Philippe Clement dismisses Rangers fans as ’emotional’ | OneFootball

Rangers manager Philippe Clement has risked fan wrath over John Lundstram by explaining he’s not interested in how fans feel about the player (or anyone else), and he will select him if he wants to.

Speaking before Saturday’s Old Firm cup showdown, Clement seemed to allow the current toxicity between fans and club get to him too, and he ‘took a side’ by backing up his man/men over what fans think.

He said:

In the interests of fairness, he IS the manager and fans aren’t – he shouldn’t admittedly be entirely swayed by fan sentiment.

But the way he outright dismissed the supporters completely, and rejected their opinion was pretty staggering.

Rather than offering a softly softly and respectful response to fan opinion, and expressing how supporters have a right to feel how they feel, the manager outright dumped on the entire support by saying fan opinion simply doesn’t matter to him.

This is another bad, bad performance from Clement, who has shown a really poor media front here again after a slightly better showing post-Old Firm defeat.

He’s back to the clueless arrogance on this occasion, and while we fundamentally agree that the fans aren’t the manager and shouldn’t influence his thinking, to p*ss on their view completely and arrogantly say ‘I know better’ really isn’t a good look for any manager when negotiating with the fans and press over a sensitive matter.

Especially as Lundstram’s performances themselves in recent months have been so poor.

It would be staggering if he starts, and will show Clement doesn’t care about the supporters’ views, which, in fairness, he’s just admitted anyway.

He might just get away with it if the side does the impossible and gets the win and cup, but if Rangers lose this one, comments like this will haunt the manager in the way his previous ones have.

Let’s hope this doesn’t bite him on the backside.