Philippe Clement might not have to worry about Rangers’ recent history in Paisley.
But the Ibrox gaffer reckons he’s got plenty to be concerned about as his side gear up for a Boxing Day brawl with Stephen Robinson’s street-smart St Mirren. On the whole, Gers have largely managed to steer clear of trouble on their short journeys along the M8 to face the Buddies in recent times.
Since first making the trip to the Smisa Stadium back in 2009, they’ve lost just twice from 19 encounters at Saints’ new home. Clement won twice there last year himself after replacing Michael Beale but neither were comfortable occasions as they edged both thanks to a couple of winners from Cyriel Dessers. And the Belgian knows his side will have to be up for another festive fight this week. “Yes we know that,” he said. “It’s a team with lots of physicality and a manager who always prepares his team really well to go into the fight and to work hard for the club.
“We know it’s going to be a tough battle there and we’ll need to compete in that battle, to win that battle. And then you can show your football quality. If you don’t win your duels against St Mirren, you’ll get into trouble.”
Thankfully for Clement, his side have rediscovered their fighting spirit in recent weeks. With the fit-again Nico Raskin adding a combative streak to the midfield, Gers have scrapped their way back above Aberdeen into second place and given Celtic’s Premiership lead a trim back to nine points. It’s still far too early to say if they can make this a proper slug fest for the title but Clement is just pleased he at last has the warriors needed to give it a go.
Asked if his men were now feeling more comfortable having adjusted to the Premiership’s physical nature, he said: “Of the league? I don’t know if that’s the case. Don’t forget that Nico Raskin was injured for 8-9 months so in the beginning it’s impossible after that period out to be directly at your best. So he’s going up a level. Mohamed Diomande is here less than a year. He had to adapt to things.
“Connor Barron knows the league but is still a young player who can still grow, that’s normal for the three of them. They are in the midfield, it’s important to win the duels, it’s important in Scotland. People always say this about Scotland but the Belgian league is also the same, in the French league it was the same. It’s not as if you don’t have physicality there.
“You need it in every league. In the Premier League if you don’t win the duels, they run over you. I think in every good league it’s a big part of football, an important part of football.
“But of course there are other parts with the ball to do. But if you don’t have the basics by winning these duels, you have problems. It’s not like a Spanish team who can just play balls in between teams and then win games, that’s not possible in this league.”
Clement’s frontline troops are going to be pushed to the limit by a schedule that barely offers scope to breath. Thursday’s St Mirren trip is the first of 12 games before their next free midweek at the start of January. But the Light Blues boss is confident he know has the reinforcements at hand to at least give star men like Vaclav Cerny the odd breather.
He said: “It’s also been a busy period until now. Everybody’s speaking now and that’s maybe because people think it’s the holidays now, but look at the period that we had in October, November, December. We will need to manage it.
“I’m happy that Ross McCausland is getting back, he struggled for a long time with a problem in his foot. He’s not 100 percent but he feels better now. And I hope he can grow now as well to release Cerny in moments. We have other options also with Danilo, Hamza Igamane, Cyriel Dessers getting back. Nedim Bajrami can play in the three positions behind the striker. Ianis Hagi is also back, so there are more options than we had at the beginning of the season – and that will be crucial.
“Ridvan Yilmaz can also do a job as a left winger, so it’s going be crucial to be able to make rotations with all the games coming up. But we need to focus on ourselves and be ready. And in that way it can be an advantage for our group of players that there needs to be a rotation.
‘It means everybody has to be on their toes, ready to show themselves as there is more opportunity to get chances. But then you need to keep the same quality and that’s going to be the challenge for us in the next few weeks.”