Rangers suffered their latest flop at Fir Park to fall 14 points adrift of Celtic – but Philippe Clement insisted he is not worried about getting the Ibrox bullet.
The Belgian boss watched his team follow up their Boxing Day bashing from St Mirren by slipping up against Motherwell. Hamza Igamane’s second-half double rescued a 2-2 draw but the result has only heaped fresh pressure on the Gers gaffer heading into Thursday’s Old Firm showdown with Brendan Rodgers’ rampant champions. The travelling fans in Lanarkshire reacted with a chorus of boos at full-time to leave Clement – yet to win any of his six previous derby efforts – in no doubt about the depth of their fury.
It remains to be seen what new chairman Fraser Thornton and recently-appointed CEO Patrick Stewart think about the grim situation. But asked if he felt he still had the backing of the board, Clement said: “No, I’m not concerned about that because I’m only busy with the team. And we knew before the season what project and what challenging project it would be.
“On that side, it’s difficult to speak about that because you will not understand and people outside maybe will not understand. But there has been an evolution made. The last two games not, for sure not. And we have hurt ourselves in that way.
“But there were good games the last couple of weeks where the team showed the potential. In that way, there are already teams interested in some players for the future, which we didn’t have the last two years. So, we’re taking steps.
“But you cannot speak about that after losing points against St Mirren and against Motherwell, I know. We hurt ourselves, it’s avoidable individual mistakes in those moments and two times that the opponent kills it off directly. So, we need to work hard now in a few days to be much more resilient and much more determined in these defensive actions.
Asked if the board had given him their backing, Clement shot back: “Yes, they made a really clear statement about that already in the beginning of the season and now also with the people involved. Do you think with another manager we would not have made mistakes today defensively? Was it a problem that the structure of the team was not good? So, those are things that a board needs to decide.”
Clement told his team he expected to see a better start against Well having squandered the opening 45 minutes in Paisley earlier this week. But they were slow out the traps again and found themselves two down to goals from Apostolos Stamatelopoulos and Tawanda Maswanhise.
It took Igamane’s interval introduction to get Rangers going but even then they rode their luck as Motherwell had two goals chopped off by VAR in the wake of clumsy mistakes from Jack Butland: “We made our own downfall two games in a row by conceding goals that you cannot concede. Clearly we were not aggressive enough in the duels and that’s a weird thing. We make it so difficult for ourselves two games in a row with giving away silly, unnecessary goals.”
Clement made another seven changes to his team having been criticised for benching Danilo and Nico Raskin against Saints. Both started in Lanarkshire but this time Igamane and Cerny were among the subs after complaining of tiredness.
Hitting back at his critics, Clement said: “It’s really simple, guys. Ianis Hagi was sick. Leon Balogun is injured. Jefte played almost the same amount of games that he played last season until now. Vaclav played already double the amount of minutes that he played last season. He was saying also that he was dead tired yesterday.
“And the same with Hamza, who played almost the same amount of minutes as last season already in a short period. Yes I saw the difference when Vaclav and Hamza came on.
“But I would be really a fool if I would have started with them and after 60 minutes they both would have been injured for one or two months. So, yes, I listen to my staff. I listen to the players themselves also in that way. And I’ve been pushing several players in these situations the last couple of weeks.
“But there is a limit on pushing them before you come to the injury thing. John Souttar, you can say we’ve been pushing him until one moment and then he gets an injury also. There’s not one team in the world playing with their attacking players every time 90 minutes, every three days, for four months in a row.
“Would I have loved to have started today with Vaclav and Hamza? Of course, yes. But I need to be smart in that way also not to lose them for the next couple of months.”