Rangers boss Philippe Clement has heaped scrutiny on ex-Liverpool fitness guru Jack Ade in comments about the physical conditioning of the Ibrox club’s players.
The Ibrox boss claims that the scale of Rangers’ injury problems has stunned him with Philippe Clement having never encountered such a massive “puzzle” in management.
Rangers have been besieged by injury problems for the last 18 months with Nicolas Raskin and John Souttar the latest names to be ruled out of action.
Philippe Clement said “next question please” when asked if he was surprised at the state of the fitness at Rangers in a three-word statement which almost certainly says a lot more.
The Rangers boss also says that he believes he’s gotten to the root of the injury issues – although he didn’t want to divulge it to the press – and the situation has gotten fans talking.
“It is quite a puzzle,” said the ex-Club Brugge boss. “It is the biggest puzzle that I ever saw to be honest, with all the injuries and players dropping out.
“It will be important that in every game we look at the minutes of the players and try to build their physical condition and robustness in the next couple of weeks and months to have a bigger squad available.
“It is never short-term work, it is a long-term project, creating players ready for 90 minutes every three days for months.”
Philippe Clement heaps fitness scrutiny on Jack Ade
Whilst plenty will point to Michael Beale’s role in the entire debacle, the Rangers injury woes have been crippling the club ever since the reign of Giovanni van Bronckhorst.
But if anyone comes out of the situation looking particularly badly it’s former Liverpool fitness guru Jack Ade, who left with Beale amid a disastrous run of injuries.
Rangers appointed ex-Liverpool physical performance manager Jack Ade in the summer as the club’s Head of Performance.
There is no doubt that the club’s damning injury list and heavily criticised physical conditioning falls under the remit of the ex-Liverpool fitness coach.
Having now left Rangers, incoming Ibrox manager Philippe Clement didn’t have to say too much to criticise the fitness work of Ade in his short spell at Rangers.
Perhaps like the rest of Beale’s budget backroom, Jack Ade found himself a little out of his depth at Rangers and things soon began to snowball.
Change is on the horizon for Rangers but we won’t know until later in the season the scale of the damage done by this extended list of absences.
Rangers find themselves in a right mess when it comes to the squad’s physical conditioning but one summer signing will be in the squad v Dundee.
