Philippe Clement insists his Rangers team are solely focused on themselves as he addressed a press conference after victory over Livingston.
Rangers cut the gap at the top of the Scottish Premiership to three points with the 3-0 victory, goals from Fabio Silva, Rabbi Matondo, and Todd Cantwell grabbing the headlines at Ibrox.
Rangers also have a game in hand on their Old Firm rivals Celtic, who had slipped up earlier in the day via a 1-1 draw with managerless Aberdeen at Pittodrie.
Quizzed on the Rangers victory, the Celtic draw, and everything in between, here’s every word of Philippe Clement post-match press conference after a potentially huge weekend in the title race.
Philippe Clement post-Rangers v Livingston press conference
Philippe can you give us your thoughts on today’s performance?
“Yeah that I am please with what I saw today. I see the team grow week-by-week, month-by-month and that’s also the idea of course. That the players start to understand better and better how to run, when to run, the timings together, the connection, the reaction after losing ball, our organisation, attacking-wise, defensive-wise. I’ve seen three good goals. So I see more and more the football that I want to play. We’re not at 100% yet, but that’s normal. I told the team also after the game where we they are now with most of the teams in the past we were after nine or twelve months in that way. So that’s a really positive thing. That you see also it’s not about eleven or fourteen players who understand it but whole squad, whoever we put on the pitch for the moment we know what to do. Of course the new players we need to integrate more, in that way it’s positive that Fabio (Silva) had these minutes, he scored a good goal. Was important also Oscar (Cortes) came in in a good way, we know that the way we want to play football suits him also in his qualities. So a lot of positive things I think this evening and next to that also this great synergy with the fans. We talked about that the moment we stepped into the building, that it was a major thing to get it back. But to play in an atmosphere like that, it’s a joy to be a football player then, or a manager. I don’t think there are many places like that in Europe. So we want to continue in that way, from both sides you see this synergy and the belief in each other. I think that was important. If I compare with my first weeks here, playing in Ibrox, then the beginning of the game you felt this nervousness in the stands and also on the pitch in that way in moments. Now, we started hard, we hard three good opportunities in the first three minutes but ok there are a lot of players and it’s blocked or the goalkeeper makes a good save but everybody stays calm. In the stand and on the field. That’s what we need to create the next couple of months also.”
How is Leon Balogun?
“Yeah, not good and good in a way. Let’s say it’s not good because it’s a bad injury, he’s probably broke something in his face. The positive side is that he’s a warrior and he’s somebody with experience who had already things like that in the past and he believes he can be fast back with a mask. So I hope that’s the case but it’s the medical staff who needs to decide that.”
Philippe that’s another clean sheet for Rangers and we’re not giving away a lot of chances either in the last couple of games in the league. You must be pleased with, not only the attacking side, but defensively doing very well?
“No, no, be really clear about that. The football I want to see is not only attacking. It’s not naive football, it’s football to win games. So our structure is much better than in the first months but it’s normal also we worked really hard on that. The players are really conscious about that also, that it’s not only about attacking but also we need to avoid that we get goals against and I think it’s the first game that there was no shot on goal. Maybe Jack (Butland) in one way was not happy with that but on another way, he will be happy that we have a clean sheet and that we win the game and he’s a serious guy. He was really good also by keeping everybody sharp and that’s also important, to have a personality like that in the dressing room.”
Philippe can I ask about Fabio Silva? Is that the type of performance you want to see from him, not only his goal but what he gave you outside of his goal as well?
“No there are still a lot of things to improve, but that’s normal. He needs to get connection with the other players. He needs to understand better where to run, when, when to do what. But I am very pleased about the way he’s stepped into the building, working hard everyday in training. He wants to learn, he wants to become better and you see already flashes of his talent. But he’s not yet at his top, top level but that’s normal, that we knew. He didn’t play many minutes and he didn’t know his teammates or the way we want to play football. So with playing more minutes and making more trainings he will grow in that, so I am happy that for the moment I have two strikers who are really hungry to do what they have to do for the team, and that’s not only scoring goals.”
Philippe obviously there was a boost for the team before the game with the Celtic result, did you pay attention to that? Did you let the players know about that before the game?
“No, no, totally not. No, I told you guys and I hope you guys believe me because I am not somebody who lies about things. Sometimes I don’t say everything, that’s true, I cannot say everything. But it’s really important in football to focus on yourself. And we can look at the ranking the last two, three games of the season because maybe you need to do a tactical thing that one point is enough or whatever, but before not. We don’t need to be busy with what others are doing or not doing. We need to be busy with ourselves, be ambitious to try to win every game and to grow. To grow as a team and to grow as individual, and all the players are busy with that. So there’s no difference any more about other teams playing before us and what result they have or playing after us what result they have, we are just focused with ourselves.”
It does show the remarkable turnaround, y’ know, Tuesday night you could potentially go back top of the league, when the team was, y’ know, so far behind.
“Ah is it, yeah? It’s not important where we are now, or Wednesday, it’s important where we are at the end of May. So we are going to focus on that.”
So you understand Philippe why the fans are starting to…
“Yes but that that’s the nice thing to be a fan, eh? I have been a fan also before, before I was a player. So that’s a different life. That’s a totally different life so we know what we need to do our job and that’s with complete focus. If you start to think about others, you lose things yourself so we’re not going to fall into that trap, as a team. And I’m happy with the team also in that way; I don’t hear any name of another team during the week, everybody is focused on Rangers and not on his ego but on the team. There’s a really good team mentality now in this dressing room and I’m going to be really very tight on that, that it stays that way. Because that’s the reason why we get the results, so the moment we start to focus on others we can lose that.”
