Rangers burst into life midway through the first-half against Nice, racing into a two-goal lead on matchday five of the Europa League.
Philippe Clement would have been a happy man to see the contribution of Hamza Igamane in the opening goal and then Mohamed Diomande putting his poor form aside to double the advantage.
What would have frustrated the manager though was Rangers left-hand side with Nedim Bajrami coming under friendly fire from Ally McCoist on TNT commentary duty.
Ally McCoist takes aim as Nedim Bajrami switches off for Rangers
The Gers legend had already warned the Albanian international for switching off and leaving his runner but, shortly after scoring the second, he nearly let Nice back into the game, much to the annoyance of Super Ally:
“Rory, Bajrami again, I’m telling you now, the amount of times he’s let that player go, it’s not on,” moaned McCoist to commentary partner Rory Hamilton.
“I’m telling you what I’d be doing at half-time, I’d be having a word with that wee fella in front of him and saying, ‘Any chance of you coming back with that guy?’”
Clement has given Bajrami a ready made excuse
In fairness to Bajrami, despite playing regularly for Rangers on the left, he is more comfortable in the middle.
When responding to criticism about the current style of play, Clement was quick to point out that this is a contributing factor too:
”I don’t agree with the story that the style of playing, what we want to do, suits Europe but doesn’t suit domestic football,” said Clement in his pre-match press conference.
”I think we had also with Ianis Hagi not being available for a long time, injury of Tom Lawrence, injury of Oscar Cortes, of Rabbi Matondo, we lost a lot of creativity in that way and we had to find other solutions.
”Nedim (Bajrami) has been playing a lot on the left side. He can play there but he can play also in the midfield.
”And Nedim and Vaclav (Cerny) had to play all the games, also with the national team. So those are things that are taken into account.
”Getting all these players back will raise also our freshness in our offensive part and will raise our creativity.”
It will hopefully help at the other end of the park too!
