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The National (Scotland)
The National (Scotland)
Sport
Aidan Smith

Philippe Clement provides Rangers injury update after victory over Hibs

Philippe Clement admits he will have to assess the fitness of his squad as Rangers prepare to take on Sparta Prague in the Europa League on Thursday. 

The Belgian Ibrox boss got off to a winning start in his first match as manager this afternoon as the Light Blues defeated Hibs 4-0 in Govan. 

Goals from Nico Raskin, Cyriel Dessers and a double from Abdallah Sima ensured Clement got off to a winning start at Rangers, but he admits he was disappointed to pick up a couple of injuries. 

Defender Borna Barisic was forced off after just eleven minutes with what appeared to be a thigh problem and attacking midfielder Scott Wright was also replaced late on with a problem. 

Updating on his squad at full-time, Clement explained: “Tomorrow morning we will look at how everybody comes in and how they have come out of this game. 

“I was not happy after ten minutes that I need to change the team already. 

“With Borna Barisic coming off, it is what it is. We will see in the next couple of days how it goes. 

“Also Scott Wright could not play the 90 minutes, so we will see how he is as well. 

“I am happy that Todd Cantwell could come in and get minutes to raise his level and the same with Danilo. 

“It was also good for young Ross McCausland to give him experience in these kinds of games at Ibrox. 

“We will see how everyone recovers from this game because we need to build physically. 

“Sparta Prague is a really good team, I have seen their two European games and we will need to be on our toes to get a result against them.” 

On the match itself, Clement added: “You saw even though it was only two days that we had to work with the players, they wanted to do the things we showed them in training. 

“You can see the guys who understand it fast, others need a bit more time, but every team is like that. 

“In general I saw what I wanted to see, what I expected to see and what I hoped I would see. 

“We played dominant attacking football with good pressing, we need to raise our physical levels in the next weeks and months, it will be an interesting task to do that.” 

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