Friday night’s five-goal thrashing of Dunfermline might have made Rangers feel slightly better about themselves on the back of a wretched week.
But a place in the last eight of the Premier Sports Cup doesn’t come close to addressing the fundamental issues Steven Gerrard will still be grappling as his fourth season in charge at Ibrox gets up and running.
In the end, it all comes down to a question of trust.
First and foremost, the Rangers manager has to take a look around his own dressing room and establish, as a matter of some urgency, which players he believes can be relied upon now that the pressure is beginning to build.
Crashing out of the Champions League qualifiers against Malmo – with a league loss at Tannadice sandwiched in between those two ties – has left Gerrard in a vulnerable position.
What he requires at this point of crisis is to surround himself with solid citizens. What he’s had over the last few weeks has been flaky, weak displays from players in whom he thought he could depend given their contribution to last season’s title success.
But let’s get back to them later because, right now, Gerrard may also be wondering if there are others inside the building, those positioned higher up the stairs, who are not necessarily all pulling in the same direction.
Does Gerrard believe he has the full backing of the boardroom now £40million worth of UEFA’s loot has failed to drop into the club’s bank account?
Or, worse still, does he suspect the men in charge were already rubbing their hands at the thought of cashing in on some of his key men and selling them from beneath his feet even before a ball was kicked in those back to back defeats against the Swedes?
Of course, these are just the kind of questions which haven’t been allowed to be asked inside the closed shop inner sanctum of Auchenhowie, so the rest of us are left to speculate out loud.
It would also be interesting to know the current state of Gerrard’s relationship with sporting director Ross Wilson, who may feel as if he’s been jammed between a rock and a hard place.
If Wilson is coming under pressure from his superiors to raise funds before the transfer window closes for business, then Gerrard’s reluctance to sanction sales is likely to have caused some friction behind the scenes.
And if Gerrard has reason to believe Wilson was busy soliciting offers for the likes of Alfredo Morelos and Ryan Kent behind his back even before the club’s Champions League fate was sealed, it might explain why the boss has looked like a man with the weight of the world on his shoulders since the season began.
Trust? Gerrard may feel as if he’s dealing with second-hand car salesmen no matter where he turns. He’ll have to check to make sure his watch is still on his wrist after every handshake.
And all of this comes at a time when the men who are supposed to be calling the shots are disappearing down a labyrinth of rabbit holes, attempting to settle all manner of scores the vast majority of which exist only inside their own minds.
On the face of it, none of these petty squabbles are any of Gerrard’s concern even if the former Liverpool and England captain must be scratching his head at the myopic, mean-spirited and small-time mentality of a club which has developed an unhealthy sense of paranoia.
But if he suspects his team is being undermined from within as a consequence of the decisions which are being made higher up the ladder, then he’d have every right to feel aggrieved.
From the outside looking in it does look as if a variety of heads may have been turned inside Gerrard’s dressing room which is why it is incumbent upon the manager to identify those players in whom he can place his complete faith.
Trust? Gerrard has every right to feel badly let down by a few of his key men with the likes of Kent, Morelos, Connor Goldson, James Tavernier and Borna Barisic top of the list.
That Morelos was jogging around a car park at Glasgow Airport on the day his team-mates were going under in Sweden without him remains an unfathomable miscalculation.
For an hour or so on Tuesday Morelos was unplayable again but in a very different way. The Colombian’s outstanding display in the second leg underlined how badly he had been missed a week earlier, when Cedric Itten was left to lead Gerrard’s attack.
That Morelos then posted a picture of himself online, celebrating his opening goal against Malmo, did little to dispel the notion that he’s anything but a team player.
Gerrard has to work out if he can truly trust his star striker to dig deep for the cause or if he’d be better off hanging his hat on someone like Kemar Roofe, who shows repeated signs of being the most natural scorer at the club.
Kent poses another significant conundrum for the boss.
The winger is by far and away the most talented – and valuable – player in his squad but Kent’s early-season struggles must be causing a major concern.
If Kent believes his time in Glasgow is up – or if he has been told he can treble his wages by moving on this summer – then Gerrard must either decide how to get his head back in the game or accept that a parting of the ways is now inevitable, even though the Englishman may prove impossible to replace.
Goldson’s situation also has to be resolved as a matter of urgency.
If Gerrard is waiting for Wilson to sign off on a new contract for his defensive rock, then it’s little wonder if tempers are fraying.
In the meantime, Goldon’s performance levels have dropped off a cliff so, again, the onus falls on the manager to figure out a best solution.
And then there’s the question of what’s to be done with full-backs Tavernier and Barisic, who played such pivotal roles in last season’s championship success but who have stayed in the blocks since the new campaign began.
On Friday night Gerrard dropped both of them and in their absence Nathan Patterson and Calvin Bassey excelled.
Does Gerrard place his trust in the youngsters again on Thursday when Armenians Alashkert arrive at Ibrox for the Europa League play-offs?
Trust? A small word perhaps.
But its connotations are massive where Gerrard’s season is concerned.
