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8 Rangers presser headlines as Philippe Clement comes out fighting and sends clear message to fans
Rangers manager Philippe Clement is surely feeling the heat.
From that 1-0 Scottish Premiership defeat to Kilmarnock a few weeks ago the pressure has only intensified on the Ibrox boss and their Aberdeen loss was the final straw for many Gers fans who now say he simply must go. Now, a League Cup semi-final against Motherwell awaits on Sunday where defeat would all but certainly spell the end of the Belgian's time in charge in Govan.
Clement was quizzed in his pre-match pressure on the board's backing, message to the fans, and if he thinks his squad are up for the fight. Here, Football Scotland has picked out the eight key headlines.
READ MORE: Philippe Clement reveals Rangers radio silence from John Gilligan over future as job safe for now
Message to fans who have lost faith
"Because they saw last season also that with the right conclusions, attitude, mentality, spirit... things can change really fast and we're working really hard on that with all the group on and off the pitch and to know what this club is about and every loss is a drama.
"It's a really bad thing, that's what you need to live with and embrace. Because of that, you also have the good moments. We've got to continue working hard to have that in the mind and then to break this moment of games where we're not good enough and to get more consistency."
Talks with the board about nine-point gap?
"I didn't have discussions about that. The last couple of weeks they've been really busy with a lot of other things in the club."
Confident that the board will have faith even if results don't improve instantly?
"I'm very confident about that because that was also the really clear message, to step in a story for a longer term. They knew everything about the numbers, about what was necessary and I don't want to repeat all these things, I think I said it enough. And what consequences it can have and it's about small margins, like last season, taking those margins and making it better again. Last season we turned it around in a really short period, I'm convinced that can happen now also.
"But of course, I wish it was at Aberdeen that we took the victory there, that would have been the big step forward. We didn't manage to do that. I saw a team that tried until the last second of the game and we had it in the last minute also the header with Tav just next to the post, so it's not that the team don't want or they give up or anything like that. So we're going to continue fighting to get results our way and to make things better. For sure more consistent, to get more football that we saw against Malmo, against Bucharest, those kind of games that we see more often."
So your message to the fans is, stick with you and believe you can turn it around?
"Yes, I'm going to work really hard on that. I'm going to do the same as I did last season and the same as I'm doing now. I'll do a little bit more in the club than that moment because there are also a lot of other things to do. But no, for sure I'm very confident about that. I feel also how the team works, how they were in the meeting also today. It's also not a team that don't take responsibility. They took responsibility in things. The staff took responsibility, I take responsibility and we all go forward to make things better."
Do you feel secure in your position?
"I know what project I started in June. It was another project than I started in October. Those things were less clear. We had this talk in June that it was a really big challenge. That is also why there were negotiations about the contract and what to do, from both sides. We're going to continue working on that. Of course, I believe in all these people because it was all brought together. It was not only one person.
"It was all brought together going for this story because the story from before was not sustainable. They didn't want to go back to 2012 when the club was bankrupt. So there had to be a major turnaround in every sense. There had to be young players coming in, there had to be a big cut of wages in the squad, there had to be a lot of transfers. We wanted maybe as a club more outgoing transfers, getting more money in to use that in the transfer market. That was not possible at the end.
"So the club knows from where it's coming from. It's now the start of a better period and you don't see it in results now. Yes, that's true. It's totally true. But there is a foundation now being built for the future, for a more healthy club to grow out of that. And everybody knew it was not possible in one transfer window."
Did you receive assurances before you signed a new contract that your position would be safe no matter what?
2It's never about no matter what. It's about we know how difficult it will be and we're going to stick together and we're going to do this project together for the next couple of years. So that's been clearly talked about. Of course I know if you lose 10 games in-a-row and all the players don't want to work with you, then there's an environment that you cannot work in. But that's totally not the case."
The level of fight in the team
"I want to see more. I want to see more. I want to see more. Those are the things we're working on. Those are the things we're talking about. You see it in moments and you see it in moments when it goes well. And that we need to turn around, that it's all the time there. Those are the basics. We discussed the basics, our principles.
"But the basics in that, that was also one of the strengths last season that this team had in the difficult moments to dig in and to change around things. Now we've been good when we started good and we scored the first goal. We need to make this step as a group, with the whole squad together. Because that's what this club needs. That's also what I've been talking about so many times last season and this season also. This mindset. Because that's the mindset I want to see. That's the mindset I'm living in. Every time to turn around it."
Reflecting on fan criticism from comments after Aberdeen game
"Which comments? Because, to be honest, I didn't read everything."
"No, but that's not totally true because now you're only talking about the things that were positive in that game or we could have said about the toenail. It's an important thing in a game. In the momentum of a game, if you're that close offside or not, when you score a goal or not, nobody can argue that it's a decisive thing in that game. If that was not the case, it was a 2-2, so it's a decisive one.
"I didn't say that everything was good, that I was happy with how we get goals against or how we get chances against. I didn't say that totally. I didn't say also that it was a great performance. I didn't say it was the best performance. I gave also credit to Aberdeen, what they did. So, there are several things that we can do much better and we need to do better to get more consistent results in that way.
"But we played also worse games like that this season. That's also the truth. And we need to get to a better consistent level like we had a few times this season. I want to see that every three days and for sure on the basics. And then you make faults, like everything makes faults, but our basics need to be solid all the time. So, that's what I miss the most."
