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00:00 Moving on to Rangers, they defeated Hibernian 4-0 at Ibrox on Saturday, Declan 'Philippe'
00:12 Coulombe getting his reign off to a near perfect start. In all honesty, it was a very good
00:17 performance from Rangers, two goals from Abdallah Seema, Nicolas Raskin and Cyril Dessers also
00:23 on the score sheet. It was Hib's first defeat in five matches under Nick Montgomery. Clément
00:32 has spoken about how he's not Harry Potter, he's not going to wave a magic wand and things
00:36 are going to turn around instantly but you can't get off to a much better start than that.
00:41 No, you can't. We touched on it last week that Hib's getting those two goals in the
00:48 derby to come back and pull it back to remain undefeated. It was interesting the formation
00:55 and who he brought back in, really interested to notice Scott Wright back into the fold.
00:59 It's been something I know you and I have been speaking about that it seemed quite bizarre
01:04 that Michael Bale's transfer strategy during the summer months was to not buy a winger
01:11 evidently but he's got back to a system where Rangers look as if they're going to use that.
01:15 It'll do Dessers confidence, the world are good and Seema looks like a player they can
01:19 probably rely on and just naturally I think with Raskin having that connection to standard
01:26 liaison, I think everybody thought that Clément and him would probably be a perfect match.
01:31 So yeah, I can start from it's going to be a completely different test of course, going
01:35 to European football on Thursday.
01:37 Yeah, Abdallah Seema's an interesting one. I think Rangers fans majority will agree that
01:44 he doesn't look to be an out and out winger, he's more of a wide forward. He's certainly
01:48 and along with Jack Butlin being the two main success stories from that summer spending
01:54 spree that you touched on there, it's been a pretty underwhelming start so far.
01:59 Clément also mentioned about how he wants to improve the squad's overall fitness, something
02:05 that we know under Giovanni Van Bronckhorst was questioned at times under Bale as well.
02:12 I noticed he handed five or six first team players to take part in a bounce game on Sunday
02:19 so clearly feels that that's something that they really need to work on, especially to
02:24 kind of make a mark in Europe.
02:25 Yeah, I think you can interpret it in two ways. A lot of people will say, a manager
02:30 coming in saying that players lack fitness means either they're not good enough or they
02:34 actually do lack fitness. I don't think Michael Bale will be too chuffed to hear that, any
02:40 manager wouldn't be too chuffed.
02:42 Just finally touching on Rangers' Europa League game against Sparta Prague in the Czech Republic.
02:48 It certainly seems to me that this group, based on results so far, is going to be wide
02:53 open Declan. A challenging game for Rangers of course, Sparta Prague, it's obviously a
03:00 city that they know well from facing Slavia a few years ago. Sparta Prague, what have
03:07 you made of them so far? They've obviously had a positive result and a defeat there so
03:15 what are you expecting? I'm guessing given the defeat from Limassol, Rangers need to
03:21 get back on a winning run here.
03:24 Yeah, it's a strange group. Everybody's in three points just now, we're obviously two
03:28 games in. It's really anybody's group to go on top. Rangers will be hoping to top the
03:36 group still. It is wide open. Clermont, I think it was something I'd mentioned to you
03:41 that when he came in the door, probably two of the biggest priorities, the three biggest
03:45 priorities were getting to European football after Christmas, probably preferably in the
03:50 Europa League, getting to the League Cup final, whoever that'll be against and closing the
03:57 gap in Celtic in terms of points. But this is a good chance to maybe lay down an early
04:03 marker to go and say that's a big result, let's build from it. No disrespect to Hibs
04:07 as I say though but it's going to be a completely different challenge in Prague. They're a decent
04:12 European outfit, it'll be tricky, it'll be tough but Rangers can certainly head into
04:17 the game with a bit of confidence over the weekend. They'll be hoping to go and probably
04:21 win the game but again, you just don't normally these type of games in teams that you're up
04:25 against.
04:26 It'll certainly be interesting to see Clermont's team selection going forward as well. Will
04:33 he include a lot of the youngsters coming through the Rangers academy at the moment,
04:37 the likes of Bailey Rice, Ross McCausland, who've certainly showed up well from their
04:41 fleeting first team starts so far.
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