Rangers manager Philippe Clement has revealed that Dundee United were offered to use the facilities at Ibrox earlier than usual - yet the Taysider's opted to go to their hotel first instead.
That's contributed to a delayed kick-off, with this afternoon's Scottish Premiership clash now expected to begin at 3.45pm instead of the transitional 3pm start. Although as of 3.25pm, Dundee United boss Jim Goodwin had indicated that they had been pushing for a further push back which has been rejected.
Clement was quick to credit the ground staff for making the pitch and surrounding areas playable then noted that Dundee United - who's preparation was disrupted due to Storm Bert - did receive an offer to work from Govan.
"I'm really happy for all the effort that all the people in the club did today," he told BBC Sportsound. "The groundsmen but also a lot of other people coming to help to get the pitch playable.
"We offered [Dundee United] to come here and to have food and to have a meeting room and everything but they prefer to go to the hotel first. They chose to make that preparation."
Read more:
- Clement names Rangers side to face Dundee United in delayed kick-off
- Rangers vs Dundee United delayed after Storm Bert travel chaos
Clement has opted to leave captain James Tavernier on the bench for this one. He's replaced by Dujon Sterling at right-back. While, Robin Propper slots into the centre of defence, with Leon Balogun sitting among the substitutes.
"Dujon [Sterling] had a long period where he had an injury problem where because of that he could not go full," he explained. "The last weeks, he's feeling better. With Robin [Propper] and Leon [Balogun], it's rotation between the two.
"There are no number ones and number twos in our squad. If you see how many games we have, it's impossible for a field player to play all those games. We have to have everybody ready.
"Do I want performances better, still? Yes. [Today we need] domination, braveness to play forward, the right movements to create chances against a tough opponent. Their game plan is to annoy us, to stop us in every sense. Stay mature and play our football to create chances and not to give away chances. Be clinical."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel