ASK Ally McCoist if Rangers is a club losing its soul and he will tell you, diplomatically, that it would be wrong of him to say that.

What he says and what he thinks, however, are two separate things.

McCoist only has to look at the dwindling crowds on a match day to realise the "cancer" his former team-mate John Brown has spoken of is having a dire effect.

Some of the supporters to have turned their backs on the club will never return. John Greig, officially the Greatest Ever Ranger, left the boardroom in the wake of the shameless Craig Whyte's ill-fated takeover and now spends his Saturdays doing something more rewarding.

Walter Smith vacated the role of chairman last year, calling the boardroom "highly-dysfunctional", and has only been back a handful of times.

McCoist, working a 12-month notice period on an eye-watering £750,000-a-year salary, will be out the door soon, and admits the events of recent weeks have taken their toll on a club that is becoming unrecognisable from the one he came to know during a 15-year career there as a player.

The arrival of Derek Llambias, now installed as chief executive, coincided with a fresh redundancy programme. One of those to leave was the manager's secretary, Laura Tarbet, who started at Rangers just before the club won the European Cup-Winners' Cup in Barcelona in 1972.

Her departure leaves another gaping hole in the fabric of the club for McCoist and it is clear the absence of so many well-kent faces has become a source of deep regret for him.

"We definitely are now missing people that have meant so much to Rangers over the years," he said. "It's extremely sad to see people go, very good people, great people. I couldn't name them all, but Laura, for example, has been here with the Rangers for 42 years.

"She was on the flight to Barcelona. The first manager she worked for was Willie Waddell, so that woman, in my opinion, deserves to have her name on the board going up the stairs at Ibrox.

"She should be in the Hall of Fame. It is natural when you lose people like that it affects you and saddens you.

"There's no use shirking the issue. We don't have John Greig any more, we don't have Sandy Jardine, we don't have Laura Tarbet. It's sad we're losing people that are synonymous with and have an identity with the club."

Financially Rangers remain a basket case, unable to pay up McCoist's notice period without going bust. On the field, they trail behind Hearts in the SPFL Championship following some abject displays from an overpaid and overprotected squad.

Cost-cutting looks sure to go on under Llambias, installed on the board as part of a deal that saw the Sports Direct owner Mike Ashley provide loans to keep the club afloat, but McCoist has pleaded with the current powerbase to safeguard the future of Murray Park in Milngavie.

It is what has been going on behind the gates of Murray Park, though, that has attracted scorn from a section of the support. Rangers are a predictable and unimaginative team.

Striker Kenny Miller insists criticism of McCoist's training methods is "uneducated", but hardly offers a convincing defence when asked if the work behind the scenes is of the necessary quality.

"From the time I came back seven years ago under Walter Smith, things haven't really changed," reported the striker. "Training is very similar."

Miller admits winning the title, unlikely as that seems, would be a lovely parting gift for McCoist should he survive until next year.

"What the club has been through in the last three years, everybody deserves it," he said.

But in the midst of all this tumult doesn't he wish he had stayed at Vancouver Whitecaps last summer? "No," he said. "This was the only place I wanted to be.

"You just hope that we'll get back to where we belong."