By Chick Young BBC Scotland football correspondent

He is clinging on to the edge of the cliff by his fingertips - but even the man who will eventually have to ease his grip and send him tumbling into the abyss is hoping against hope that somehow Alex McLeish can lever himself to safety with a super-human effort.

They are praying for a miracle in the Ibrox boardroom. But not too many connected with the club are holding their breath waiting for it to happen

McLeish remains under pressure at Ibrox

In the end there is only one man who will decide when McLeish's time is up. Not the directors, not the chief executive and not the fans with a lynch-mob mentality.

And whatever else he may be, David Murray is nobody's fool.

As it happens I do not accept that he has not sacked a manager since he took over at Rangers.

Walter Smith, officially, might have resigned - but he was well aware of the thunderous applause from the boardroom when he announced that he felt that was the right thing to do.

Sack. Resignation. Mutual consent. It is all semantics. If your tea is out then you might as well sup it.

Alex McLeish has my sympathy. He is a thoroughly decent man whose track record of seven trophies in four years, surely deserves a little more payback time.

Can Rangers be assured, for example, that any successor can guarantee that kind of haul?

And Big Eck might yet find his last task in his office it to update his cv with the proud boast that he is the first manager to take a Scottish club through the group and into the next stage of the Champions' League.

That indeed would be a curious thing.

Furthermore he would be entitled to curse his luck. Novo, Nieto, Hemdani, Hutton and the rest - his injury list has at times made Murray Park look like the set of M*A*S*H.

And then there is the goalkeeping scenario. The manager bows to the people's choice and Stefan Klos turns Santa Claus at Celtic Park.

Kyrgiakos was sent off against Celtic in the CIS Cup

Then there is the strange case of Sotirios Kyrgiakos. Does he have a telly?

Have there been higher profile red cards for sarcastic applause than those dealt to David Beckham and Wayne Rooney?

The ordering off of the Greek against Celtic forced another McLeish finger off the cliff edge.

But then again, in the final analysis the manager has to take responsibility for the players he has signed, the manner of the team's play and, most crucially of all, the results.

And not only are Rangers not chalking up the wins they crave, their football has hardly been sweet.

Can anyone who has seen Rangers play over the last couple of months really tell me they are playing the beautiful game beautifully?

They have pressured teams and pulverised them with balls shelled into the area but they have missed countless chances.

Can anyone who has seen Rangers play over the last couple of months really tell me they are playing the beautiful game beautifully?

If they lose to Celtic at the weekend there will open up a gap of 15 points between the teams with the debris of fireworks night not yet fully cleaned up.

And right enough, most of the damp squibs are to be found in the Govan area of Glasgow.

And then begins Murray's real dilemma. Four days later there is in Portugal a Champions' League tie which might yet be worth millions to the club.

Do you release the guillotine then - and if so, who takes the team?

The answer might be this.

Tell Alex he is guaranteed to be in employment until the early hours of 7 December by which time the Champions League and Uefa Cup fate of everyone in the group will be decided, to say nothing of any distant hopes Rangers have of once again being called champions of Scotland next spring.

And in the meantime invite McLeish to get down on his knees with the rest of them and start praying for that miracle.