Rangers boss brands Dundee's waterlogged pitch 'crazy situation'

Philippe Clement has hit out at the “crazy situation” surrounding the Dens Park playing surface and urged officials to make a decision on Wednesday night’s game as soon as possible.

Rangers travel to Tayside to take on Dundee in the hope of leapfrogging Celtic into pole position going into the last six games of the season.

But the playing surface is once again causing anguish and doubts that the game will be able to go ahead.

The fixture was postponed before the international break last month – making it Dundee’s fourth home tie of the season to be called off.

On Saturday, their game against Motherwell got the go ahead less than two hours before kick-off after the pitch passed a late inspection.

However, the visitors weren’t too convinced about the decision and spoke of their concerns for the players due to the condition of the surface following a week of rain.

The area has again been hit by heavy rainfall this week, leading to doubts over the Rangers game going ahead and Clement says the recurrence of the same issue is not a good look for the league.

When asked how confident he was that the game would go ahead he said: “I don’t know, it’s a crazy situation that in a top league you don’t know the day before a game if it will go ahead.

“We are going to travel there today and stay in a hotel and we still don’t yet know for sure if the game will be on on or not.

“So that is a really weird situation, ok it can happen in extreme circumstances but I don’t think in the last few years in all the top leagues that it has ever happened.

“But now every time it is raining in Scotland there is a problem, and it’s not as if there is a lot of sunny days in Scotland.

“It is a bad situation for the league I think, and also for Dundee themselves. I don’t think they will be happy with the situation.”

The Belgian, who is coming off the back of an exciting 3-3 Old Firm draw on Sunday, would like a decision to be made earlier so he can better prepare his side for the challenge ahead.

Speaking on Tuesday he said: “I haven’t seen the pitch, I haven’t been on the pitch, it was clear the last time we were there that it was dangerous for both teams and it was not playable, so we will see if it will be another situation like that, but at the end I won’t be the one who decided this. It will be the referee who decides.

“I would prefer the decision to be today, because you want to prepare for games, but both clubs and the federation are speaking about that.

“Of course, you want that, not only for us to prepare, but if it is not possible you want to see what the alternative is, and then you need to find an alternative elsewhere because we don’t have much time anymore because it is the split next week.

“So it’s clear we would need an alternative and to play the game as soon as possible, so I think these things give a really bad image to the league and it needs to be solved in the future so that this is not possible anymore.”

Rangers currently sit a point behind league leaders Celtic but have a game in hand over their city rivals meaning a win at Dundee will put them back in to the driving seat ahead of this weekend’s fixtures.