PHILIPPE CLEMENT insists his players have to put their full focus on starting 2025 with a win.
The Rangers boss is looking for his squad to bounce back following the 2-1 defeat to St Mirren and the 2-2 draw with Motherwell over the Christmas period.
Old Firm rivals Celtic travel to Ibrox on Thursday, and while skipper James Tavernier will miss the match through injury, Clement will monitor Leon Balogun’s situation ahead of kick-off.
Speaking to the media, he said: “There is a small chance that Leon Balogun may return and he did some work today.
“We have lost Tav, as he got an injury against Motherwell. He has had a scan and he has damage and he will be out for a few weeks.
“It is a blow, every injury is, we have had a few in the last few weeks, with Nana Kasanwirjo, with John Souttar, Leon Balogun and before that Ridvan.
“It is about finding solutions and we have to do that.
“You can’t play on one leg, so we will see with Leon. Sometimes you have to take risks in this business, but we can’t take a crazy risk and potentially have the player out for months.
“We will see if he is ready or not.
“You have to adapt to the situation, sometimes you get positive surprises.
“Everyone who is fit has to give their all to try to win the game.
“They went full out in the cup final but the circumstances didn’t fall for us that day. We are going full on to try to get the victory.”
Clement is disappointed with the last two results, but he insists he and the squad are only thinking about the next match and not the past.
He added: “We have to look to take maximum points out of every game and we are disappointed not to do that in the last two games.
“The last two games were not good enough, conceding goals like we did and we had to chase the game.
“We were too impatient on the ball. In moments we did well, but after we lost the goal against Motherwell we tried to force things, although we scored two good goals.
“We made mistakes in the two games, so we addressed that and we want to learn from them.
“Does that mean there will be no more mistakes made? No. That will not happen with us or other teams.
“But in these two games, the mistakes we made led to goals but we are working on things to get better.”
“It would be stupid not to think about the next game. If you are in front or behind it is always the case of being about the next game.
“We need to look at ourselves to get the best out of the squad we have now and then we have to make them better and make them become stronger, that has to be the focus going forward.”
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