Rangers slips up to hand Celtic more room
Rangers was forced to come from 2-0 down and settle for a point at Fir Park after a 2-2 draw against Motherwell that saw the Light Blues fall further behind Celtic at the top of the Scottish Premiership ahead of the Old Firm derby next weekend.
Apostolos Stamatelopoulos poked Motherwell in front in the 16th minute, while Tawanda Maswanhise's wonderful individual effort doubled Motherwell's lead.
Philippe Clement introduced Hamza Igamane at the break, and the Moroccan halved the deficit within five minutes of the restart.
The hosts had two goals disallowed, with VAR twice denying Tony Watt, before Igamane brought Rangers level on 68 minutes, but the visitors could not find the winning goal as they fell further adrift of Celtic, which thrashed St Johnstone 4-0 in its match.
On the back of a loss to St Mirren on Boxing Day, Gers endured a difficult first half, managing just one shot on target from the seven they attempted.
As Clement and his players made their way into the changing rooms, the travelling support made their feelings known by booing the team as it left the field.
But when asked about his immediate future at Rangers after this latest setback, Clement was confident he had the backing of the board moving forward.
"No, I'm not concerned about that because I'm only busy with the team," he said. "We knew before the season what the project was, and what a challenge it would be.
"It’s difficult to speak about that because you will not understand and people outside maybe will not understand.
"But there has been an evolution made. The last two games, there has not, for sure. And we have hurt ourselves in that way. But there were good games the last few weeks, where the team showed potential.
"There are already teams interested in some players for the future, which we didn't have the last two years. So, we're taking steps, but you can't speak about that after losing points against St Mirren and against Motherwell, I know.
"We need to work hard now in a few days to be much more resilient and determined in these defensive actions. That’s going to be one part of the game but, of course, also with the ball."
