Philippe Clement can 'kick Rangers on to greatness' by avoiding team selection temptation, insists Ibrox departee

Scott Arfield was at Hampden promoting Viaplay’s live and exclusive coverage of Rangers v Aberdeen in the Viaplay Cup Final. Viaplay is available to stream from viaplay.com or via your TV provider on Sky, Virgin TV and Amazon Prime as an add-on subscription. (Photo by Craig Williamson / SNS Group)

Rangers resting key players in their Europa League decider away to Real Betis on Thursday to keep them fresh for Sunday’s Viaplay Cup final is simply not an option believes former midfielder Scott Arfield.

The 35-year-old, now with MLS club Charlotte FC after his five-year Ibrox stint came to an end in the summer, accepts that the League Cup decider is the more important assignment of the two Philippe Clement’s men this week - Rangers guaranteed the safety net of a Conference League last 16 play-off whatever the result in Seville three days before they take to the Hampden pitch. A competition in which they would have greater prospects of going deep in. However, that cannot enter Clement’s thinking on his team selection for Betis believes Arfield because of the demands placed on Rangers in every game. Not least when a win in Seville would see the Belgian - unbeaten across his first 12 outings at the Ibrox helm - lead the club to the last 16 of the Europa League.

“There’s two ways of looking at it,” said the 35-year-old, who featured as a substitute in Rangers penalty shoot-out loss to Eintracht Frankfurt in the 2022 final of that competition. “People look down at the Conference League but look what it did for West Ham last year. They celebrated that like it was the biggest trophy going. So I don’t think it’s a competition you can take lightly or look down on.

“The fact of the matter, though, is that the Europa League is a higher, more prestigious tournament so you want to go as deep in that as you can. So I don’t think you can sacrifice Thursday. In my opinion, I don’t think you can prioritise any game, even though I do think Sunday is more important simply because it’s the first chance to win silverware. At this time of the season, lifting that could really kick you on.

“[It is all about] momentum. If the team can win on Thursday and then Sunday, it can really kick them on to greatness and to achieve what they want to achieve at the end of the year. Thursday night is absolutely huge. It was an opportunity missed against Limassol [with the 1-1 draw two weeks ago] where they could have rested one or two players in Seville. But now they need to go there and play their strongest team. I don’t think they can rest guys for Sunday. They need to play their strongest XI so they can beat Betis and progress.”