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The National (Scotland)
The National (Scotland)
Sport
Ewan Paton

Philippe Clement quizzed over Todd Cantwell Rangers substitution

Todd Cantwell made up for last time as the attacking midfielder made an important contribution to Rangers' victory over St Mirren.

Philippe Clement caused a stir as he opted to substitute the former Norwich City and Bournemouth player after just 35 minutes against Aris Limassol in the Europa League.

He was played off the right in that game, with Sam Lammers playing in his preferred number ten position. Ross McCausland was subbed on in favour of Cantwell, who was visibly frustrated at the manager's decision. 

He started in this afternoon's win over St Mirren at Ibrox. He was highly influential in the game, as he pulled the strings in the attacking third for the hosts. He grabbed both assists for Abdallah Sima's goals.

Clement was happy with Cantwell's response to a disappointing evening on Thursday.

"It was good and more what we expected of him. He had a good game on the ball, but also off the ball," said the Belgian. "He was in the right positions and was decisive with two assists.

"That's why I changed him in the last five minutes, to give him that welcome (from the fans) because on Thursday he was really disappointed in his own performance. He knew it wasn't at his standards."

Sima continued to look like a shrewd addition to the squad with a great performance in front of goal. The on-loan Brighton attacker - who has just become a new dad - had looked rather sluggish in recent weeks, however, he was razor-sharp in this one.

Clement explained: "We spoke about that in the last couple of days. He needs to be in these positions in the box more and needs to use his power more. Last week was a little bit less but he's a first-time father with a baby in the house, taking are of your wife and the baby crying, so a little bit less sleep, a little bit less fresh. That's part of life and is also important.

"But he took good lessons. He's now sleeping before games in a separate room to take his rest. We talked about that and he had a good performance today."

The player himself commented: “It’s not been easy for me the last week, you know? The last week was really hard.

“Someone said to me that having a new baby would be hard but I said, ‘No worries, I’ll do it. But after one week I know just how hard it is to be a dad!

“My girlfriend is called Mama and I’m just so lucky to have these girls now in my life. I’m really happy with how life is going here. I’m really enjoying every moment.

“We’ve had a lot of help from the club. They’ve helped me a lot and been really good with me and my partner. So today I’m so happy to score goals for my daughter and for my team."

Nils Koppen was appointed as the club's new head of recruitment on Friday evening. Clement is thrilled to get him in the door having missed out on working together in Belgium.

He added: “I had been talking with all the candidates together with the members of the board. The first time I talked with Nils we said it was a pity that we missed each other in Genk. We were there six months when I was working with the first team and he was working in the academy. He left after six months and went to PSV and that year we won the championship and he missed the big party. So I didn’t know him before we first talked but of course I took some information from people who worked with him in PSV and Genk. Everybody was really positive.

“It’s a very important position. I don’t want to look too much to the past in the last couple of months. I want to look to the future. He’s somebody who knows a lot of players, he has a lot of information and works data-wise really well.

"He has a lot of experience around that. He’s someone we need in the club to guide our recruitment and to find in this pool the best fish. But we have to really early with that as there are a lot of people in the same pool. We all think in the club that Nils can help with that.”

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