Philippe Clement knows full well his squad will give all its focus and attention on beating Hibs in the Scottish Cup quarter-finals this weekend.
He has no issues regarding a post-Europa League hangover and believes his players will have their eyes fixed on facing Nick Montgomery’s Hibees and not the second leg with Benfica at Ibrox on Thursday.
Clement was speaking to the press after watching his Rangers side earn a very creditable 2-2 draw at the Estadio da Luz as the club aim to keep up their incredible record in UEFA’s second tier competition.
Rangers are just one game away from the Europa League quarter-final stage and will go into the Govan encounter next week as slight favourites.
Tom Lawrence and Dujon Sterling struck for Rangers in Lisbon but both strikes were pegged back by a controversial Benfica penalty and an own goal by Connor Goldson.
Clement now insists his injury-hit team will recover from the demands of Thursday evening in Portugal and do their all to progress to the next round of the Scottish Cup on Sunday.
Philippe Clement on Hibs Scottish Cup test
Asked how much of different challenge Hibs will pose compared to Rangers’ 3-0 win in Leith just over a month ago, Philippe Clement responded: “Yeah, they can be different but we are also different.
“So we are going to take a good look into that. We’re going to see how people recover for the next two days and we’re going to go hard to get into this semi-final because it’s an important thing.
“I’ve read that they were very unlucky in their last two games against us, so they have a lot of belief clearly. So it is about us getting a good result there and qualifying.”
The same reporter then asked if Clement is confident his squad can focus on the Hibs clash on not the highly-anticipated Benfica return leg afterwards.
The Rangers manager was adamant: “Yeah, 200 percent. No doubt about that. My team have been working hard all season in that way and they never stopped.
“Good proof of that is after the (Real) Betis game, a few days later we had the League Cup Final and they were there. So my team is hungry to win more trophies.
“We know we need to play against Hibs a really good game because they are really hungry to beat us apparently.”
