Clement has tunnel vision as Rangers defeat Dundee and climb above Dons into second place

Philippe Clement insisted Rangers’ rise to second place in the Premiership table meant nothing to him as he urged his players to adopt tunnel vision in the second half of the season.

A one-goal win over Dundee ensured the Ibrox club moved above Aberdeen for the first time in this campaign – seven weeks after a loss at Pittodrie saw a nine-point ago open up.

Clement’s side remain eight points behind leaders Celtic before Brendan Rodgers’ side face Dundee United today – with three derbies stills to come.

Asked if the move up the table felt significant, though, Clement insisted: ‘No, it’s not a target.

‘I told you guys and maybe you don’t believe me, but it’s about us, what we do.

‘I’m convinced that we can make a good season in that way if we focus on ourselves and not be focused on other teams like we didn’t do in that period. And it’s about us taking the points and not looking at other teams.

Vaclav Cerny slots the ball home after rounding Dundee goalkeeper Trevor Carson

‘So, we will continue in that way and make the team better and progress and take more points than we did in the first couple of months because it was not enough.

‘We all know that, we all knew that. So, we want to make a better second part of the season.’

Rangers required Vaclav Cerny’s goal in the first minute of the second half to claim their fourth straight league win.

Although Clement’s side also struck the crossbar on four occasions, the manager felt his side could have done better in certain areas.

‘It was a well-deserved victory, but you want to score more goals, you want to entertain the fans more than we did,’ he added.

‘A quite special game also hitting four times a crossbar, it doesn’t happen so much.

‘But we had to be more clinical in moments for sure in the second half. You know in the first half it can be difficult to find the spaces because they defend with a lot of numbers, really low.

‘Spaces are small. We still had our chances there.

‘You come out of the dressing room in a good way. You score directly and then you should score the second goal and then you kill the belief more.

‘The opponent stays in the game in a way until the last second because something can fall out of the sky that you get a chance against and you can concede a goal because that can always happen in football.

Philippe Clement insists Rangers deserved to score more than one goal against Dundee

Dundee goalkeepe Trevor Carson denies Rangers forward Ianis Hagi

‘But the positive thing is that we didn’t give away really chances. Liam Kelly didn’t have to make one real save today.’

Rangers’ preparations were disrupted when Kelly had to replace Jack Butland in goal just before kick off.

‘You don’t have to worry about him,’ added Clement. ‘It’s because of private reasons that he had to leave very suddenly. So, he will be back the next game.’

Clement was relieved that the fall-out from the controversial loss to Celtic in the Premier Sports Cup Final didn’t result in another set-back.

‘Yeah, but I don’t like excuses,’ he said.

‘I spoke in the beginning of the week with the team about that, it’s about looking forward now. So, it’s about that and taking the three points. We could have scored more goals and now to look forward to our next game against St Mirren.’

Despite the defeat, Dundee manager Tony Docherty was proud of his players’ efforts.

‘I thought it was a really strong performance against a Rangers team who had been flying,’ he said.

‘They’d won 6-0 then 3-0 then had the Tottenham game and the cup final. We had a break and we knew we had to work on defensive organisation.

‘I thought we did that. We were very good and limited them to a shot onto the bar.

‘I was pleased at half-time and asked them to be a wee bit braver in the second half to try and get something and I thought we did that. We were good in possession and stripping it back I have to be proud of that performance and if we do that we’ll be alright.

‘I thought players took belief as the game went on. We looked confident right till the end.

‘I know Rangers had chances but they were counters because we were forcing the issue. The players took on the responsibility and we were very much in a game against a very strong Rangers team. It can only bode well going forwards.’