Philippe Clement: My Side Showed Solidarity

PHILIPPE CLEMENT thought his Rangers side showed solidarity this afternoon as they returned to the Scottish Premiership with a 3-1 victory over Hibs at Ibrox.

James Tavernier, Cyriel Dessers and Rabbi Matondo were all on target as the Light Blues secured three points in the league.

Speaking to RangersTV at full-time, Clement said: “It was a very convincing performance, of course you want to score this decisive third goal faster and it is also a pity that you have one shot at goal and you get a goal against but we played a dominant game, we played good football, we created a lot of good chances and I saw a lot of solidarity, hunger and desire to show the fans and give the fans the best.

“I saw players really hungry to start and players really hungry to come on, so I saw a lot of good things that I like and it is about continuing in this way.

“It is something that needs to be in our DNA, that we never fear, and we never start to doubt but that we keep on going and that is what this team has proven in the last couple of months that they are able to do that.

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300324 Rangers v Hibernian, Squad 25

“It is a really important thing in football not to look behind but to look forward and to believe in yourself and your teammates. We are in a really good place in that way so I will keep an eye that it stays in that way and push the players.”

James Tavernier’s opening goal saw him become the UK’s highest scoring defender in history with 131 senior career goals.

On his captain, Clement continued: “It is crucial to have somebody who can score that many goals but in the first place he is a defender and that is his first job also.

"He is doing that well and that is important to have players who are decisive, but I think the big strength of this team now and the football that we want to play is that everybody can score, and we have proven that again.

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300324 Rangers v Hibernian, James Tavernier 30

“We have different players scoring goals not only strikers or wingers but also our midfielders and defenders who can score goals and that is much more difficult for opponents to stop.

"In that way it is important every game to find where we can find spaces and who can find spaces to score the decisive goals, so I am really happy with the three goals we scored because they were three goals of high quality.

“It has been a thing we have been working on a lot with Rabbi [Matondo] because it was for me one of the things he was lacking. He didn't have enough control in his shots, he was not scoring enough goals with his qualities, so I am really happy to see it in a game also.

“We have seen it more and more in training and like this it is difficult to stop if he keeps that control so happy for him and happy for the team.”


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