Rangers manager Philippe Clement took questions from the media on Friday as part of his pre-match press conference ahead of facing Hearts in the Scottish Cup semi-finals and we pick out the highlights from the broadcast element:
On Rangers’ current situation after two poor results: “If you win 10 games in a row, you have more belief than when you lose two times but this is Rangers, this is a club where you always have to fight,” said Clement. Every point you lose, it’s like you’re going to hell. That’s this world, and that’s good. That’s also the challenge and it’s interesting to see which players can live in that way. But it’s an exciting place to be because on the other side you can go also to heaven when you win games and when you win trophies. In other teams, where it’s not so important to win points or when it’s not something dramatic when you lose points, you cannot go to heaven also because those are not the clubs that win trophies. This is something you need to embrace.”
On intense scrutiny: “I know it’s part of the job. I’ve been now more than 30 years in this world and I’ve been buried a lot of times as a player and as a manager, so I know what I’m doing in a club. I know what I’m doing in this club. I know we are on the right road together.”
On Club Brugge similarities: “Winning, becoming champion, is the only thing that counts. But I’ve been like that all my life. There is nobody who can be more critical than me because I want to win everything. Everybody who knows me from when I was a child, whether it was basketball, tennis or table tennis or whatever sport, I want to win. I made a lot of fights with my wife about that, that I wanted that mentality with my children because I did it with them also. If I played a game with them and they were three years old, I wanted to win. That is the mentality that is necessary in a club like this, but you need to embrace that. It’s also because of that that you can be successful and you can win trophies and have these exciting moments that will stay with you for the rest of your life. That is what Rangers is about and that’s why I love to be here.”
On Dujon Sterling’s comments in wake of Dundee defeat: “They are the words of a player who is disappointed because we lost points, who maybe lacks a little bit of experience in that way. If I see Virgil Van Dijk giving a press interview after the game yesterday, it was totally different and that’s the way it should be. There are things for young players to learn and to become better at rather than talking out of the frustration.”
