Philippe Clement sends ‘Extra powers’ message after what he saw at Rangers
According to Philippe Clement, the work his Rangers team completed over the winter break will offer them “extra powers” in the upcoming months.
The Gers team was dispatched to La Manga, Spain, for warm-weather training, with friendly matches scheduled at Ibrox against FC Copenhagen and Hertha Berlin.
The Belgian is optimistic that his players will learn from the winter break and use it to their advantage as they try to close the gap on Celtic in the Scottish Premiership and pursue success in the Europa League, despite the fact that his team lost 1-0 to a Bundesliga 2 team.
“We saw good things on a pitch that was not the best. We tried to play with a good tempo on a pitch that also wasn’t the biggest, to create space against a team that didn’t want the ball and waited for transitions,” he said to Football London on Monday (15 January).
Thus, those are the conditions that increase the difficulty of scoring a goal. I witnessed a lot of players’ strong intentions and effort, which is exactly what we need right now.
The players will go particularly deep this week and the following week, so they will benefit financially in the upcoming weeks. However, it will grant them greater abilities over the ensuing several months.
Finding the positives
To still feel confident after losing to a second-tier German club in a friendly is a surprising outcome, especially having deployed a nearly-full-strength starting XI which included the likes of John Lundstram, Leon Balogun, Nico Raskin, and new signing Fabio Silva.
However, heading back to the Scottish Premiership, they are in brilliant form, other than a slip-up to rivals Celtic in the Old Firm derby. The Gers went on a 16-game unbeaten run after employing Clement in October, returning to winning ways against Kilmarnock after the loss at Celtic Park.
Clement will hope his players have found a new gear out in La Manga, with there still an eight-point gap between themselves and the league leaders with games in hand.
The friendly matches will have been important for Silva’s transition into the Rangers squad, having arrived at Ibrox last month. All eyes will now be on the return to domestic action, with points needed straight off the bat.
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