PHILIPPE Clement is looking forward to the challenge ahead for his team as they welcome FC Copenhagen to Ibrox for a friendly tomorrow evening.
The Gers boss has been putting the team through their paces in Spain this week at the winter training camp as they now prepare to face the Danish champions in their final run out before competitive action returns on Saturday. Tickets for the match are available here.
Speaking to RangersTV, Clement said: “The players have had a heavy load in the last couple of days and have been working hard, we will fly back to Glasgow and then we have the big game against Copenhagen who have been doing really well in the Champions League, so it is a big challenge.
“Every game I want them to show hunger, passion, what the fans want and what they want also. This first trophy has given a lot of desire for more because those are great moments, those are also moments that you bond together and that you create a lot of synergy between fans, players and also between each other.
“We want to continue that way and not be stopped by the bumps that there will be on the way but just continue and be ambitious to grow and to become better.”
Since joining in October, Clement has built a backroom team including Stephan Van Der Heyden, Alex Rae, Brian Gilmour and goalkeeping coach Colin Stewart.
The manager feels there is a good dynamic between his backroom team, he explained: “They all have their specialities, Alex knows what it is to be a Rangers player, he knows what the dressing room is and also all the pressure that there is to be a Rangers player.
“He can help players in that way and Brian comes out of the Academy. He is really structured, he works really hard. Brian's main role is to be the bridge with the Academy and that I know everything that is going on there, how the development of players is going and who deserves to train with us or not.
“It is also to help in the Academy to make everything more professional, more like in the first team, so he is doing that.
“Altogether the staff are helping with everything in the first team, and they have all their specialities. They do all their jobs very well but besides that they work really well together and there is a good dynamic between them together and with me so I am really happy.”
With the January transfer window open, and Fabio Silva joining the club on loan from Wolves, Clement says everyone is working hard behind the scenes this window.
He added: “Everybody is working day and night, everybody is working really hard for that. It is not the easiest window if you don't have the most money, so you need to be creative, you need to be fast, but everybody is working really hard.
“That is the reality in these things until there is a signature you can be at the end of the road but if you don't have the signature, you are at the beginning of the road again of another story so we are going to keep on working hard the next couple of weeks to get our target.”
RangersTV subscribers can watch the interview in full here or you can watch a short trailer below.