Perhaps, with the benefit of hindsight, Philippe Clement’s Rangers were always likely to endure a bit of a sluggish start to the 2024/25 Scottish Premiership campaign.
That is usually the case when so many players depart – experienced, long-serving players, too – and a host of new faces arrive to take their place. Many of those new faces completely new to Scottish football, for that matter.
But given time to settle in, and with Rangers processing the emotional exits of Connor Goldson, Ryan Jack and co, a team in transition are finally hitting their stride.
Rangers may have lost on penalties to Celtic in last weekend’s Scottish League Cup final. But, during a 3-3 draw in which Rangers fought back from 2-1 and 3-2 down, Clement’s new-look team played with the sort of confidence, authority and aggression that was frequently missing during the early months of the campaign.
Rangers ran Celtic close just days after they outplayed Tottenham Hotspur for long spells in the Europa League. Prior to Spurs’ visit to Ibrox, meanwhile, Clement had guided his team to four straight wins, scoring 14 goals in the process.
So, when asked if those Tottenham and Celtic displays were a marker of Rangers’ progress, no wonder Clement was keen to roll back the clock a little further.
Philippe Clement delighted by Rangers’ progress despite Celtic heartbreak
“I don’t think it’s fair to speak only about Tottenham or the Celtic game,” Clement tells reporters durihng his Friday press confernece. “If you had the Kilmarnock game before [a 6-0 win] and also the Ross County game, to win 0-3 there when you see that a lot of teams are struggling to get points there…
“Or we had, before Malmo and [FCSB] Bucharest, there were other moments also. It’s not that we are just playing well for the last two games.
“But you see that the team is growing, and you see it in everything. You see in the physical part, you see a really, really big evolution the last couple of months. But also technically, the team gelling together and understanding the movements more.
“We’re getting more players available. That’s also a massive thing with playing every three days. So a lot of things are going in the right direction.”
- READ MORE: Rangers Transfer History 2016-Present
Clement says Hamza Igamane and Jefte justify Rangers’ transfer approach
Given that many of Rangers’ summer signings were either young players, those unfamiliar with Scottish football or both, patience was required with Jefte, Vaclav Cerny, Nedim Bajrami and Hamza Igamane.
And while Cerny and Bajrami have shown flashes of their best form in recent times, Clement uses left-back Jefte and rampaging centre-forward Igamane as ‘a really good example’ of what can be gained when prioritising untapped potential in the transfer market.
The Rangers boss labels Igamane a ‘bright light’, the bargain £1.7 million signing scoring five goals in six matches after ousting Cyriel Dessers from the starting XI.
“I’ve been speaking about the potential of players for a while,” Clement adds. “People need time to adapt to a club, to a new way of playing, to a new way of training, to another level also.
“I can take the example of Hamza. Why take a young boy out of Morocco who doesn’t have experience in Europe? People start to see now why, and they are totally behind that. Everybody I meet in the streets, they say that.
“And it’s not only Hamza. It’s several other players also. Jefte is also a really good example in that way, for the amount of money that we [paid for] him at only 20 years old. He’s taking the right steps.”
Rangers will hope to make it four Premiership wins in a row when they host Tony Docherty’s Dundee on Saturday.
