Why Rangers' 'miracle' man was ruled out for the rest of the season

The last thing that Clement needed, then, was for Connor Goldson to suffer a medial ligament injury in training this week and be ruled out for the remainder of the 2023/24 campaign.

The Belgian has been critical about the physical condition of the players he inherited when he took over in Govan back in October and he reiterated that view, and his belief that matters will improve next term after he and his staff have overseen pre-season, yesterday.

He described the number of games that centre half Goldson has featured in at home and abroad in the past months as “a miracle” due to his lack of preparation time last summer. 

However, Clement has adopted a defiant attitude to the latest setback and expressed confidence that it will not have an adverse impact on Rangers’ attempts to land the Premiership and Scottish Gas Scottish Cup trophies.

He fully expects all of his charges, who are three points behind leaders Celtic in the league table with four games remaining due to the defeat they suffered at the hands of Ross County and the draw they were held to by Dundee last month, to adopt exactly the same approach. Even those who may be departing.

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“I see a good mentality in the six months together from the whole group,” he said. “There’s zero per cent chance that will change with these guys in the next two or three weeks. Why would it change? They’re fighting for trophies.

“If you don’t reach agreement with the club here you want to go in the best possible way and the best possible way is to win trophies. You want to leave with victories. They are determined. There’s no doubt about that and they’ve shown that it’s season also. 

“They took the League Cup. They showed also after the disappointment of Ross County and Dundee. It was easy for them to keep their heads down and to be down from all the criticism. But they got up at that moment.

“They reacted against Hearts, the third best team in the league, and in the next game also (at St Mirren last weekend). There’s not one reason why anyone in the world would doubt that. They’ve proven enough what they want.” 

Clement added: “That mental strength is always shown at the end. It’s all about results. You can have this scrutiny, you can be super strong and be mentally super strong and not win something and people will say ‘mentally he wasn’t strong enough’ and make that conclusion. 

“It doesn’t work that way. It’s about pushing what they are doing right now. Is it a guarantee? No. But they are all pushing really hard and are working really hard. That I can see every day. It’s about continuing to do that. 

“What they have done to now in this six months, and I don’t like to repeat this too much, but they have taken the most points. They took the League Cup and are in the cup final by eliminating the third best team in the league while everybody was saying ‘they are in a good run and Rangers is on a bad run’. They did that. 

“What more do they have to prove? Yes, there’s the next game and then again it will be ‘are they strong enough or not strong enough?’” 

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Clement rested Goldson, whose form has left much to be desired in recent weeks, in the matches against Hearts and St Mirren and was pleased how Leon Balogun performed in his absence. He is confident the Nigerian internationalist will atone for the loss of his vice-captain.

He is also optimistic that Ben Davies, the English defender who has not played since way back in December, will be able to step in if required in the final three weeks of the season. 

“That’s what you expect when you want to play for prizes,” he said. “That you have more than two centre-backs. We have Ben also, who is back out of injury and doing the right things in training.

“That’s what you need in a club if you want to play for prizes, you need enough players to be available who can play at that level because to go without injuries or suspensions, that’s impossible.”

Clement, whose men can still complete a world record-equalling eighth domestic treble this month, stressed that he is confident Rangers will not be blighted by injuries as much next season.

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“I don’t believe in luck,” he said. “Yeah, in short term, but not in the long term. The Connor thing is totally different from the other cases. But we know some reasons why there are more injuries this season. We know and we’re going to work on that so in future it doesn’t happen anymore.

“You cannot avoid injuries in a season, of course. But it’s been too much and we’ve been missing too many players for a long time. At the moment, we’re missing four attacking players who could be our starting attacking force. That’s a lot for one moment.

“I can guarantee that next season it will be less. But we need the preparation for that. It’s been one of the major things in my job since I started as a manager. Everywhere I’ve been, there’s been more than 90 percent availability of players in all those years.

“That’s because I work closely with the medical staff in the training. So in that way it’s disappointing what has happened this season until now. But we need the preparation to fix that.

“That is a major thing because missing preparation is something you take with you all season normally. In that way, Connor did something exceptional already, by missing the pre-season and playing so many games. I didn’t know that story.

“He trained three days before the first game he played and then started to play every game. It is not a normal thing. For sure it is not an ideal preparation. But also the preparation was not an ideal situation.”