Gerrard talked repeatedly about a need to ‘press reset’ without ever quite managing to work out where to find it, the new man appears to have his finger on the button
As a result, Rangers look like a side with a regained sense of purpose as well as a sharpened focus. The complacency which crept in under a manager whose heart was no longer in it, has been escorted off the premises.
Van Bronckhorst can be rightly satisfied with all of the above. But, even so, this is where the hard work really begins because - with Celtic gathering some serious momentum and parading the first silverware of the season - Van Bronckhorst is about to be confronted by a transfer window he could probably do without.
And so now is the time for some difficult discussions and there’s little point avoiding the various elephants piling into the room. Southampton have already been sniffing around Joe Aribo and they are unlikely to be the only interested party from England’s Premier League.
In fact, it’s difficult to imagine that Gerrard himself will not make a move for the 25-year-old if he suspects Rangers may be open to offers.
Van Bronckhorst gave himself a glimpse of what life might be like without Aribo on Saturday afternoon when he left the Londoner on his bench against Dundee United’s youngsters. It wasn’t a particularly pretty picture.
In fact, it may have felt like a visit from the ghost of Christmas present, given the levels Aribo has been hitting so regularly over these last 12 months or so.
To put it bluntly, Aribo has become such a glaringly obvious game changer that Van Bronckhorst may already be resigned to planning for life without him.
But that doesn’t mean the man in charge has to roll over the moment the bids start dropping on his door mat which is why it would be so fascinating to be a fly on the wall the next time the boss sits down for a one-to-one with sporting director Ross Wilson.
Wilson’s role necessitates the wearing of two hats. On the one hand, he is there to facilitate the needs and wishes of the first team manager. On the other, he has a personal responsibility to kick-start a player trading model on behalf of a board which has been stumping up hand over fist just to keep the lights on. His job security may very well depend upon it.
It would be only natural then if Wilson was to see an upside from soliciting offers for the likes of Aribo or Ryan Kent next month, even if it makes Van Bronckhorst’s task immeasurably more complicated.
Which is why some straight talking is very much required before the window opens up for business in ten days’ time.
In an ideal world, Van Bronckhorst would demand that his squad is left intact at least until the summer - especially given Ange Postecoglou’s plans to tool himself up for the run-in with a raft of reinforcements over the next couple of weeks.
But even if the Rangers boss has resigned himself to having to sanction some January sales, he has absolutely no control over which bids come in for which of his players.
He may have calculated he could do without a Borna Barisic or a James Tavernier, given that Calvin Bassey and Nathan Patterson are already pushing hard for those full-back positions.
He might even feel able to reshuffle his pack to cover the loss of a Glen Kamara even though the Finn has become such a cornerstone of his midfield.
And, at a push, there may be just enough in his attacking armoury to accommodate the loss of Alfredo Morelos should some other manager want the Colombian for Christmas.
That’s all very well in theory. But the reality facing Rangers this winter is that Aribo and Kent are the two players most likely to fetch the really big money fees. And right now, with a title on the line and a £40m ticket into the Champions League at stake, it’s hard to envisage how Van Bronckhorst can afford to do without either of them.
