Clement: Injury-hit Rangers will go all out to win cup final
Philippe Clement insists Rangers will give “all the energy” they have to win next Saturday’s Scottish Gas Scottish Cup final against Celtic at Hampden Park.
The Light Blues boss will assess his depleted squad following the 3-3 draw with Hearts in their final cinch Premiership game of the season at Tynecastle on Saturday.
For what essentially was a dead rubber, there was plenty of excitement with Jambos skipper Lawrence Shankland opening the scoring in the first half with his 31st goal of the season for Hearts.
The makeshift Ibrox side responded and second-half goals from Ross Mccausland, Todd Cantwell and substitute Fabio Silva put the visitors – consigned to second place in the Premiership behind champions Celtic – in a seemingly commanding position.
However, Dexter Lembikisa’s volley in the 82nd minute gave Steven Naismith’s thirdplaced Jambos hope before another Jambos substitute, Kyosuke Tagawa, levelled in the last of five added minutes with a terrific finish.
Clement gave time to Abdallah Sima and Dujon Sterling following their injuries and Ridvan Yilmaz also got more minutes off the bench but Tom Lawrence, Rabbi Matondo, John Souttar, Leon
Balogun and Borna Barisic are facing a race to be fit for next week’s final, where the Belgian boss is promising one last push.
He said: “First we will see who is available for every training day and make a plan with medical staff and performance staff, who can play how many minutes. It is going to be a puzzle like that.
“We don’t have 22 players who can play 90 minutes. That is not the case at the moment.
“We have to make a good plan to win this cup final.
“It is a huge thing for everybody at the club and we are going to put all the energy we have into winning that.”
On Saturday afternoon’s developments, which left Rangers eight points behind Celtic at the end of the league season, Clement said: “We should have won this game.
“When you have 10 shots on target and score three goals it needs to be better and if you get four shots on target (against you) and three goals against you it needs to be better also and I am not speaking about Jack (Butland).
“It is disappointing to lose the points in the last five seconds of the game but there are the lessons we take with young boys who make mistake and we need to work on that for the rest of the week with all the players who will be available for this cup final, to show our best and win this cup final and in one game everything is possible.”
Hearts boss Steven Naismith, left, took great delight in Tagawa's last gasp equaliser that sparked joyous scenes between players and fans at full-time.
"It rounded the season off nicely," he said. "He's somebody who has had a hard season but all the wee 50-50 breaks that players get in games, he's been on the wrong side all season.
"He's had ones that have just gone past the post, he's had ones where he's just not got his shot away or his touch has let him down, but in the last two games he's shown his quality, scoring two goals and his movement is really good."
It is a huge thing for the club and we are going to put all the energy we have into winning it