Rangers must make a decision on Philippe Clement – it is broken and away form this season has been a disgrace, says Kris Boyd | Football News

Kris Boyd has delivered a damning assessment of Philippe Clement’s future prospects as Rangers manager, arguing a change is necessary after the club fell further behind Celtic in the Scottish Premiership.

Rangers’ miserable away form continued on Thursday with a 1-1 draw against Dundee, leaving them 15 points behind their rivals at the top of the table.

They began the game at Dens Park with just three wins in ten league games away from Ibrox and failed to improve on that record after Vaclav Cerny was goalless in the second half and canceled out Oluwaseun Adewumi’s opener.

The result provided even more ammunition for those who believe Clement’s time at Ibrox should be up, as the club’s away fans expressed their dissatisfaction after the final whistle.

“It’s just excuse after excuse,” said former Rangers forward Boyd Sky Sports. “Rangers have a team that should come here and wipe the floor with Dundee, but they are holding on.”

“Thirteen out of 33 away points is a disgrace. You can talk about progress, but there is none. They talk about the players being tired and lacking self-confidence. They completely destroyed Celtic a week ago, ten days ago – destroyed them.”

“And you’re fighting for your confidence. You lose two, you draw a game and you lose a game before the Celtic game. There was no confidence struggle before the Celtic game.”

“And now you have drawn two games again and you lack confidence. That just doesn’t make sense.”

“I’m looking at the club right now and it’s broken on the pitch. There are no patterns of play, there is nothing. People always point to the Celtic game as Rangers’ best performance of the season.”

“But it can’t just be an isolated case, we know that. It’s an absolute disgrace that Rangers find themselves in this position.”

“And you see you haven’t spent any money. Money was spent. Yes, there was a cost reduction, but money was spent.”

“There is no improvement. We talked about the injuries also improving. I mean, this is actually worse.”

“You can talk about moving players and having to play extra minutes. You know what? You are a soccer player. That’s what you get paid for, namely game minutes.”

“There is no progress at all. It’s done.”

“It’s over [Rangers CEO] Now Patrick Stewart, because I’m telling you, those were the last two away games we were at.

“These fans have had enough and it will get to the point where they will stop coming to games and that is when the real problems for Rangers will become apparent because it cannot continue like this.”

Sutton: Brendan opens champagne

Chris Sutton on Sky Sports:

“Philippe Clement has to take responsibility, but it is also the players on the pitch who have the knowledge and understanding of how to win games.”

“You look at the Rangers squad and think, ‘Does that jersey fit a lot of these players?’ I’ve already said that there is a loser’s mentality at the club and nothing has really changed. And that doesn’t just apply to Philippe Clement.

“This has been happening for many years now. And you can see how boring this performance was tonight. Celtic are laughing at them.”

“Brendan Rodgers, he’s going to open the champagne tonight and laugh at her. It’s an embarrassment that we’re at the start of January and Celtic are 15 points clear at the top. This is shocking and amazing.”

“We spoke to me and Kris before the game [Boyd] I thought Philippe Clement should have left a long time ago. But they are now at something of a crossroads because can this continue? The club is going backwards.

“And so are we going to look at that or is Patrick Stewart going to look at the bigger picture and not just one game against Celtic where they improve the game or, you know, the odd game in Europe?”

“Clement will come and talk about Celtic having a bigger budget but Rangers shouldn’t lose 19 points to teams who have much, much smaller budgets than them and he never mentions that.”

“We hear the excuses week after week. And it’s not good enough. And it’s time for him to take responsibility, but he won’t.”

“But this Belgian gun will keep going and going and going. She won’t stop until a decision is made about him.”

Clement: The board supports me 200 percent

Philippe Clement claimed the Rangers board was “200 per cent” behind him. Asked whether he was confident that the board, which has a new CEO in Patrick Stewart, would still be behind him 100 percent, the Belgian boss replied: “Yes, 200 percent.”

“We talk about everything every day, about January, about next season, about everything. Yes, of course the fans are dissatisfied.”

“We are also unhappy, we are all unhappy, to lose these three points. The fans always support us when we are good, when we play good games. That’s why it wasn’t a good game today.”

“So I understand that they are unhappy about that. I know these fans who don’t give up as soon as we show quality. It’s about us showing our quality on the pitch and then they’re always right behind the team.”

“That’s why our job is to do this as quickly as possible. Quality starts to show again on Sunday, on both sides of the game. Not just offensively, also defensively.”

“Defensively it was better today compared to the last away games. A positive point in this respect. The game Clinton Nsiala played in his first game for Rangers, a positive point.”

“But in the end, of course, it’s about results. A lot of points have been mixed up in the last two or three weeks.”