Philippe Clement’s given Rangers assessment on anniversary
Philippe Clement is unveiled as the new manager of Rangers, on October 17, 2023 <i>(Image: Alan Harvey – SNS Group)</i>
Philippe Clement is unveiled as the new manager of Rangers, on October 17, 2023 (Image: Alan Harvey – SNS Group)
Philippe Clement walked into Rangers as a bit of an unknown quantity for many, myself included.
A year ago tomorrow, the Belgian was appointed Michael Beale’s successor as manager and held his first press conference at Ibrox.
Rangers had lost three games, and Celtic’s lead in the league looked almost insurmountable. In the end, a tilt at the top would prove too much, Clement managed to get Rangers into an unlikely title challenge and then fell short. Up until March, everything looked rosy but in the two subsequent months, the season descended into another nightmare.
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The League Cup had been delivered with victory over Aberdeen and at one point in February following a win at Rugby Park it really seemed like the Premiership title might be on. The football had come full circle and we were playing well, a 5-0 demolition of Hearts just before that trip to Rugby Park had Rangers playing some tremendous stuff. It was the best we had seen in several years.
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Then the wheels came off and, given the status of the squad, a major change was required. The damage done by previous windows meant the manager required more than one period of business to reshape and repair this team to provide a fighting chance of success.
We wanted the squad gutted. The old faces who continually let the team down, the likes of Borna Barisic and John Lundstram, had to be let go. The support were fed up with failure.
(Image: Alan Harvey – SNS Group)
Fans demanded a change – we wanted a philosophy and promising youngsters who could kickstart this much-fabled transfer fourth pillar. All of this, of course, had to be delivered on a tight budget.
We wanted it to arrive in the last two seasons and neither manager before this one was strong enough to make sweeping changes. Clement has delivered a number of those alterations and is now being judged by the consequences. Such is life at Rangers.
But not everything has truly worked out, nor have we been overly convinced by the football on offer of late. In fact, at times it’s been dull and at others it’s been confusing.
Stats sometimes don’t tell a full story. The manager can point to xG or shots on goal, but when you are as wide open as we seem to be in the biggest games questions are going to be asked. And when you don’t create as many chances or score as many goals as expected, such doubts will remain.
The truth is, we all want to be further ahead progress-wise than perhaps we are at this moment. Even if the manager did almost everything that we wanted him to do this summer. That was never going to be easy and a period of adjustment was always going to be necessary.
However, no one is naive enough to not believe in the truth. Rangers head to Kilmarnock and Aberdeen in the space of ten or so days after the October break. Disaster or opportunity is right around the corner.
How would I sum up Clement’s tenure so far? A lightning start, a barrowload of belief and a drop-off since that Motherwell defeat at Ibrox which punctured a momentum not yet recovered.
However, Clement is in a position where he’s required to implement a change in culture, philosophy and rebuild a squad that was inevitably broken. The football should be better, but the football isn’t the only thing that the Belgian has been forced to take responsibility for.
(Image: PA)
Clement has to beat Celtic, a team years in the making who are spending millions on players with loose change from the bank.
There is also the possibility that the manager is taking the brunt of the frustration of a support fed up with the wider running of the football club. Countless positions vacated, with more to come, and a former chairman and current largest shareholder demanding change.
The other possibility is those supporters with doubts about his ability are right and there’s another thing wrong at Ibrox.
In the coming weeks and months, we will find out and it will have a huge bearing on whether or not I’ll be writing about Philippe Clement’s second anniversary this time next year.
Rangers FC
Philippe Clement
Football
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