Philippe Clement admits he’s been buried before as a player and a manager. In his own words he’s been through hell and also seen heaven in a football sense.
So there’s no way the 6ft something Belgian is going to allow the ghouls to drive his Rangers career six foot under before it’s really even been born. For the first time in his seven months at Ibrox the 50-year-old has been in the firing line for punters who fear they are watching the demise of their title hopes after defeat at Ross County was followed up by a draw in Dundee.
Clement gets it. It was the exact same at Club Brugge where he says every dropped point felt like you were going through purgatory. But he also knows the opposite side can bring a sense of nirvana. He won two titles as boss at the Jan Breydel Stadium – to add to the two he won as a player. He also lifted the Belgian title in his first management job with Genk.
That’s why Clement has full belief in what he is doing at Rangers. Facing up to the flak ahead of Sunday’s Scottish Cup semi final against Hearts, Clement said: “I know it is part of the job. It is like that. I have been more than 30 years in this world and I have been buried a lot of times as a player and as a manager. I know what I am doing in a club, I know what I am doing in this club and we are in the right road together.
“We had some bumps along the road and a lot of things had to do with injuries that we had in the squad. We made a good assessment in the club about that, how to avoid it in the future.
“That will make things better and easier and now it is about taking the maximum out of the situation now. It is a growing situation. In Club Brugge it is the same. Only winning, only becoming champion is the only thing that counts.
“There is nobody that can be more critical than me because I want to win everything. Everybody who knows me from when I was a child, if it was playing basketball or tennis or table tennis or whatever sport, I want to win.
“I wanted that mentality with my children. I did it with them also. If I played a game with them and they were three-years-old, I wanted to win. I don’t give anything. That is the mentality that is necessary in clubs like this.
“You need to embrace that. It is also because of that you can be successful and you can win trophies and have these exciting moments that will stay there for the rest of your lives. That is what Rangers is about, I know that really well, and that is why I love to be here.”
Clement might have the drive, the hunger and the resilience. But do the players who carry their hopes of a Treble onto the park over the next massive seven or eight games?
The manager admits the next few weeks will answer that question. He said: ”Of course, if you win 10 games in a row you have more belief than if you lose two times.
“But this is Rangers. This is a club where you always need to fight and every point you lose it is like you are going through hell. That is this world and that is good, that is also the challenge.
“It is now interesting to see which players can live in that way. It is an exciting place to be because on the other side you can go also to heaven, when you win games and win trophies.
“In other teams where it is not so important to win points or it is not something dramatic when you lose points, you cannot go to heaven also because those are not clubs that wins trophies. It is easy to be good and be happy when it goes easy. It is when the going gets tough you see the personality and the character. Players can grow in this.”
Fingers have been pointed at some of the more experienced members of Clement’s squad whose years at Ibrox don’t tally up with what fans believe is an acceptable trophy count.
