Philippe Clement insists Rangers will be ‘two hundred per cent’ focused on Scottish Cup glory against Hibernian despite moving to within 90 minutes of a place in the quarter-finals of the Europa League.
The Belgian saw his side produce a rousing performance in Lisbon on Thursday evening as Benfica twice came from behind to preserve their unbeaten run at the Estadio da Luz. Goals from Tom Lawrence and Dujon Sterling, either side of a controversial Angel di Maria penalty, had Rangers ahead at the break and the visitors were only denied by a Connor Goldson own goal.
The challenges keep on coming thick and fast for Clement’s side and the turnaround is a quick one once again as attentions turn to the trip to Easter Road on Sunday. It is one that Rangers will make without a handful of their most creative players after losing the likes of Abdallah Sima, Todd Cantwell and Oscar Cortes to injury in recent weeks.
Rangers were 4-0 winners against Hibernian in Clement’s first match in charge back in October and earned an impressive 3-0 victory in January as Ridvan Yilmaz, Cantwell and Cyriel Dessers found the net. Now Clement’s side return to Leith aiming to progress to the semi-finals of the Scottish Cup and keep their bid for a domestic clean sweep on course this term.
“They can be different,” Clement said. “We are also different. We are going to take a good look into that, we are going to see how people recover for the next two days and we are going to go hard to get into the semi-final. It is an important thing. I have read that they were really unlucky in their last two games against us. So they have a lot of belief clearly. So it is about us getting the good result there and qualifying.
“Yeah [they will be focused]. Two hundred per cent. No doubt about that. My team have been working hard all season in that way and they never stopped. Good proof was also after the Betis game. A few days later we had the League Cup final and they were there. My team is hungry to win more trophies and we know we need to play against Hibs a really good game because they are really hungry to beat us apparently.”
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