Philippe Clement masterminded Rangers best performance since taking over but knows that there is still a long way to go for opinion to be changed on his future.
What the Light Blues manager has to do now is repeat the consistency of results that last year’s squad posted when the Belgian first walked into Ibrox.
Up next is Hibernian at Easter Road with one selection decision in particular a difficult one for the Rangers boss to make.
Philippe Clement has major Rangers selection call to make
For so long, Clement had had to make do with the players that he had fit rather than having any real options.
The problem he has now is that there aren’t a lot of like for like changes that can be made and even one player being taken out the forward line can drastically change the team’s approach.
The big call involves Nedim Bajrami.
Does Clement keep the Albanian international in the No.10 role with Ianis Hagi interchanging or, does he bring in Danilo to reunite the partnership that has worked so well with Hamza Igamane?
The other option is to bring Oscar Cortés back into the starting XI, giving Clement three different attacking variations without weakening the team.
After recent criticism about squad rotation, Clement has to get the balance right between resting players and not losing momentum.
Clement clamps talk about squad rotation issue
The win over Celtic saw Clement put his foot down on the furore:
“Of course, I want to have this group of players every three days at this level, what they are doing now, but it’s hard work and they need to learn that.
“Their bodies need to adapt to that also. We had this discussion with all of you, or some of you, about rotation and things like that.
“I hope everybody understands now that it’s important in moments. I don’t see players from other teams, and let’s say now from Celtic, playing every time 90 minutes.
“Kyogo has also changed and Idah is starting some games. Kuhn is also not starting all the games. Everybody was speaking about Hamza and Vaclav.
“So, I hope we can stop this discussion for the rest of the season or for the rest of my time that I’m here, because it’s the only way that you can do at professional football, to work in that way.”
Rotation isn’t the problem, as seen by the players named above, it’s who Clement brings in and the knock on effect.
The Gers boss should have learned more from dropping points against St Mirren and Motherwell, than he did in the win over Celtic.
