Philippe Clement sack verdict shared after Rangers cup final loss to Celtic
Aiden McGeady believes Philippe Clement has bought himself a “bit of time” at Rangers despite their Scottish League Cup final defeat on Sunday.
The game ended 3-3 at the end of the 120 minutes before Celtic prevailed on penalties at Hampden after Ridvan Yilmaz missed his penalty.
The game was extremely end-to-end and full of drama, with Danilo managing to level the score at 3-3 just a minute after Brendan Rodgers’ men went 3-2 up late on in normal time.
Speaking about the future of Clement at Rangers on the Scottish Football Podcast (16 December, 11m 55s), McGeady shared why he thinks the Belgian is not at immediate risk of being sacked.
“He’s definitely bought himself a bit of time but I think he needed to do that. If you’re a Rangers manager, you have to be winning games,” he said.
“Celtic are so far in front in the league just now that you’re not going to say it’s done yet but you have to still be winning games and you shouldn’t be looking to catch Aberdeen.
“That’s not what Rangers do; Aberdeen are not the benchmark. He has bought himself a bit of time but I think a couple of results in Europe has galvanised the supporters.
“With the performances over the last few weeks, he can build on this now but in football. People have short memories so you know, if you don’t carry on this momentum and these good performances then we could be repeating ourselves here.”
Philippe Clement can’t let the form of hs Rangers team drop after their defeat
As McGeady mentioned, the last month or so of results from the Gers have no doubt galvanised their supporters and got them behind their team this season.
Ever since their 4-1 victory over Nice in the Europa League, things have been on the up for Rangers and it feels like they’re finally finding their feet, despite their loss in the final..
Their performances in the Europa League and Scottish League Cup have been impressive but in order for Clement to fully win fans over, it feels like his main focus should now be on the Scottish Premiership.
However, now that they’ve been defeated by their arch-rivals in what was likely one of the most important games of their season, Clement needs to motivate his men to seek vengeance and start their winning streak again.
They currently sit third in the league and unless they can find the form they showed before the cup final over the next few weeks, it’s hard to see how they’ll have a say in the title race this term, which, for a team of their calibre, is far from ideal.
In other Rangers news, Leon Balogun has left a BBC commentator in awe after what he did against Celtic.
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