Philippe Clement admits he can’t argue with new Rangers chairman Fraser Thornton’s “horrendous” assessment of his team’s away record.
In a Record Sport exclusive on Friday, we told how the recently-appointed Gers boardroom boss this week told supporters that the Ibrox club have been failing for DECADES. He also took a swipe at their performances away from Govan under Clement this term, where Gers have spilled 20 points from a possible 30 already.
Thornton offered his blunt views as he appeared alongside new CEO Patrick Stewart in one of the club’s plush hospitality lounges at Ibrox ahead of Wednesday’s win over Aberdeen. The qualified chartered accountant pulled no punches as he discussed past failures and the current struggles on the pitch, particularly on the road in the Scottish Premiership. But Clement made no attempt to shy away from the failures that have led to his team’s bout of travel sickness.
He said: “You need to take into account that my English is not my native language. So horrendous compared to other words, maybe I don’t make the right conclusions about that. And I said it also for weeks and months, I’m totally not happy with our away results.
“Clearly, I’m not happy about that. Nobody in the club is. Not players, not staff, not board members, no fans. Home form, everybody’s very pleased about that because it’s a very good record. In that way, we need to get better away results. We’re all aware of that. Of course, we talked about a lot of things. Of course, also about reasons why. It could be that the away results were not in the same way as the home results. And how to change that.”
Thornton was joined by Stewart as they spoke to fans in midweek. It comes just days after the pair appeared at a media conference, where former Manchester United chief Stewart revealed the club were backing beleaguered boss Clement despite his team sitting 13 points behind rivals Celtic.
This time it was the chairman who led proceedings as he set out the reasons for the vote of confidence in Clement. He said: “Of course we all know that results have been simply nowhere near good enough. It’s undeniable and well understood.
“I have to say home has been okay but away is horrendous. Honestly, the easy the thing to do would be just to say ‘let’s change the manager and move on’. But you know if you really sit back and reflect on it a little bit and you say it’s actually season upon season upon season that the results haven’t been good enough. It’s 10 years. It’s not even one or two years. It’s ten. It’s a decade of underperformance that we’ve got.
“We haven’t managed to have a team that’s been capable of winning week, in week out and challenging domestically. It’s a decade.
“So it’s not just a managerial thing – there are many other issues at play. And with that in mind and under Patrick’s expert guidance we said ‘Look, we need to take a long hard look at our footballing actives but actually all of our activities, but first of all our football activities, hence the operational review that we announced. So that’s the rationale and the context behind this.”
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