'Slap them more or be nice?' - Philippe Clement makes admission over Rangers' progress since his arrival

Rangers manager Philippe Clement refuses to consider his team is ahead of schedule as they prepare for his first home encounter in continental competition that brings Sparta Prague to Ibrox for a pivotal Europa League encounter.

Rangers manager Philippe Clement oversees training ahead of the Europa League match against Sparta Prague. (Photo by Alan Harvey / SNS Group)

The Belgian believes a handful of games – in which the Govan club remain unbeaten – hasn’t allowed him to put his plans in place to create “a machine that goes every time” or become so knowledgeable of his entire squad he will know which ones “he needs to slap more…or be nice to”.

Victory over Prague would not only place Rangers in the box seat to qualify from Group C, but further extend a period of grace that the 49-year-old has enjoyed across the opening three weeks of his tenure. A period in which three league wins have allowed them to narrow Celtic’s lead in the Premiership by two points to five. Sunday’s League Cup semi-final defeat of Hearts has left only Aberdeen standing in their way of a success in the competition since 2011, and a scoreless draw in Prague two weeks ago has afforded them an opportunity in front of their own fans to leapfrog the Czech side and go second in their Europa League section. Clement cautions, though, that it is “too early” to believe his team are beginning to click.

“There needs to be confirmation,” he said. “We’ve had a couple of good games and important victories – also the way the team did it was important for me. You can win games by being lucky [but], no, we were dominant and deserved it. There was a big difference in expected goals after the games between us and the opponents. That’s the way I want to see the team play, with a lot of bravery and a lot of aggression with and without the ball. That way is positive, but it’s just the start.

“A good team for me is a team that does it for months. Of course, there will be one moment when it’s less one game [the bravery and aggression] then the next game directly it’s about the reaction. Of course, I’m happy how things are going but I’m not sitting on the sofa and thinking “okay, now we can let everything loose and the machine will go”. I want to create a machine. And I think it’s possible with this group to create a machine that goes every time. But we are not there yet.

“I don’t know everybody really well, in all the circumstances. That is what I mean by [saying I am still in the] observation [period] even as we have been building. I want to also see how players react with the first deception they have, the first disappointment, or the first time that they played a really good game, and the next game they don’t start. I had that for the semi-final. There were players who played a really good game a few days before and didn’t play the semi-final. How is their reaction? Is it purely individual or could they think about the collective? So I need an observation period for a few weeks, a few months, to go really into the detail to get the best out of them. Do I need to slap them more, or do I need to be nice to them? It is different for every player.”