Rangers Philippe Clement's babysitter debt to Celtic figure as he calls for managerial treatment as existed at Ibrox for '100 years'

Scotland may be unfamiliar terrain for Philippe Clement, but its blood and soil account for the Rangers manager’s role model as he seeks to become a father figure to his Ibrox playing squad.

More especially the blood and soil that nurtured a man whose Glasgow football ties are firmly with his new club’s bitter rivals across the city – in the shape of former Celtic manager Gordon Strachan. A defensive midfielder as a player, the Belgian came under the charge of Strachan on moving to Coventry City in 1998 from Genk. Married with a young child, the willingness of the Strachans – both Gordon and his wife Leslie – to treat the trio almost as extended family had a profound impact. To this day it informs the relationships he looks to forge with players. Indeed, an injury-curtailed season with the Midlands club is best remembered by him for the Strachans’ willingness to provide babysitting services.

Such easy kinship, considered a Scottish trait, factors in his determination to have a local member of staff with insider knowledge of the club and its workings on his coaching team. Neil McCann, Barry Ferguson and recent interim manager Steven Davis mooted as possibles for this conduit role. Clement, who built a strong reputation for developing young players in his title-winning squads with Genk and Club Brugge, sees this link man as key to unlocking potential in the club’s youth ranks.

“The experience [of working under Gordon Strachan] was good, and for sure also as a person,” said Clement. “He was really nice with us. His wife also. My son at the moment was really small, I think he was around five-years-old. His wife really liked him. So in moments the gaffer said to me ‘if you want to go out with your wife, go to the movies, your boy can stay with us’. So we did it a few times. He was our babysitter, they were really, really nice people.

Philippe Clement suggests Rangers can only achieve "stability" if they are not a club that "decides the story" of a manager "on five or six games". (Photo by Alan Harvey / SNS Group)

“That support for my family at that time was really important for us and is important to me right now. As a manager, I want to be a father for all of my players. I want to give them advice, I want to help them and get the best out of them. With a father it’s like that, I do the same thing with my kids. When they do well they get rewarded, when they don’t do well sometimes they get stick. It’s also one part of parenthood and it’s the same with the players.

“So it’s about building a story with them that’s really strong, but also with the staff around us. It’s really crucial and that’s why I said from the beginning it’s very important to have someone local within the staff. Someone who can be a bridge with the academy, who knows all the young players and how they are performing. With the academy it’s always up and down with the players. We want the step from the academy to be smaller, not so big. That way you can give chances.”

Clement exuded authority, confidence and presence as he met newspaper journalists for the first time. There was only one false note where his assessment of the onerous challenge he now faces led you to wonder if he has fully appreciated the managerial machinations so problematic where he is now ensconced. Despite becoming Rangers seventh permanent manager in 12-and-a-half years – a period during which there have been four extended caretaker spells – Clement is unabashed he will be given the required support from the Rangers board to deliver on the requirements of the post. Which are, pure and simply, to usurp a Celtic that appear on course for a 12th title in 13 years.

“I’m convinced if they see the story of what’s happening every day in the club, to see the training and what’s going on [the board will support me],” he said. ‘That’s also a very important part in football. It’s not only the game or that short period, but what is the reason behind those things. You can have injuries because of bad luck and players being kicked. And you can have injuries because you don’t work in the right way. There are several parameters and out of those you have to take the right decision.”

Gordon Strachan was Clement's manager at Coventry City.

Fickle clubs don’t prosper, Clement maintained, as he rejected any suggestions his 18 months at Monaco before he was cast aside in June could be regarded as “a failure”. Pointing out that he had the best average points return of any manager at the club from 50 games in more than two decades, he put his departure down to “six games at the end that killed a lot”. His team then dropping to sixth from sitting among the leading positions as a consequence of a “bad dynamic” at the club. The irony appearing to be lost on him of offering up a repudiation of short term, knee-jerk football decision-making as he sat inside Ibrox.

“In [these] clubs … they never find stability if you decide everything decide [on] about five or six games whether that’s the story or not, when there were very good things before …” he said. “When seven games before, you were really happy with the story because you wanted to give a new contract for three, four years. All the good clubs who have been that for a long time – structurally at the top – never make decisions like that. You will always have some part of a season when there’s a difficult period. And you need to see those through, to see what is going on and why. That didn’t happen.”

It was pointed out that this most certainly hasn’t happened at Rangers, where four managers have been bulleted inside six years. To which he snapped back: “And also there were more than 100 years when it was not the case.” Clement would do well not test if the Ibrox paymasters have a renewed willingness to resist exercising their trigger fingers.