9 Rangers presser headlines as Philippe Clement 'throws away principles' and promises major transfer overhaul

Philippe Clement has promised Rangers fans there will be major changes this summer and admitted the overhaul will be much bigger than he first expected.

The Ibrox boss has been taken aback by the physical condition of his squad since taking over the reins in October and reiterated his disbelief at the number of injuries that have occurred over the campaign. Clement will get the chance to put that right at the end of the season as he clears out the dressing room and brings in new faces who he believes will be able to cope with the physical and mental demands required for a club like Rangers.

The Belgian confirmed he had held positive talks with the board about structural changes across the club as he strives to transform Gers into a team of winners. The Light Blues have the chance to ease the pain of suffering yet more title agony at the hands of Celtic by beating their Old Firm rivals in next week's Scottish Cup Final. Clement issued a comprehensive injury update ahead of tomorrow's trip to Tynecastle as the curtain closes on a rollercaster Premiership campaign. Here, Football Scotland picks out the nine key headlines from today's press conference at Auchenhowie.

Title race is over

I'm disappointed because I want to win everything so you want to become champion. But in the end, we started seven points behind the first day we stepped into the building and we could not in that period close that gap of taking more than seven point of Celtic. We took one point more until now in that period but not enough, so that was seven. I'm really disappointed about that. You need to leave that behind and take the good conclusions on how to make things better for next season. And already before this game, I'm very focused on how to improve things for the future

Planning for the future

I think it's important to say that I had very good talks with the board about that. My ideas are in the club about what to change towards recruitment, positions, all those things. Let's say we are almost everything aligned. That's a big thing. In other clubs that's sometimes more difficult. So that's the first step. The second step is to do it. You can have amazing plans but you need to execute them. So we are still busy looking at all the departments we can do better and to make the right conclusions. Secondly, to do the right things and make things better next season. You can say things but you need to do and see things. Promises or plans is not enough. It's about how you execute them. So we're going to see that in the next weeks and months. I'm really convinced that the will is there in the club. That was also the point of me coming here. I felt that the people in the club wanted to make steps, work hard and were also honest in many ways about what was going wrong with the club six months ago. That was also important that there was honesty and the honesty is still there now. I feel everyone is really engaged to make things better. I know they are emotions now and that's normal when you don't get your goal and the goal is always to become champion. But it's also important to take the right conclusions. It's not that the last six months nothing has happened here. There are right steps being made. We are all very ambitious and me in the first place, to make things a lot better.

Conducting transfer business early

I think every manager wants everybody in tomorrow - maybe not tomorrow, let's say the first week of training. We want that, I know all the recruitment departments are working day and night towards that. But those are things you can have ideas about, but it's never the reality because it's not always about you. It's about other clubs, making deals with them and making deals with other players. We need to be fast-ready because you're going to go in a pre-season that needs to be hard. The foundations physically of the dressing room are not good enough to play at high intensity three days a week. That's one of the reasons for so many injuries. That's clear, an easy conclusion. These new players coming in need a really good preparation and be acclimatised with our way of playing and to learn the principles. In the month of August we have nine games with two qualifying rounds in the Champions League and five competition games. That's already a tough start. I did it before with Brugge. We had a core group that you could implement a few extra factors to make things better. Here, we need a bigger rebuild so that's an even bigger challenge before to get the results that everyone is expecting.

How far are the players off the level you are looking for?

It doesn’t matter how far. It doesn’t matter. It is difficult because it is individual cases. There are players who played almost everything. It is all individual cases but it is clear if you have every month nine, ten, eleven players out and it changes with some are playing and then another one falls out because one who comes back has to play too much, you are in a vicious circle. We need to break this circle to make the players more robust, make them more strong, make the squad more strong. Like this to have a team where you can compete all the time. If you have so many players out, for any team in the world, it is a problem. This is a vicious circle that has been going on for a few years, it is not the first season it has happened. It is now time to make the right conclusion and to break them.

Injury news and Scottish Cup Final returns

Sima will be back in the selection to play some minutes but very little. Ryan Jack is the same. He can also be selected for a few minutes. And then Leon Balogun, there is still a question mark. We still see tomorrow how he is, but he is also close to coming back into the squad. But that's after just a few training sessions. I also had to throw away some principles in this situation. Before, players had to train one week or ten days before they were selectable. I cannot follow that through the last couple of months. I didn't have a choice because otherwise we wouldn't have a selection to play the games.

Structural changes

There are several things I want to change but we're in talks about that in the club. I think for the moment, I'm doing too much so it needs to be better delegated in the club. Is it a bigger overhaul than I first expected? Yes. The club has been honest about a lot of things but the injury issue has been bigger than I expected. There will be changes. What is significant? I think as a club we're at the end of a cycle so we need to change some stuff and I want them to end this cycle with a really big moment next Saturday.

Keeping Abdallah Sima permanently

That's about us, him and Brighton. We were really happy with what he showed. We see him as someone with the potential to grow. He's very happy in this building but there's a club that is his owner so you need to find an agreement. We will see what's going to happen there. You don't know what way that will go. It depends what their demands are and what we can pay.

Auditioning for Scottish Cup Final places

Everybody has a fight to be in this Scottish Cup Final and to be at that great moment. Not everybody now because not everybody is training and we're missing a lot of players. John Souttar, Connor Goldson, Borna Barisic, John Lundstram, Tom Lawrence, Oscar Cortes, Rabbi Matondo and Danilo are not training. That's a lot. All the others have a chance to fight and show themselves. That's interesting now to see those things; who are pushing and who are fighting of other things. We're going to make a selection around that, but not only that, because that's a dangerous thing for me to say towards fans. Of course you need to think about the cup final now so I need to listen even more to my medical and performance staff about players who came out of the last game with some small things and it's risk for them to play 90 minutes so they need to play less minutes. I need to make a selection around that also looking at those things. So Ridvan Yilmaz cannot start the game because doing that would be high risk after his injury and the few minutes he's played now. That's one example, but we have several of those for the last couple of weeks. Kemar Roofe's still in the building. It depends on his level and I need to look at the future also.