Kris Boyd has given a gloomy assessment of Philippe Clement’s future prospects as Rangers boss, arguing a change is needed after the club slipped further behind Celtic in the Scottish Premiership.
Rangers’ poor away form continued on Thursday with a 1-1 draw against Dundee which left them 15 points behind their rivals at the top of the table.
They started the game at Dens Park with just three wins in 10 league matches away from Ibrox, and were unable to mount a turnaround to improve that record after a goalless second half which followed Vaclav Cerny canceling Oluwaseun Adewumi’s opener.
The result provided more ammunition to those who believe Clement’s time at Ibrox should be up, with the club’s away supporters showing their displeasure at the full-time whistle.
“It’s just excuse after excuse,” said former Rangers striker Boyd. Aerial sports. “Rangers have a team that should come here and wipe the floor with Dundee but they are hanging on.
“Thirteen points from 33 away is a shame. You can talk about progress but there is none. You are talking about tired players lacking confidence. You completely destroyed Celtic a week or so ago 10 days – you destroyed them.
“And you struggle for confidence. You lose two, you draw and you lose a game before the Celtic game. There was no struggle for confidence before the Celtic game.
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Rangers manager Philippe Clement reacts to his side’s 1-1 draw against Dundee amid growing pressure from supporters.
“And now after that you’ve drawn again and there’s a lack of confidence in them. It just doesn’t make sense.
“I look at the club at the moment and on the pitch it is broken. There is no pattern of play, there is nothing. You always refer to the Celtic game as Rangers’ best performance this season.
“But it can’t be a one-off, we know that. It’s an absolute shame that Rangers are in this position.
Rangers’ Hamza Igamane responds to Dundee’s opener
“And you can see you haven’t spent any money. There has been money spent. Yes, there has been cost reduction, but there has been money spent.
“There’s no improvement. We also talked about the injuries getting better. I mean, it’s actually worse.
“You can talk about moving players around and having to play extra minutes. Guess what? You’re a football player. That’s what you get paid to do, is play minutes.
“There is no progress. It’s done.
“It’s over [Rangers CEO] Patrick Stewart now, because I’ll tell you right now, these are the last two away games we’ve played.
“These fans have had enough and it’s going to get to the stage where they stop coming to games and then you’ll see the real problems start to materialize for Rangers because this can’t continue.
Sutton: Brendan opens champagne
Dundee’s Oluwaseun Adewumi celebrates after scoring
Chris Sutton on Sky Sports:
“Philippe Clément must take responsibility, but the players on the pitch must also have the knowledge and understanding necessary to win matches.
“You look at the Rangers team and you wonder, ‘Does the shirt fit a lot of these players?’ I’ve said it before, there’s a losing mentality within the club and nothing has really changed And this does not only concern Philippe Clément.
“This has been happening for years and years. And you see how tasteless that performance was tonight. Celtic are laughing at them.
Rangers conceded first at Dens Park
“Brendan Rodgers, he’ll open the champagne tonight and make fun of them. It’s embarrassing that it’s the start of January and Celtic are 15 points clear at the top. It’s shocking and unbelievable.
“We were talking before the match, me and Kris [Boyd] thought that Philippe Clément should have left a long time ago. But they now find themselves at a crossroads, because can this continue? The club is in decline.
“So are we going to look at that or is Patrick Stewart going to look at the bigger picture and not just a game against Celtic where they raise the level of the game or, you know, the odd game in Europe?
“Clement will come and talk about the fact that Celtic have a bigger budget, but Rangers shouldn’t lose 19 points against teams who have much lower budgets than them, and he never talks about it.
“We hear excuses week after week now. And it’s not enough. And it’s time for him to take ownership, but he won’t.
“But this Belgian waffle will keep going and going and going. It won’t stop until a decision is made about it.”
Clément: I have the support of the board of directors “200%”
Philippe Clément says the Rangers board is “200 per cent” behind him. Asked if he was confident that the board, which has a new chief executive in Patrick Stewart, still supports him 100 percent, the Belgian boss replied: “Yes, 200 percent percent.
“We talk every day about everything, about January, about next season, about everything. Yes, of course the fans are unhappy.
“We are also unhappy, we are all unhappy to lose these three points. The fans are always behind us when we are good, when we play good games. So today it was not a good game.
Vaclav Cerny celebrates after scoring to make it 1-1
“So I understand that they are unhappy with that. I know these supporters, that they don’t give up as soon as we show quality. It’s about showing quality on the pitch and then they are directly behind it. team, always.
“So it’s our task to do it as quickly as possible. It starts on Sunday, to show quality again and on both sides of the game. Not only offensively, but also defensively.
“Today, defensively, it was better compared to the last away games. In that way, it’s positive. The game that Clinton Nsiala played for his first game with Rangers, a positive.
“But at the end of the day it’s of course about results. A lot of points have been lost in the last two or three weeks.”
