Rangers Can Get Better, Philippe Clement Urges The Team Not To Become Sloppy.

 

Although he wants to ensure that his players don’t become overconfident or careless, Phillipe Clement is thrilled with the progress his Rangers team is making following their most recent victory.

The Belgian manager has not experienced a loss in his time leading the Gers, and he witnessed them win a crucial Europa League match against Sparta Prague just days after qualifying for the Viaplay Cup final.

Early goals from Danilo and Todd Cantwell had them in the driving seat, and they could have scored more, but then had to dig deep to stay in front after conceding late on.

The players showed another side to their game and won praise for their work on and off the ball throughout the 90 minutes. Clement has been open about the things he needed to see improve, including physical fitness, and is pleased to see that the work being done is reaping rewards.

“I have seen a lot of things that I wanted to see with the ball and without the ball. The team is growing week by week, but I want them to play this football for 90 minutes; we’re not there yet. You see, in the second half, we drop a little bit in our intensity and tempo with the ball.

“The ideal scenario would’ve been to score a third goal earlier and kill the belief of the opponent. But in the end we have to be very happy because it’s a very important win.”

When Derek McInnes and Ally McCoist pointed out how good things were off the ball, he added:

“It’s a very important part of football. We don’t have the ball all the time, we want to be the dominant team and we want to have the ball as much as possible. But in the team I want to play, everybody needs to work hard. Also the strikers.

“Every game you need to look at the details to your knowledge. How to press, who to press, who are the weak links. And on the ball to find the spaces. And it’s a lot of work of a lot of people – my analysts and staff.

“We talked about that and the basics. And about getting the synergy back with the fans because it was gone. It’s all about hard work. The most important thing is to do things together and that’s about work on the training ground, work with the videos to show what we have to do. I’m really happy about all the team stepping into that story. We’re in a good way, it’s now about getting stronger physically and not becoming sloppy because we feel too good.”