Philippe Clement plays it cool after Rangers win - ‘it’s like the honeymoon when everything is good’

Rangers manager Philippe Clement projected beyond his “honeymoon” period as he was careful to set in context the perfect start for his Ibrox tenure secured with a 4-0 thumping of Hibs.

Offering that “impressed was a big word” in being asked how impressed he was with his new team, the Belgian chose to see the victory in terms of the continual improvement he seeks, as he again expressed concern over the fitness issues that have dogged the club after Borna Barsic was forced off early.

“There now needs to be confirmation of all this,” he said of a success where the “team acted on the seeds we planted in the days before” with structure and tempo. But which contained “details” that require to be better. “It’s like the honeymoon when everything is good – they need to confirm that in the next months and weeks. The downside is that I saw a player falling out of the game after 10 minutes. And I could see others struggling to play 90 minutes so that’s also going to be a big task, together with the performance staff. We need players who are fit to play every game. It’s not about doing it one day and then being too tired to do it two or three days later.

“I’m most happy to see how fast the synergy between players and fans was back today. The team started the way I wanted and the fans stayed on top of them in a positive way until the end. I don’t want to talk too much about myself [in terms of the team looking confident] it’s about the players. You can see that they really adapted.”

Adapting to the Europa League will be the next task for Clement and his players, as they now face a trip to the Czech capital on Thursday to face Sparta Prague. It will be an assignment that has special significance for the Belgian with his opponents’ helmed by Brian Priske.

“I have watched two of their games and their coach is a friend of mine,” he said. “We played together at Brugge and then he coached at Antwerp. They play a 3-2-4-1 structure, with a lot of good passing between the lines. We hope to have as many players available in a good shape. We need as many fit players as possible. We are going to need a Rangers team on the tip of their toes to get a result against Sparta Prague.”