Philippe Clement arrived at Rangers and was immediately confused with what he had seen on his initial appraisal.
The squad he inherited was riddled with injuries and nowhere near the fitness levels he needed to implement his desired style of play.
With the destination of the Scottish Premiership title decided, Philippe Clement has revealed a no-nonsense side that suggests the Rangers players who are still at Ibrox when pre-season training comes around are in for a rough ride – but his message is one we’ve seen before.
Philippe Clement must avoid Rangers mistakes of last summer
Most professional footballers hate pre-season training due to the volume of work that they have to do.
The idea being that they are in peak condition when the ‘proper’ football kicks off to avoid struggling towards the end of games or at the business end of the season.
It was one accusation that could never be thrown at a Steven Gerrard side.
Despite their tactical flaws and inability to break a low-block, the team from 2018 to 2022 was always one that was as sharp at the final whistle as it was the first.
With his number two returning to Rangers ahead of this season, you would think that Michael Beale would copy and paste the pre-season progamme, and yet, there seemed to be an issue with sharpness since day one.
After a one-sided 3-1 defeat to Olympiakos at Ibrox, the then Ges boss explained why the performance was so flat:
“We know we have to push the group because from the start of the season, we go into a three-game week for the rest of the month.
“It’s important we have things in our legs and I don’t want to stop training hard going into a game. We were against a good opponent tonight, there’s a reason why we picked this level of opponent, there’s no point getting pats on the back winning 3-0 against lesser opponents.
“The boys trained hard into the game and I get as soon as we play everyone wants it to look shiny and fantastic but we’ll be okay. There’s one or two incoming as well and it will all settle down when it’s supposed to in 10 days time – 10 days is a long time in pre-season.”
However, 10 days after this, Rangers lost 1-0 to Kilmarnock and never looked like scoring.
Kilmarnock also looked fitter.
Clement looks to solve Rangers injury issue
Since Giovanni van Bronckhorst took over from Gerrard, the club has had a nightmare with injuries.
Studies have shown that changing managers can have a negative effect on players due to differences in training intensity and type which menas that Philippe Clement was always going to be up against it when he brought his ideas and standards to the club.
Ideas that will see the current squad in for a less-than-relaxing summer:
“The biggest scoop is that the foundation of the house is clearly not good.
“The players who are not prepared to play three games a week on high intensity because it’s been all season we’ve had players out and players not ready for that.
“So for that, we need a really strong preparation. We’re going to do this in the summer to solve this problem. That’s one of the reasons and there a few others more that we’re going to work on to make it better and to solve it.”
When asked if they were in for the “pre-season of their lives”, he responded:
“And their summer break also of their lives because they’ll have a programme also in their holidays, yes.
“That’s what we’re going to need to perform as a group next season in Europe and in the league and that the players can cope with more intensity than they did this season.”
One of the issues under Beale was that pre-season seemed to be a mess.
Every game saw selection change, formation change and only 45 minutes against Newcastle where Rangers looked like a proper team.
To compound issues, the players have struggled to stay fit throughout the season with only a small number available for over 30 games.
Philippe Clement will be looking for a different outcome when pre-season starts, and he will also want to end the injury list that has regularly dropped below five and been above 10.
Signing players who don’t have thick medical files will also be a help.
