The Rangers offered Saturday as a welcome gift to their new coach, Belgian Philippe Clement, a big 4-0 victory against Hibernian to move within 4 points of the leader of the Scottish championship, Celtic. His predecessor, the Englishman Michael Bealen, was fired at the beginning of the month.
It was Abdallah Sima who opened the scoring in front of the Rangers stadium crowd, with Nicolas Raskin adding to the score just before half-time. Sima then scored his 9th goal of the season then Cyriel Dessers concluded with a 4th goal ten minutes from time.
“I saw what I wanted to see, dominant, attacking football with good pressure,” said Clement, former coach of Club Brugge and Monaco.
“I am especially happy with the synergy I saw between the players and the supporters from the first minute. “It’s one of the greatest strengths of this club and the one we need to win trophies,” he added. “The best teams in the world make mistakes and what is important is your reaction and our reaction was good,” stressed the Belgian coach.
Celtic travel to Hearts of Midlothian on Sunday, currently 4th, 11 points behind the leader. The 9th day of the championship was however disrupted on Saturday by storm Babet which caused the postponement of several matches.