Rangers manager Philippe Clement had to check himself after an injury to John Lundstram left his blood boiling in the win over St Johnstone.
Clement has had to contend with a series of injury issues since he came into Rangers, with the club’s poor conditioning of the players at the centre.
But Rangers have not been helped in recent weeks by ruthless challenges ruling out some of their top players with Danilo undergoing knee surgery and now John Lundstram potentially out until after the winter break.
Rangers did manage to win the game however – a 2-0 Ibrox victory coming courtesy of goals from Cyriel Dessers and James Tavernier – and here’s everything Philippe Clement had to say in his post-match press conference:
Philippe Clement post-match press conference v St Johnstone
Philippe, what do you make of your team’s performance and the overall result tonight?
“That a lot of things we did well. We had control of the game, all the game from the start until the end. It’s not easy to play against ten men when they are sitting so deep with no space anymore behind them, making the spaces really small. But we kept also an organisation that we didn’t get transitions against, my defenders stayed focused. We could’ve had more goals, a few good saves also, so yeah you’re waiting on that second goal and it came late now, but we kept on pushing to get that goal and we had enough chances to do that.”
Just on the injury front, what was the problem with Kemar Roofe? Was it a reoccurrence of his previous injury?
“We need to make assessment about that tomorrow. I didn’t see him directly after the game. So I was focused on the game so we will see that tomorrow.”
And John Lundstram, did he have to come off because of the tackle?
“Yeah. It’s another player who’s kicked off the pitch. So I’m really frustrated about that to be honest. And this is for me my main concern after this game also. Again a player kicked off the pitch. So it’s not sure that we can get him back before the winter break, so that’s not a good situation.”
On that, what you’re saying there, what did you make of the tackle? Did you speak to the referee? You’re saying ‘another player kicked off the pitch’, do you feel that over-physicality, bad challenges, have been a problem in the Scottish league since you’ve been here?
“I don’t want to go in emotions directly after the game. I am a little bit boiling now, so it’s better to cool down first and then to make opinions about leagues or whatever. But it was clearly not a good challenge with your studs forward like that. And we had an even worse one later on in the game where the guy luckily hit the ball and not my player but the intensity there was to break a leg. So those things are not good for football I think.”
What kind of damage has been done to John, Philippe, in terms of the injury itself?
“Yeah it’s his ankle, so we’ll see in the next couple of days what’s going to happen.”
Philippe, on a positive side, clean sheet tonight, Cyriel Dessers makes an impact off the bench. What did you make of the actual performance? I know obviously you’re frustrated on the injuries front etc but how did you think about Rangers’ player and obviously Dessers’ impact as well?
“Yeah we were dominant all the time. We could’ve been better in our last touches, in our finishing, in the last action but it’s difficult, the space was really, really, really small. So if you score the second goal earlier, maybe you make three, four, five. We also had the chances and a few good saves from the goalkeeper, just a shot blocked or whatever. That’s part of football. So for me the most important thing is we win 2-0, a well deserved victory, clearly much more chances than the opponent. Clean sheet. We have had a series of a lot of games. We had a team that write two times history in four days, but stays focused. It was easy now to be satisfied and to think it would be an easy game and to become sloppy. So those are really good points. And it’s now to get good recovery tomorrow and to build towards Sunday and to see which players are available because from my three strikers I only keep one striker who is available and, I don’t know, five midfielders out or something for the moment. So that’s a really bad thing. I am pleased about the performance of Kieran Dowell today, who did a good job in midfield. Dujon also, again the second half. Leon King could take some experience, that’s why I gave him also the minutes there. And then we going to fight altogether really hard the next couple of weeks to take as much points as possible.”
Philippe, right now is it just about mentality, getting through this really difficult set of games where there’s a game every three days?
“No, quality also. With only mentality we will not reach our goals. There was also a lot of quality, there was good position play, there were good actions. Maybe we lacked some freshness to really decide the actions and to give the perfect pass or the perfect action. But I rested also a few players so they will be fresh again for Sunday and like this we need to make a good rotation for these four last games.”
You brought James (Tavernier) off with five minutes left, was that to feel the love of the Ibrox crowd?
“It was more to see that I don’t lose any more important players for the next couple of weeks and not to take risks that another one was kicked off.”
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