Philippe Clement has come strongly under fire after Rangers’ Scottish Cup exit at the hands of Queen’s Park.
The Gers team were poor as they lost to the Championship side to crash out of the Scottish Cup and give up their last realistic chance of some silverware this season.
But the manager’s part in the defeat has also been highlighted with some of the substitutions made being placed under scrutiny.
Clement was forced to bite back at a reporter after being asked whether his changes, including putting left-back Ridvan Yilmaz on for attacker Ianis Hagi, were too defensive.
But Alan Hutton told how those very decisions baffled him, as did the team’s slow start.
Clement absolved himself of the blame for the result, insisting it was nothing to do with tactics or how the team was set up.
And the Belgian boss has also been explaining how he plans to get the Rangers supporters back on his side.
But the pressure will continue to pile up on him until these blips are cancelled out.
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Subbing Rangers kid Bailey Rice was ‘deplorable’
Michael Stewart also has a bone to pick with Clement about one of his subs – but not the Yilmaz one.
At half-time, youngster Bailey Rice and Nedim Bajrami were hooked and replaced by Nicolas Raskin and Cyriel Dessers as the manager tried to inject some urgency into proceedings.
Stewart insists hanging the 18-year-old out to dry was the wrong thing to do and that he wasn’t even among the top candidates to be subbed anyway.
Speaking on Premier Sports’ Scottish Football Social Club, he said: “This is where I’ve got a real gripe with managers and in particular what Philippe Clement has done there. Bailey Rice did not deserve to get taken off at half-time.
“I thought it was a deplorable. The team was lacking urgency. Bailey Rice, youngster, first start at Ibrox, doing absolutely fine by the way.
“The more experienced players in and around him are the ones that you are looking for that urgency and that intensity from.
“Bailey Rice has got great technique and ability, and he will be brought along with those more experienced players.
“If you are looking to make a sub, you do not sub the youngster because you’re damaging him psychologically, and even more so now that the result has gone the way it has gone because he’ll be feeling like he was the problem.
“He absolutely was not the problem, and then to take Hagi off, who wasn’t having a particularly great game, and putting a left-back on. Mental, mental.”
Bajrami ‘offered nothing’
Alan Hutton agreed with Stewart and also laid into the performance of Nedim Bajrami.
He added: “That has happened to me as a youngster and it did affect me, so I do know what Michael is talking about. My debut against Partick Thistle, I got taken off and it’s difficult to deal with.
“I think at half-time he hit the panic button. I think he’s went ‘this is not good enough and I need to change it.’ He did it at St Mirren. He hit the panic button there and he did it again.
“Bajrami, by the way. It just passes him by. Offered absolutely nothing so can totally understand him coming off.
“But later on, Hagi didn’t have his best game but why are you taking him off and putting on a full-back? Are you expecting him to deliver more? I mean, is somebody winding me up?”
