Rangers boss Philippe Clement has called on loanee Abdallah Sima to be more selfish after bagging a brace against St Mirren on Sunday.
Rangers bounced back from two successive draws to claim all three points against St Mirren on Sunday afternoon.
Drawing 1-1 with Aberdeen and Aris Limassol arguably gave Philippe Clement his trickiest week so far as Rangers boss.
Rangers got back to winning ways against St Mirren though, even if it wasn’t an absolutely vintage performance.
Abdallah Sima opened the scoring, firing home as Todd Cantwell dribbled into the St Mirren box.
Cantwell set up Sima’s second too, securing all three points with a calm finish.
Philippe Clement wants more from Abdallah Sima
Sima will be delighted to have ended something of a goal drought.
The Senegalese forward was in great form in October but had gone four games without a goal before facing St Mirren on Sunday.
Sima was back at it on Sunday, finishing both goals well to hopefully get back on the goal trail.
Clement was delighted to see Sima score having become a little frustrated with his lack of selfishness in recent weeks.
The Belgian feels that Sima often wants to set somebody up rather than take a shot himself and hasn’t backed himself enough in front of goal.
Clement wants Sima to become more selfish in front of goal as his ‘pace and power’ can hurt teams if he can then become more decisive in the final third.
“If you don’t have the confidence you don’t score the goal. So it’s the other way around,” said Clement. “I spoke with Abdallah in the last couple of days about being hungry, to be in the box and to score himself. He’s a really nice lad but he’s sometimes not egoistic enough for me to be decisive himself. He always wants to give the last pass to others before he shoots himself. So I’m really happy that he scored two really good goals. With his pace and power he can hurt a lot of teams and that’s what I want to see in the next couple of months.”
“Yes, that’s part of the game. But you have to keep a balance. I don’t want players to be shooting from every angle. But in the last few weeks Abdallah was waiting too long to find somebody free and not take his chance to score. But he did that well today,” he added when asked if Sima needs to be more selfish.
Sima now needs to take this goal and really kick on as we know how good he can be at his best.
The Brighton and Hove Albion loanee can be such a threat and has now taken his tally for the season to 11 goals in 25 games for Rangers.
That’s a strong record but it could have been even better if Sima had backed himself just a little more in recent weeks.
Sima took his goals very well on Sunday and we now need to see more of that – especially with Rangers no doubt weighing up whether to try and keep Sima at the end of the season.
