Philippe Clement hailed his Rangers team for ending Dundee United's eight-game unbeaten run and leapfrogging them into third in the Scottish Premiership table. 

Tom Lawrence's early goal was the difference at Tannadice, but it wasn't all straight forward. 

Rangers dominated the first half until the hosts opted to implement some tactical tweaks and made Clement's men work for their victory.

The result puts the Light Blues five points behind Celtic and Aberdeen, who remain on maximum points from their opening five league matches. 

"It's a big result because it's a hard place to come," a relieved Clement stated as he heaped praise on the travelling Rangers supporters for helping his players get over the line.

"Dundee United have shown that in the last couple of weeks. So after an international break where a lot of players leave the club and you don't have many training moments, it's always dangerous to come to places like this.

"The players did a really good job and it's a deserved victory.

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"I think after 20 minutes we had 80 per cent ball possession and several chances. It is massive to start the game really well. Once we did, the only thing I think we missed today was scoring the second goal to kill off the game or the third after.

"Then you are more comfortable because against these teams it always remains dangerous with one long throw-in or one corner or set piece. In another way we didn't give away chances so that is also a really good thing from the team. We defended well and at the set pieces we were on top of things and won the duels. It is massive in those games to keep a clean sheet. 

"Keeping clean sheets is so massive and important. But the most satisfying thing is we have so many new players. Some are a few weeks here, some a few days. Like [Nedim] Bajrami doesn't even know all the names of his colleagues at the moment.

“It needs time to gel the team together to let them understand what they need to do together, which moments to create these connections and timings in the runs plus the work with and without the ball.

"The most positive point was it felt like a home game. Our fans were amazing again today and you felt the synergy between the fans and team. We are looking forward to going to Ibrox again to feel this 10 times more."

(Image: PA)

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Meanwhile, Jim Goodwin took responsibility for Dundee United's poor start to the match after he was forced to tweak the formation midway through the first half because of his teams struggles with gaining a foothold in the game. 

"I think we’re frustrated the unbeaten run has came to an end," the Dundee United manager told BBC Scotland.  

"I don’t have too many arguments about the end result – Rangers created two or three goalscoring opportunities whereas we didn’t create anything.

"I think in terms of the second half we were a lot better and penned Rangers back for large periods of that, but for all the possession we had we just didn’t create anything of real worth.

"Against the better teams opportunities are limited and when they come you’ve got to be ruthless and get the ball in the back of the net. The real frustration comes from how we started the game – the shape wasn’t working and that comes from me. 

"We had to change it and we went to a 4-3-3 and from the moment we changed it you could see an instant change. There was more aggression to our press, we forced Rangers into longer balls and turnovers. You could see the reaction from our fans, they stayed back to applaud the players after the effort they put into the game.

"There was no need for me to change the system prior to the game but we’ve got that flexibility. Kev [Holt] has been outstanding in there and he’s been a pivotal part of the unbeaten run we’ve been on, but I felt we were a bit light in the middle of the park and the goal comes from that, so we decided to bring in [Ross] Docherty to sit on [Tom] Lawrence and give us more solidity in the middle.

"We did believe we could take something from the game – it hasn’t panned out that way but it would be far worse if we were a soft touch. I don’t think anyone could say we were that, but we’ll dust ourselves down and we’ve got a fantastic game to look forward to on Friday night."