Philippe Clement insists Lyon lessons just make Rangers stronger and hungrier – and reckons his team will be better for the extra rest due to the unusual kick-off time against St Johnstone.
The Ibrox boss is adamant his team’s display against the French proves the squad is on the right path and the correct approach was in place. Failure to take chances was costly and Clement says individuals need to rise above their levels to beat the big-budget, big guns. But he believes the gap can be bridged as he told Sky Sports: These experiences will make them only stronger. The good ones and also the ones like yesterday. because it creates hunger, it creates desire to become better and also to see and to feel in what aspects we need to improve.
“We had the same amount of chances and you need to kill off the job, that’s the big difference in Europe. It’s taking those moments. We know, of course, if you can spend 10 times more you will have more quality, but we are working hard with all the lads to raise the level and everybody is seeing that the level has risen in the last couple of weeks. They need to continue doing that.”
Rangers had a go and Clement continued: “Okay, you can play with 10 players on your 16 all the time, but you see the second goal they score. They have a lot of quality in the small spaces to make the difference, so you will have the same problems, or other problems, or bigger problems in that way. So, no, we are all convinced this was a good way to approach the game.
“There was not one of the goals that were with less players than they were attacking, but they have the individual qualities to kill off the job and we are working on that. You know against opponents with a much-bigger budget that you need to dig-in, you need a few players who rise above their level and make the difference in the offensive part, the defensive part and probably in both to get the really big results. It’s about raising the standards week-by-week and being ambitious in that way.”
Clement’s next task is St Johnstone in the Premiership and he admits he’s no idea what to expect with Simo Valakari just appointed in Perth. He said: “You cannot predict. They had a manager a few weeks ago when we played them, he was sacked after, so the interim managers did the job in a different way, now a new manager is coming in, so we don’t have any clue how they are going to approach the game.
“The most important thing is we look first at ourselves to play that game and I think the main target is to recover really well after the (Lyon) game to be good again on Sunday.”
The game has an evening kick-off and Clement added: “It’s a big difference, of course, when you play eight in the evening or like we did last time, 12 o’clock. It’s a little bit more recovery time for the players, so I expect to see that on the pitch.”