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

Philippe Clement responds to Rangers fan frustration as he defends Todd Cantwell sub

Philippe Clement was understanding of Rangers fan frustration following the club's lacklustre display against Aris Limassol in the Europa League.

The Ibrox side stumbled to a 1-1 draw against their Cypriot opponents when a spot on the last 16 of the competition was on the line at Ibrox.

A Ross McCausland second-half strike ultimately guaranteed Gers European football beyond Christmas, but Clement admits the performance was far from easy on the eye.

He explained: "We all want to win and the fans want to win because we know that today we can qualify for the next stage of the Europa League.

"We qualified for the Conference League this evening which means European football after the winter break and that's also important.

"We still have a tough game in Betis where we can play for first place. I understand people are frustrated because we felt that we needed one moment to win the game.

"That's what we missed today in the last third, not decisive enough, not precise enough and we didn't score the second goal."

Clement also justified his decision to hook Todd Cantwell from the action after just 35 minutes, when McCausland was brought on as his replacement.

The Englishman cut a frustrated figure as he made his into the home dugout and Clement insists his display was not good enough.

He added: "We didn't create any depth on the right side with Todd, he was coming into the ball all of the time and that was not the idea.

"Then we created an easy game for them, what they like. I wanted to have more width on the right side and create more actions behind their defence.

"What Ross did, he did in a good way was be high - and he scored a goal like that.

"They are all important but they need to show they want to be in the team but it's an impossible job to have all 28 happy because it's 11 places every three days.

"The players that show themselves every training session and every game will get the most chances to play.

"I have no problem with Todd, he did a good job in the last couple of weeks. Today it was less good so another guy comes in and does the job for the team. We are a team together."

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