Graeme Souness insists Philippe Clement would give football’s greatest brains a run for their money in transforming the fortunes at Rangers.
The former Ibrox boss believes the Belgian is the right man to be leading his old club and is convinced talk of a gulf between rivals Celtic only exists in the striking department. After a remarkable Europa League 4-1 victory over Nice France moved the Light Blues into an automatic last 16 place in the league phase of Uefa’s second tier competition, Souness backed under pressure Clement with a resounding endorsement.
He said: “Rangers have a manager who is more than capable of achieving for the club but I don’t care if you had Pep Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp working at Ibrox right now and brought Sir Alex Ferguson out of retirement to help them, I don’t see results being any different. “This guy they have in charge more than knows what he’s doing. He just needs help in terms of bringing in better players
.“From the outside looking in I have no in depth knowledge of the current situation so I won’t be critical of the structures in place. What I would say is that I don’t care who the manager that is in there right now, I’m not sure he’d be getting any better results with the squad they have.
“I believe Rangers need an injection of money to help the manager to do his job which he’s more than capable of doing if he had the resources. Right now he’s managing a group of players who are behind Celtic and I’ll be criticised for saying this but I don’t see any great gulf between the two teams. I was at an Old Firm cup final last season and a league game between them last season and didn’t see one team out-footballing the other team,
“What I do see is Celtic having players who do the most important thing and that is being able to consistently put the ball into the net more than Rangers do.
“Celtic have better strikers and the stats bare that out. I don’t see one team dominating another team or any enormous gulf but they have better goalscorer and that can never be underestimated.”
The Hoops have stretched their lead over Rangers at the Premiership summit to 11 points but Souness is adamant the doom and gloom of that predicament may have a light at the horizon after the display of striker Hamza Igamane on Thursday night.
He said: “I get frustrated watching games of football when it’s teams I have a strong affection for but the display against Nice was much more like the standard Rangers have set during European games in recent seasons.
“Igamane was excellent and put his hand up as a good option for one of the striking roles and it was great to see. You can’t underestimate the achievement of winning in the manner Rangers did in Nice and that should be a shot in the arm for everyone at the club.
“Recruitment is the most important thing at any football club. Rangers won the league three years ago and reached a European final two years ago. Whatever money those achievements generated they will feel disappointed with some of the players they have brought in with that money. Clement has said it will take time for players to find their feet and maybe Igamane is proving to be an example of that.”
The arrival of Patrick Stewart this week as the new Rangers chief executive is another overdue vacancy filled and Souness believes the Aberdonian will soon discover the Old Firm are the poor relations of what he’s been used to during his time working at Manchester United down south.
He said: “The way the game has evolved in the last 20 years has been very unkind towards Scottish football. Rangers brought in around five or six million pounds for the domestic television deal. I live down in Bournemouth and they have a team who get 11,000 people inside their stadium but over £100 million each year from television.
“That shows what the Old Firm are up against and I firmly believe that if there was a British league and an even playing field then both Rangers and Celtic would be challenging at the top four of that competition.”