Why Rangers boss Philippe Clement didn't take counsel from Gary McAllister about Ibrox job

Rangers manager Philippe Clement says he declined to speak to his former captain Gary McAllister about taking the job at Ibrox because he didn’t want his decision clouded by others.

Gary McAllister spent time at Rangers as an assistant coach.

Clement has agreed a three-and-a-half year contract at Ibrox but only has one year of experience of British football, when he was at Coventry City as a player in the 1998/99 season. He had a Scottish manager in Gordon Strachan – and also a Scottish captain at Highfield Road in McAllister – and while the ex-midfielder spent time at Rangers as assistant boss to Steven Gerrard, Clement felt it was important not to let too many voices shape his decision about joining the club.

Asked whether he had made contact with McAllister, Clement responded: “No, because I want to make my own decisions. If people talk about there experiences, it’s always their story and what happened with them. Everybody’s different.

“I am not going to take a decision on what somebody else tells me. It’s always good to have information, I had information from Thomas, but the most important thing for me was to talk with the people who are inside the club – how they think about things, how they want to do things, what they thought are not the good things that were happening, what they think are the problems with the club at the moment.

“I liked that they were really open and honest about that. I liked that because I am also a person like that.”