Philippe Clement denied Rangers’ thumping victory over Hearts on Saturday was his team’s best performance so far this season.
And the Belgian instead named the game that comes out on top. The Gers manager was thrilled to see his side overwhelm the third-best team in the Scottish Premiership at Ibrox this afternoon as Rangers went five points clear at the top of the league.
Cyriel Dessers notched a brace while Mohamed Diomande, Oscar Cortes and substitute Fabio Silva all scored fantastic goals to send a title race warning to Celtic.
And that warning is that Rangers are by far and away the form team in the country at the moment and it’ll take some doing to stop them on their charge towards Premiership glory.
Of course, the momentum is with Rangers but Celtic have their game in hand against Motherwell on Sunday and a win for the Hoops can close the gap back to two points with eleven matches to play.
Rangers were simply untouchable against the Jambos, however, and nobody can deny it was the best performance of the season at Ibrox – except Philippe Clement.
Philippe Clement post-Hearts reaction
Philippe Clement was asked by BBC Sportsound after the Hearts win whether he thinks he just witnessed the best Rangers display at Ibrox this season under his watch. The answer?
He replied: “That’s difficult to say because against Sparta Prague was also, for me, really good. But clearly one of the best.
“And for sure the best synergy with the fans. The atmosphere in the stadium was amazing from the first second to the last. And five really good goals, so the highest score until now so that is also positive.”
Asked if he could find faults in his team’s showing, Clement responded: “Fault, no. But I think we had too many shots against in the second half. I would’ve preferred less but that’s also the strength of Hearts. But I’m really happy with the team – the performance and attitude from the whole squad.
“But this is not falling out of the sky, this is because of what we’ve been doing for weeks and months on the training pitch. We did an 11vs11 and the starting 11 really struggled against the other 11 because they are really pushing hard.
“And the solidarity and the unity is really big in the dressing room so whoever is starting or coming in is doing the job and that’s our strength.
“But it’s current and that’s a good word. In football it’s always about the next thing and we need to confirm this in the next game on Wednesday.
“It doesn’t mean you need to score five goals, but we started the game very well, we scored a very good goal and that helps. It kills the belief of the opponent. Those are crucial moments and we took them today.”
