Philippe Clement says 'No one is putting more pressure on me to succeed at Rangers than myself'

Philippe Clement says no one is putting more pressure on him to be a success at Rangers than himself after getting back to winning ways with victory over Dundee United at Tannadice.

The manager and his players have come under a bit of criticism this season following an underwhelming start that leaves them trailing Celtic and Aberdeen by five points after just five games.

But he insists he sees a lot of potential in his young squad and believes they are only going to get stronger and continue to improve in the weeks and months ahead.

Speaking after a Tom Lawrence strike sealed a 1-0 win in Tayside on Sunday, the Belgian said: “There is nobody putting more pressure on myself than me, I want to win every game, I am disappointed and I hate to lose, so I hated that and I wanted a reaction from the team.

“It is also my job to keep everything calm at the right moments, I believe really hard in the potential of this squad.

“We are going to improve and become stronger and stronger.

“This is a hard place to come to, we knew that Dundee United are in a good place, winning promotion and having a really good start in the Premiership and they deserve all the points that they have.

“So we knew it was going to be a tough game, but we started very well and we scored a really good first goal.

“In the second-half it was more of a fight because Dundee United pressed high and were more aggressive, and we had moments that we have to do better to score the second and third goal to kill off the game.

“But there are a lot of positives, when you look at the number of new players who are out on the pitch today, some don’t even know all the names of their teammates yet, like Nedim, so we are building and it is getting better week by week.”

The game came 24 hours after John Bennett announced he was standing down as Rangers chairman for health reasons.

While Clement admits that was not the news that anyone wanted, and wished Bennett well, he is adamant that his own role won’t change and he will continue to be the voice of the club going forward.

He said: “That is not something that you want, of course, I was probably one of the first to hear from John about it during the week when he explained everything to me.

“It’s not his decision, it is a doctor’s decision, so it is with a lot of pain in the heart that he had to leave his position, and I wish him all the best to recover as fast as possible.

“He won’t be away, he will be there from a distance but he will need to keep that distance now to recover first.

“I think until now I have been the only one talking outside, so that doesn’t change too much, maybe it will change now, we will see.

“I am not the guy who brings in the cash or the money into the club, my job is to get the best out of the players who are in the building and to look for new ones together with the recruitment team and to make the right decisions with the budget we have.

“That is my job and I will continue in that way, but I also had a lot of talks with James (Bisgrove) and with John about strategic things regarding the future of the club and how to make things better in the club and in Scottish football and I think that will continue with the new people.”