PHILIPPE Clement tonight insisted that Rangers captain James Tavernier had deserved the warm applause he received from the Ibrox club’s supporters when he came off in the Premier Sports Cup quarter-final win over Dundee.
Tavernier was targeted for sickening personal abuse in the wake of the 3-0 defeat the Glasgow club suffered at the hands of their city rivals Celtic in a William Hill Premiership match at Parkhead at the start of the month.
Clement expressed his unhappiness at the individuals who had “crossed a certain line” in the wake of the Old Firm loss after watching the defending champions ease into the semi-finals with a comfortable 3-0 triumph in Govan.
But the Belgian admitted he was pleased with the reaction of his skipper – who set up the opening goal against Dundee in the first half and then scored a penalty in the second - to the derby loss and with his showing in the cup tie.
Asked about the ovation which Tavernier received, Clement said: “It's normal I think. He played a good game. He deserves that.
“Maybe after the Celtic game we have a few individuals who are crossing a certain line. That's not good. I understand the frustration. But there are a lot of people who understand the value that they've had and have for this squad. That's also good for him to feel that.
“But that's the life of being a captain in a big club. You're the symbol in the good days and then it's nice like today. And in the difficult days you're also the one everybody looks at. But that's life of being a captain or a manager in that kind of club. “You need to embrace that also. And he did. In the last couple of weeks he worked hard. He wanted to dig in, to come back strong. He helped all the young lads in their integration also because he has an important job in that also.”
Clement confessed he had been buoyed to see Rangers, who have been forced to play their home games at Hampden due to the delayed redevelopment of the Copland Stand, play at Ibrox for the first time this season.
The win over Dundee meant that his side booked a return to the national stadium for the semi-final. He joked: “Can we not play one time at Ibrox this semi-final? We've been enough in Hampden.”
He added: “I'm pleased about the goals, but also about the clean sheet. That's very important. I'm pleased also with so many new faces contributing. This was their first time at Ibrox, the first time that they feel the energy, that they feel the fans. “You cannot describe that. I said it this week, it felt like 10 years. We've been playing like two to three months only away games. So that's really difficult as a team. So we were super happy to be back. I'm happy also that the players could give this performance also. “Because we wanted to give the fans something special. But of course we should have scored maybe six or seven today. And to be more clinical in that way. We need to keep on working on that.
“The fans can see also the new players coming in and performing already well. But it's just the start of a story. so I see also a lot of things we still can improve. So I'm hungry about that.” Clement singled out Jefte, the Brazilian winger who acquitted himself well at left back in the absence of Ridvan Yilmaz once again, for special praise following Rangers’ second successive win.
“We wanted him already in January and he wanted to come also,” he said. “But at that moment it was stopped by his team. But we stayed in touch all these months. And he showed also a real desire to come and to fight for that. “It was the end of a cycle. We had a lot of players in the squad who were over their best period. We had seven players going out of the building for free. There were some we wanted to keep, but they could earn much more money somewhere else. So they made that choice. So it was a hard way to start a rebuild. “It just started that way. We could not do everything in one window. But it's good now that people start to see the young talented players who came in. That they have the quality now or for the future for sure to become important players.
“I understand that in the beginning there was scepticism about that because players coming in who never played at this level. So fans want to see that.
“But if I learned one thing about this club. Is that the fans know really well what quality is. And they desire quality. So we've been looking for that in the pool with the money we had. That was not much compared to other teams. To find real quality for short term but for sure for the longer term.”
