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The National (Scotland)
The National (Scotland)
Sport
Stewart Wilson

The reason Philippe Clement went 'absolutely mental' at Cyriel Dessers

It was a comfortable afternoon for Rangers at Hampden as they progressed to the League Cup final after defeating Hearts 3-1.

A double from captain James Tavernier and a strike from Scott Wright saw the Ibrox side book their place in next month's showpiece.

However, Light Blues boss Philippe Clement was keen for his team to keep the tempo going right until the final whistle.

And according to ViaPlay pundit Michael Stewart, the Belgian was going "mental" at striker Cyriel Dessers in the dying embers of the game.

He said: "If you look at Clement, he's going absolutely mental at Cyriel Dessers. It's the 90th minute and he still wants him to run."

The Nigeria international came off the bench after the game was already wrapped up but this did not stop him from getting an earful from his manager.

Clement was full of praise for his players at full time, though. Speaking to BBC Sportsound, he said: "Tav played a good game, but a lot of players played a good game. It is also about the hard work of the team that the opponent gets tired in the second half.

"Scott did a good job, and I am happy Tom Lawrence came in, Cyriel got minutes, Danilo played a good game, Sam Lammers played a good game, and it is good we can change players because we have to do that with playing every three days.

""It is important to have a bigger squad ready. I am really happy with the performance because I know how hard it is to play against a team like Hearts with their qualities, structure and resilience so we had a really important evening with our football to create chances and we did not give away too much."

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