Philippe Clement looks back on his time as Rangers manager

"It's a pity that the story stopped, that the board didn't have the patience, or maybe listened too much to some fans," he says.

"There are other clubs where there is a difficult moment and everybody sticks together because everybody knows the story, how the work is done inside the building, and they continue and they are successful afterwards.

"In three or four windows, we could have closed the gap [to Celtic] with a good development of players, but the decision is made and you need to accept it."



Sorry, does that say he wanted 3 or 4 more windows and then the gap would have closed?

Guy didn’t get it at all.
 
Was dealt a tough hand with the financial situation and the mess at Ibrox last summer wouldn’t have helped either but I still think he took that deal as a sweetener for dealing with the shite.

I do think there is a decent-ish manager in th there somewhere but he just got swallowed whole by the glasgow pressure. By the time he left it was just contradiction after contradiction, could barely listen to him
 
Not the best pic they could have chosen, makes him look like Doofy from Scary Movie.

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The Hitman said:
"It's a pity that the story stopped, that the board didn't have the patience, or maybe listened too much to some fans," he says.

"There are other clubs where there is a difficult moment and everybody sticks together because everybody knows the story, how the work is done inside the building, and they continue and they are successful afterwards.

"In three or four windows, we could have closed the gap [to Celtic] with a good development of players, but the decision is made and you need to accept it."



Sorry, does that say he wanted 3 or 4 more windows and then the gap would have closed?

Guy didn’t get it at all.
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I stopped at that point, that means he wanted another 3 years before we competed with them.

Didn’t want him in the first place and I want to block him out of the Rangers managers I have seen in my lifetime.
 
Seemed to go astray in the March of his first season. If he did tell some players they would not get new contracts then that was a mistake. Levels dropped after that. He could have said it depended on winning the league and more money would then have been available due to direct entry to CL.
 
3 or 4 windows! By that reckoning, that mob would have been on 6 by then. Bit deluded from Clement to think he’d have lasted that long.
 
I don’t blame Clement for what unraveled during his stint. 100% the fault of the board for everything that happened during his spell in charge.

The state of the squad he inherited, the recruitment during it, the complete lack of footballing structure to support him…and the hampden fiasco.

He wasn’t without his faults, far from it (asking players to play in a more direct fashion who were completely unable to do so)
 
Unusual timing of the interview from BBC Scotland, just after we have appointed a new manager. A cynical person might think it is designed to try and open up a can of worms and take the shine away from the takeover and new management announcement. They have opened their comments section up for this one too.

Maybe reading too much into it, but is hard not to when Gollum was doing his piece on the new manager last week round the side of the stadium with a skip in the background.
 
If the scum had been beaten in the circumstances we were in the LCF there would have been near-riots afterwards and the papers and general media would have been on to it for months like a dog with a bone. But we just made a little noise for a day or two and then did the usual, we moved on. It was the same with the SCF the season before and all the goals we had chopped off in league matches with them.

I'm sick of us just accepting what amounts to cheating and/or incompetence. You would be more inclined to accept it as one of those things if you could point to a big game where a decision went against them but it's not happening. Perhaps if he'd been more vocal afterwards he'd still be with us, though I doubt it as he had his head in the sand at the end. That collapse in March last year is still inexplicable and yet he seemed to take no blame for any of it. I like the man himself but he had to go.
 
Glasgow Rangers (Sco) said:
I don’t blame Clement for what unraveled during his stint. 100% the fault of the board for everything that happened during his spell in charge.

The state of the squad he inherited, the recruitment during it, the complete lack of footballing structure to support him…and the hampden fiasco.

He wasn’t without his faults, far from it (asking players to play in a more direct fashion who were completely unable to do so)
Click to expand...

I dont blame Clement, with the proper resources and structure in place he would have been OK.
Same can be said for Gio
 
I stuck with backing Clement for a long time and liked some aspects of his personality. He was probably the image of a manager we all wanted in terms fo being a tough talker and not putting uo with nonsense from players like Cantwell. However queens park killed any hope of him going forward. He was done and it was clear some players werent playing for him.
 
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Blue Lou Boyle said:
For the first 4 months or so I thought we had our best manager since Sir Walter.

Then it all went tits up in the month of March 2024 and the collapse was horrendous.

By the end I was utterly sick of the sight of him.
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It was him constantly trying to tell us things were not as we were watching. Who cares if we have more possession or we had 37 shots on goal or whatever, our goals return was shockingly bad and we couldn't keep kids out of a close when it came to defending. After the Queen's Park defeat he said the players were nervous. It was bloody Queen's Park we were playing, not Real Madrid!

I felt sorry for him to a degree as I don't think he knew just how bad off we were when it came to finding money for transfers. But it felt like he was trolling us at times last season and you'll never get away with that.
 
The players liked him, but the more pressure he came under, the more he isolated himself and rigidly stuck to methods that many in the squad found excruciating. It was the same story at Monaco. The idea that a lack of structure behind the scenes was the only thing holding him back is complete nonsense. Philippe Clement's biggest enemy has always been Philippe Clement.

For what it's worth, he’d have been better off taking a leaf out of Gio's book and shelving the whole retrospective for now. Dropping this the same week Martin is appointed just looks poor.
 
The Hitman said:
"It's a pity that the story stopped, that the board didn't have the patience, or maybe listened too much to some fans," he says.

"There are other clubs where there is a difficult moment and everybody sticks together because everybody knows the story, how the work is done inside the building, and they continue and they are successful afterwards.

"In three or four windows, we could have closed the gap [to Celtic] with a good development of players, but the decision is made and you need to accept it."



Sorry, does that say he wanted 3 or 4 more windows and then the gap would have closed?

Guy didn’t get it at all.
Click to expand...
To be fair to Clement, the board clearly made a commitment to him last summer when it appeared he might walk that sounded like it was intended to transcend last season alone.

Would he have benefited from a better operational structure around him with more money and expertise to support his plans?

Quite probably, but ultimately, you can’t lose at home to lower league opposition in the one competition you could still realistically lift silverware in and expect to keep your job.

He was too stubborn and too inflexible and in that regards can have no real complaints.
 
The Hitman said:
"It's a pity that the story stopped, that the board didn't have the patience, or maybe listened too much to some fans," he says.

"There are other clubs where there is a difficult moment and everybody sticks together because everybody knows the story, how the work is done inside the building, and they continue and they are successful afterwards.

"In three or four windows, we could have closed the gap [to Celtic] with a good development of players, but the decision is made and you need to accept it."



Sorry, does that say he wanted 3 or 4 more windows and then the gap would have closed?

Guy didn’t get it at all.
Click to expand...
Frightening how still understand what it takes to manage us.

3 or 4 windows is 2 years. That's another potential 2 trebles, 2 league titles 2 years of potential CL money compared to us.

Not to mention acting like Queens Park was not that big of a deal
 
Don't think the timing is particularly good but dont think he says anything controversial.

Obviously circumstances have changed now in terms of funding so saying a other 3 or 4 windows to be competitive doesnt fit, but had the takeover not happened then it would certainly have been the case.

Always had my suspicions that it all fell apart due to contract situations in the first season, with guys being told they were moving on. Lundstram in particular went from a superstar to pub league player overnight, this kind of confirms that, doesnt it?
 
get to the final of the Scottish cup, win it and you might get another season. Losing to Queen’s Park AT HOME was the deal breaker
 
I wanted him to succeed like we all did. It didn’t work out he tried his best it just wasn’t good enough.
Don’t wish the guy any ill will all the best to him for the future. As long as it’s not with timmy or dolly.
 
Snakehips said:
Unusual timing of the interview from BBC Scotland, just after we have appointed a new manager. A cynical person might think it is designed to try and open up a can of worms and take the shine away from the takeover and new management announcement. They have opened their comments section up for this one too.

Maybe reading too much into it, but is hard not to when Gollum was doing his piece on the new manager last week round the side of the stadium with a skip in the background.
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That wasn't a skip, it was his bed for the night.
 
Clement is no longer the Rangers manager, and isn’t saying anything with an eye to how it impacts Rangers. His focus is on how it looks for his future career.

He’s not going to say “Rangers were cheated in the League Cup Final by corrupt officials” because to any hiring club in any other country that would make him sound like a nutter. So he’s telling any future employer he’s a good manager who was financially constrained and needed more time.

And saying nothing bad about Rangers. So fair play to him.
 
The story, finding the moments for the story. The right moments for the right story.

Jose was right about him, he’s more of a philosopher.
 
I always like hearing from previous managers to see how they reflect in the cold light of day, perhaps with a bit more perspective when out of the bubble. The biggest issue Rangers fans have is when a manager doesn't understand our minimum expectations. His persistent gaslighting suggests he never got it and put him firmly on the back foot with us supporters.
 
I'm sure if he was successful here, you wouldn't have heard a peep from him. BBC Scotland would rather have swept it under the carpet and tried to forget about it.
 
Massive ego for a very poor manager. Easily the worst football I’ve watched at Ibrox under him, the results terrible too. He seems very delusional. He failed badly in France and Scotland and is unlikely to get another job anytime soon outside of Belgium.
 
Another one full of soundbites that he knew would be enough to get enough dafties onboard to buy some time.

The story, the project, going to stop all those injuries, the synergy....as ever there are more than enough in our support to lap up a yarn they are spun.

Performances were bad, results were not good, signings weren't very good.

He has a shit show going on behind him, the same one that incredibly gave him a contarct extension.

He was on the rough end of some horrible officiating decisions but then who hasn't been at Rangers.

Ah well, we can now hear about it all on BBC.
 
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