Philippe Clement is feeling the Rangers heat again heading into tomorrow’s derby.
Any Gers manager is going to feel pressure after taking one point from games against St Mirren and Motherwell – especially when it could so easily have been zero.
The Belgian had bought himself a bit of breathing space from recent games with the results and performances massively improved and things looking like they could be on the right track.
But the last two games have been concerning and Rangers fans have begun to turn on Clement again, urging new CEO Patrick Stewart to act with the boss’ position ‘untenable.’
The manager’s over-reliance on sports science advice and letting that dictate his team selections is drawing him a lot of criticism.
It came after he dropped Vaclav Cerny and Hamza Igamane for Motherwell and explained it was down to the science.
Kris Boyd insists Clement will get himself the sack with such decision-making, even though the manager argued he would be stupid not to listen to the advice.
The Belgian himself was quizzed on the likelihood of the sack and insisted he will leave that to the Rangers board.
And despite some of the unrest, it would appear he feels he still has the fans on side.
Clement feels he has Rangers fans’ backing
Clement insists getting an element of criticism is part of his job but feels he still has plenty backers
He said: “I don’t know. I don’t meet these people. I know if you don’t get the results people expect a team to get then you get criticism. That’s part of the job. Everybody in the club knows what the plan is with the club and what the club had to do to become healthy first.
“That was a big step in the summer – to be sustainable again and then to invest in these young players. Nine days ago, everybody saw and made the conclusion that yes, Rangers is on the right track.
“There are really exciting young players coming through. There are teams saying, ‘interesting players at that age playing at that level against Tottenham and Celtic’.
“So that’s in a positive way. Does it mean now because we have two games where we had to chase the game because we made some mistakes that suddenly everything that was there before is totally gone? It’s not the case.
“But I know that in my job, you are always under scrutiny if the results are not at that moment what they should be.”
| Position | Team | Played MP | Won W | Drawn D | Lost L | For GF | Against GA | Diff GD | Points Pts |
| 1 |  CelticCeltic | 18 | 16 | 2 | 0 | 52 | 4 | 48 | 50 |
| 2 |  RangersRangers | 18 | 11 | 3 | 4 | 31 | 13 | 18 | 36 |
| 3 |  AberdeenAberdeen | 19 | 10 | 4 | 5 | 31 | 26 | 5 | 34 |
Key:
Position 1 – 6 : Championship RoundPosition 7 – 12 : Relegation Round
It was suggested a win over Celtic with a depleted squad could win back some faith, and he replied: “No, I know that there are still a lot of supporters who believe in that way.
“I know there are a lot of supporters who understand we should have won the last derby (in the League Cup Final). So it’s about now the next one. Would I have preferred to do it with a full squad?
“Yes, but it’s not the case now we’re going to go in with the full squad. I’m going to find solutions for that. And we’re going to go hard and I count on the supporters to give this extra energy to the players also to get to this result. I also believe that they will do that like they did also in a good way in the last games.”
Rangers must ignore Celtic gap
Clement added: “You cannot look at the gap because then you lose yourself. We need to look at every game to take the maximum out of it.
‘We’re very disappointed that we didn’t do that in the last two games. Those goals against us made a really big difference in those games. The team showed resilience to fight back, not only with creating chances but also scoring goals.
“I cannot look in all the heads but it would be stupid to think only about the gap and not to think about the next game. It’s about the next game, always in football. If you’re in front or you’re behind, it’s always the case.
“We knew it would be a tough season in that way. We’re building a squad with a lot of young players and against a squad who already has a core for several years, who spend a lot of money to create more depth in their squad.
“Because they knew there would be much more games than it was in the past to make a rotation also in that way in the squad to keep everybody fresh.
“We knew that and we go full out in the challenge. I knew also before the summer that it would be a really, really big challenge. I took the challenge and I take on the challenge with every bit of energy in my body and I will continue doing that.”
