Injury-hit Rangers will ‘not park bus’ as they go for win
◆ Clement welcomes hectic schedule ahead of Benfica tie and says his side aim to attack despite missing four wingers
Philippe Clement revealed Rangers directors once suggested he prioritise domestic football over European aspirations as the Belgian boss prepared for tonight’s Europa League clash against Benfica.
The Ibrox squad arrived in Lisbon for the first leg of their last-16 tie amid a busy fixture schedule.
Clement took over from Michael Beale in October and had to beat Real Betis in their final Europa League group game in Spain in December before the Viaplay Cup final against Aberdeen at Hampden Park.
Rangers beat Real Betis 3-2 to qualify for the knockout stages of the Europa League and beat the Dons 1-0 to win the first trophy of the season.
Rangers are two points ahead of Celtic at the top of the cinch Premiership with a Scottish Cup tie against Hibernian to return to on Sunday, but Clement insists European football is not a distraction.
He said: “No. I said that in December when there were some people on the board before our European game that it was maybe more important to win the League Cup.
“No (surprise) because it was with good intentions. The hunger to win a trophy again was so big in the club that everybody wanted to put emphasis on that. But after our night in Spain they were also really happy and after winning the League Cup they were even more happy.
“I told them I never work that way. I want players hungry for every occasion who want to win every occasion. It doesn’t work that way. It’s not like a menu in a restaurant that you pick up. Like that, you don’t create a winning culture.
“So, OK, it’s a busy schedule, that’s true. But it’s about us working really hard with the players and the staff to get the players ready and also the players themselves showing that they are ready for that kind of competition.
“We are going to go full for this game, full at the weekend and go full until the end of the season.”
Clement has an injury crisis with wingers Abdallah Sima, Rabbi Matondo, Scott Wright and Oscar Cortes out – albeit the latter is not in Rangers’ European squad – while Ross
Mccausland is a doubt after being taken off with a knock in the 2-1 defeat by Motherwell at the weekend.
However, the former Monaco boss insists he will not be “parking the bus”.
“We are missing four wingers tomorrow,” he said. “Ross maybe also, we will see. He did the warm-up today and didn’t train with the team he did individual work. We will see tomorrow if he is available to play some minutes or not.
“The other four wingers are out. I have five wingers and maybe five of them will be out. That’s a bad situation.
“We miss two playmakers with Kieran Dowell and Todd Cantwell and one striker with Danilo. So that is a lot of offensive quality that we miss tomorrow. It’s about finding other solutions. It’s a challenge and as a coach you need to see if you stick with the same system or do you change? I had to think about that with my staff. What to do in this situation and against an opponent like Benfica. How to play.
“I don’t believe in parking the bus and only defending – I have never done that. “Whether it was with smaller teams playing in Madrid or Paris against PSG or playing in Leipzig with Club Brugge – we always attacked to win games.
“I don’t think that if you have a culture of that and I am working on it every day to create chances to score goals, that for one game you do the total opposite.
“The moment you get a goal against you kill the minds of your players.
“So we will always fight to create chances, like we did in Spain when we defended really well and attacked also.
“So it’s going to be the same here. We need to defend really well and show a lot of qualities that way.”
Clement’s counterpart Roger Schmidt is looking for Benfica to bounce back from their weekend Porto pummelling with a “complete performance” against Rangers.
The Eagles were hammered 5-0 by their bitter rivals in the Estadio do Dragao on Sunday which left the German boss “shocked”.
Schmidt insisted that he was pleased to get the chance to make amends so soon.
He said: “First of all we are
very happy to play again because of course we were all disappointed and also a bit frustrated about the result.
“And then the next step is always a good opportunity to show a different performance and to show good football and this is our task for tomorrow.
“So the third different competition in seven days we have to play and we know in the last-16 of this competition you always have tough opponents and I think Glasgow Rangers is a very good team.
“They are first in the Scottish League and they are playing very straight, very direct football with a lot of transition, lot of deep runs, a lot of crosses.
“We want to show a good reaction after Sunday. After the match, we were all a little bit shocked about the result and of course we were also not happy with the performance.
“But at the end we have to accept it. The match is played so we cannot get the three points back anymore.
“So my task, especially when there’s a lot of noise around the team and the players, is to be 100 per cent concentrated to prepare the team in the best way to analyse the opponent and then to have a good approach for the upcoming match. So that’s the only thing in my head at the moment.”
We are going to go full for this game, full at the weekend and go full until the end of the season