Igamane's rapid Rangers rise gives lingering questions a final answer as he makes 'giant steps' in 3 crucial areas
Rangers suffered another significant step backwards as they threw away victory at Easter Road.
But Philippe Clement reckons Moroccan wonderkid Hamza Igamane has taken a huge leap forward with his Leith treble. It was a day of mixed emotions for the beleaguered Belgian as he watched with pride as his summer signing put on a fabulous finishing display to net his first Gers hat-trick.
But the 22-year-old’s hard work up top was undone by some brutal bits of defending as Hibs were twice allowed to level. That was hugely frustrating for a manager who thought he’d watched his team turn a corner with their derby demolition job on Celtic. Clement was still cursing his luck - and the penalty call he feels robbed his team of their momentum at the start of the second half - as he sat down for his post-match press conference. But he still found time to heap praise of his young striker.
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Asked of Igamane had given a fresh demonstration of why he has such high hopes for the former FAR Rabat ace, he said: “Yes, and it's about continuation in that way. I got a lot of questions at the beginning of the season about why we’d done that transfer. So it's good that people are seeing why now. Hamza is somebody who is really hungry to become better.
“He made giant steps the last three, four months, technically, tactically for sure, and even more physically, to cope to the rhythm that we play here in the league, to cope also to get more playing minutes, to be able to do that.
“So it's exciting to see a young guy, where we knew he had a lot of talent, but there was a lot of work to do with. I had a lot of contact with people in Morocco about that before we signed him, and everybody said he will need at least one year to be a starting XI player. So he's taking faster steps than people predicted.”
But while Clement’s delight at Igamane’s progress was obvious, so too was his anger at the way his side threw victory in the capital. Two-up from a rapid-fire Igamane double, Hibs hit back through Martin Boyle before levelling with the Easter Road skipper fired home from a penalty Clement insists should never have been given.
Ianis Hagi was the fall guy as he was penalised for a trip on Josh Campbell. John Beaton’s award was given the thumbs up by VAR but it was Gers who let the points slip through their fingers when Rocky Bushiri headed home just moments after Igamane had fired home his third.
“It's a frustrating afternoon to lose three points in different ways,” said Clement. “First, we played a really good first half, finding the spaces that we wanted to find, a good combination to play, good chances, good goals, defensively solid. Second half, you want to build on that, make the third goal, go for that and staying solid like that.
“It became more a game. Hibs came more into the game. They scored their goal then, but then the penalty situation I don't understand.
“It's a situation with a small collision between two players on top speed, where even the attacking players gets Ianis down by getting his legs from behind. Giving penalties like this, then you need to ask players with every contact to go down, which I don't want. That's not how you want football to be played. That was a very important moment in the game, because you create momentum for Hibs.
“We were leading, we were dominant on the ball, we didn't score the third goal, which would have made the difference. Then we come back, still to make the 2-3, and then it's disappointing on a set-piece to lose this header and to lose two points. But we know also the situation we are in, with so many defenders out.
“It's a disappointing afternoon to lose two points, because there were a lot of positives of the team also. But at the end, you will remember the results, and that's not good enough. That first half an hour in particular looked really good.”
Clement named the same side which put on a high-octane display to sweep past Celtic on Thursday. But he admits his men were running on fumes by the end of this six-goal thriller.
He said: “It has to do with freshness, in that way. That's normal also. For the moment, we don't have the depth to keep the same level with all the players.
“You try to make changes, or to create back this quality. But you saw that Ianis Hagiwas getting tired, that Nedim Bajrami was getting tired, that Vaclav Cerny was getting tired. So that's normal also, after all the series of games that they played until now.
“But still then, I'm confident if we don't get this penalty against, that Hibs don't come back into the game, because that momentum was for them really important, to create belief for them again. They had a really good period, they played really well the last couple of weeks, but we really dominated this game. And they get a lot of belief out of this penalty.”
