Chris McLaughlin's words of the weekend: Rangers' woes coming in threes

Kenny Miller cut a frustrated figure as Rangers slumped to a 2-0 home defeat by Hamilton

BBC Scotland's senior football reporter, Chris McLaughlin, analyses a talking point from the weekend's action, asking what's behind the words.

There is a rule about the power of three. It suggests things that come in threes are more satisfying, more effective and more memorable.

The rule provides brevity and rhythm to writing and can be found in most marketing campaigns, fairytales and even in law. Now it's full negative force is being felt at Ibrox and Rangers appear powerless in its grip.

Look closely and you'll see it everywhere.

The last time the club enjoyed a third straight win was in December 2016 - as fate would have it, against Hamilton Academical. Three goals were scored that night in Lanarkshire. Mark Warburton was in charge.

It was a less than convincing 2-1 victory, but a double from Martyn Waghorn, a man who wore the number 33 on his back, was enough to secure the win. The power of double three this time, perhaps, providing the positive.

Barrie McKay, Joe Garner and Martyn Waghorn have impressed since leaving Ibrox

Could it be argued that the Englishman was one of three players to start that night who have since left but should have been kept?

Waghorn has scored eight times for Ipswich Town and is now valued at significantly more than the £400,000 he was sold for.

Joey Garner joined him at the Championship club. He has scored only four times this season, yet his manager, Mick McCarthy, says he remains baffled that Rangers wanted to sell him.

• Rangers 0-2 Hamilton Academical - reports & highlights

Barrie McKay makes up the trio. Mark Warburton once described the midfielder as the best young talent he'd ever worked with.

He's now getting the best out of the 22-year-old at Nottingham Forrest, with McKay also having netted four goals so far this season.

Would Rangers still be starved of any run of three straight wins had these three remained?

The power of three never rests. It blows across the pitch and into the dugout.

Graeme Murty will go back to his coaching role when Rangers find a successor to Pedro Caixinha. The man called upon to mop up when the axe falls has been the third face in the dugout since that win against Hamilton last year.

The managerial stability the club craves simply refuses to settle on the south side of Glasgow for now.

Critics says Warburton and Caixinha were expensive mistakes. Those tasked with making it third time lucky have now spent more than three weeks looking for the right man.

Interim manager Graeme Murty was unable to secure that elusive third win in a row

Never resting, up the famous marble staircase dances the power of three to a boardroom that's witnessed three regimes since Sir David Murray sold up and turned away.

The shareholders known as The Three Bears, and chairman Dave King, continue to provide the club with the soft loans they need to trade as a going concern.

In the latest annual accounts, King announced the price of ridding the club of Mike Ashley's retail deal - £3m. Financially, it's a club trying to break free from a recent past that's hugely impacting on its immediate future.

The team's inability to record three straight wins is down to failings that number much higher than three.

Now the people who have made those calls must learn from them as other big decisions loom. If they don't, another third-place finish is likely.

If that's not bad enough, they could by then be looking across the water to a Celtic side just three away from making it 10 titles in a row.