Philippe Clement looking forward to Rangers’ ‘special’ away day at St Johnstone

The Belgian boss has rejuvenated the Ibrox club since taking over from Michael Beale in October and, with the Viaplay Cup already in the trophy room and a last-16 place in the Europa League secured, the Light Blues are vying with Old Firm rivals Celtic at the top of the cinch Premiership.

Rangers have won eight games in a row – seven since the winter break – and Clement is expecting a tough test against Craig Levein’s side, despite Saints struggling in 10th place in the table.

The Belgian boss said: “Yeah, of course. The away games are always special.

“It’s a different kind of surface than at Ibrox and teams are super-motivated to play against Rangers because we know the longer you have a series of games that you win, the more your opponents are hungry to break that.

“So it’s going to be a hard game.”

Despite Rangers’ fine form, Clement believes there is still scope for improvement.

The former Genk, Club Brugge and Monaco boss said: “There is still much (room) to become better.

“One thing is, we have three new players (Fabio Silva, Oscar Cortes and Mohamed Diomande), who are just in the building. Fabio, a little bit longer, so they need to get used to everything.

“How to play, how their team-mates run, timings to do the right things together – although they’ve already done a lot of good things and have stepped really fast into the story.

“But there’s lot to improve there. We had a lot of players, at one point in December, injured and we have several players who’ve come out of a long-term injury so they’re not at their top level at the moment.

“I don’t have the feeling there is one player in this squad who is playing at their maximum and cannot become better, so there’s still a lot of progression to make.”