The rest of Scottish football will never tire from laughing at Rangers. If that seems harsh, it is the natural reaction from a phase led by Sir David Murray in which the Ibrox club made it their business to lord success and extravagant spending over all before them. Rangers’ largesse came at the cost of unpopularity; not that they cared one jot. Big business, too big for Scotland, heading for another stratosphere. Which indeed they were; just not in anything like the form Murray promised.

On Wednesday morning, a supreme court ruling cast yet another cloud over that now discredited Murray regime. The conclusion that Rangers errantly used employee benefit trusts to pay their players is another blow to the institution’s reputation. If Rangers want to argue they are the same club as pre-liquidation – and vehemently, they do – at least a degree of contrition would be useful. And, of course, rightful anger towards what Murray oversaw. This had deep consequences for Scottish football as a whole, not just his own club, as others chased an unattainable dream. The game has arguably never fully recovered.

Rangers seriously undermined the competitive element of Scotland’s national sport with their actions albeit, by suffering insolvency, ploughing through the lower tiers and being reduced to a laughing stock, they have probably suffered enough. The current quest for trophy-stripping and the like reeks of tribal distaste rather than some overriding quest for sporting fairness. But if clubs themselves genuinely feel differently they should come out and say so in prompting proper debate regarding sporting sanction. To supporters, removal of euphoria more than a decade later isn’t really feasible; in fact, it is pointless.

This proved quite the 24 hours in the world of Rangers. Humiliation in Luxembourg on Tuesday may well rank as the worst result suffered by a British club in European competition. Progrès Niederkorn, who finished fourth in their domestic league last season, overturned a 1-0 defeat in Glasgow by winning the second leg 2-0. Before the night was out, the Rangers manager, Pedro Caixinha, was photographed standing in a bush while gesticulating to angry supporters.

Amazingly, this was not even the biggest ignominy of Rangers’ week. Caixinha, the Portuguese who is prone to speaking in soundbites, used pre-match media duties to suggest his players should treat the Europa League first qualifying round tie in Luxembourg like a cup final. Alarm bells should have rung from that moment on. By full time on Tuesday, it was difficult to see Caixinha sufficiently recovering his own reputation; this was as low a footballing point as Rangers could hit.

Amongst other blunders was the sale of Barrie McKay, one of Scotland’s brightest prospects, to Nottingham Forest for around £500,000 after a contract impasse and the banishing of the winger to train with the reserves. A prime asset had been lost incredibly cheaply. Caixinha’s recruitment, with a heavy emphasis on the Portuguese market, doesn’t scream that vast improvement will be forthcoming. Nor, indeed, does the manager’s hard-line approach to pre-season or any player he deems unworthy of inclusion. Revolts have started for less.

That Caixinha is in position at all is reflective of Rangers as still a club in need of serious repair. A close connection between Pedro Mendes, the manager’s agent who previously played for Rangers, and certain board members looks to have proved highly significant. Why else, one wonders, would Caixinha have appeared on the Ibrox radar?

Quite what impact being bounced out of Europe has on this scene will be a matter of great intrigue; one has to presume it will be significant. Dave King, the absentee chairman, is yet to bestow anything like the wealth he promised upon his popular takeover. King even strangely claimed that directors’ loans were responsible for summer signings; at a time when vast amounts of season ticket income had been banked. Despite an earlier retail impasse with Mike Ashley – that has now been resolved – for Rangers to be living from handouts remains as ominous as it is bizarre.

Rangers manager Pedro Caixinha is already under pressure after Tuesday’s disastrous defeat in Luxembourg. Photograph: Steve Welsh/Getty Images

Given supporter base alone, this is one business which should be easily self-sufficient. And contrary to popular claims, Rangers do not need anything like tens of millions of pounds to narrow the gap between themselves and Celtic. They just need to box clever; which is why appointing a manager with in-depth knowledge of Scotland would have been more sensible. Failure to deliver a director of football before Caixinha landed also proved back-to-front thinking.

Typically, nothing sharpens focus like bad results. The coach, whose CV reads like a travel itinerary of Europe, South America and the Middle East, revealed at the weekend how he had banned players from wearing green boots. As has become all-too typical at Rangers – from the public relations department and boardroom just as much as the dugout – playing to the gallery heavily outweighs actual progress. In a parallel with the case of Ronny Deila at Celtic, the wish for an “outsider” to succeed flies in the face of glaring evidence which highlights another outcome.

Before being unveiled, Caixinha watched Rangers battle to a draw with Celtic in what was an exhibit of a smart tactical approach by the caretaker manager Graeme Murty. With Caixinha in charge, Rangers slipped to two lame defeats, the second of them 5-1 at Ibrox. There was a notable win at Aberdeen and the legitimate understanding that Caixinha wanted to overhaul the playing staff this summer but, in general, this coach has so far failed to convince.

Aberdeen coasted towards second place in the top flight in a manner it was hard to see occurring had Mark Warburton remained in office. The demonisation of Warburton and his Rangers work has been one of many curious facades; it is hard to make a case for anything like Tuesday’s debacle happening on the current Nottingham Forest manager’s watch. Warburton’s January transfer plans, including those for the now-Celtic winger Jonny Hayes, were thwarted in what proved an indicator of things to come.

Rangers should have had easily enough talent to dispose of their opening round European opposition, of that there should be no dispute. Nonetheless, the abject and consistent failings of Scottish clubs in Europe over many years means the authorities would be performing a dereliction of duty should they not seriously consider a switch in the football calendar. Managers, including Celtic’s Brendan Rodgers, have spoken of how enhanced preparation via competitive games would be of benefit for summer qualifying ties. When something keeps going wrong, it is utter folly not to look at radical ways of switching the narrative.

Rangers have been thrown back towards theirs, of the wholly negative variety. It only took a clash of circumstances to illustrate how this club cannot wholly remove itself from trauma of the past.