Philippe Clement is confident James Tavernier is reaping the rewards of Rangers rotation - even if the Ibrox captain is not happy about it.
The Belgian manager hailed his captain after helping force the winner against St Johnstone as he pressured Jason Holt to turn into his own net.
Clement has limited Tavernier's numbers in recent weeks and reckons Tavernier showed his true quality in Perth as a result of his minutes being managed.
I'm convinced about that, yes," said Clement of reducing Tavernier's game time proving beneficial. "Is the player happy with that? Probably not.
"Like nobody is if they're not playing, but that's part of football. I had the luck that it didn't happen too much with me because I was a centre-back. That's different, but it's part of football.
"And for sure in modern football, you see it more and more. And this season will be the season with the most amount of games ever in a short period. So we will need this rotation and everybody to be happy in that way.
"He [Tavernier] can get all the credit today, for sure. And that's the Tav I want to see, who's decisive on the ball, but he's also decisive in the defensive actions. Scoring the goal is something extra, of course, but you see already if your right full-back is scoring on the goalline, that says also something about the intentions of our team today and how to play.
"That's what I want to see the rest of the season. And maybe people from outside, they see at a player's age and they write people really fast off. He showed today that he's still a very important player for this season and that he can make the difference in a lot of games."
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While Clement boxed smart with Tavernier's involvement, he has been less fortunate with injuries throughout the squad with Dujon Sterling missing due to a blocked nerve, Robin Propper forced off through a knee problem and Neraysho Kasanwirjo ruled out for up to six months after surgery.
"The operation for Nana was good, but he will be at least out for four to six months," the Ibrox boss said of Feyenoord defender Kasanwirjo. "So we cannot count on him.
"So we will see at the end of the season how things go. We have an agreement with Feyenoord that he will do his rehab also there. But I stay in touch with Nana, who was really disappointed not to continue the work he's been doing because he loves the club, he loves the dressing room, he even loves the staff - that doesn't happen much!
"So we will see at the end of the season how it will be with him, but we cannot count on him the next couple of months.
"And Dujon, that's unlucky because it's not a real injury. It's a blocked nerve. So he has to go to the specialist to unblock it, to get treatment around that. Because of that, he was not available today.
"We will see if he's available on Wednesday or not. It's not a long-term thing, but those things happen. It's nothing to do with training."
On Propper, who was replaced by Leon Balogun, Clement added: "He got a knock on his knee in the first-half and he was struggling with that. And he's also sick after the game [on Thursday], so he felt really bad.
And Leon is ready, we know. So I was in doubt already to start with Leon or not today. We will make rotation also in those positions, that it won’t be the same centre-back every time."
Reflecting on the narrow win, Clement said: "That it was a good performance. The only thing we missed is to score a second, third or fourth goal, to finish off the game earlier and to kill the belief of the opponent.
"At the end, it's also crucial to not concede chances, so we have for the second time in a row only one shot on target from the opponent.
"Last week it was a goal, today it was not. And we need to continue in that way, keeping clean sheets and being defensively strong. And I don't speak only about defence, it's all the team working hard for that. So I see a lot of improvements with all the squad in what they are doing.
"It's now continuing all these things, what we talked about in the last weeks and months and the mistakes we made, to take it out of the game. And then in the final third, sometimes to have better positioning, sometimes to have better decision-making also. [It’s] still a work in progress. "
