Ibrox media clampdown on Phil Clement

Phil Clement had a media minder on his shoulder as he discussed his side’s 4-4 draw away to Union Berlin.

That result makes it three defeats and one draw in public pre-season matches with alarm bells ringing among supporters who have been given the crumb that Mohamed Diomande and Connor Barron are about to take Scottish football by storm.

A year ago there was even more noise for Todd Cantwell and Nicky Raskin, neither of whom played in yesterday’s match.

Three weeks ago Clement sat down with three reports in a Dutch hote room and literally filled their boots with stories as he gave the lowdown on all matters Ibrox, or started working his ticket to be more accurate.

Straight away Clement admitted that signings were on hold because his club had been unable to shift and of the deadwood accumulated by Micky Beale and Giovanni van Bronckhorst.

Every player is for sale except Jack Butland although an offer of £30-40m might be accepted for the former Crystal Palace reserve who has been chucking the goals in since Gareth Southgate visited Ibrox in April for a catch up with Joe Hart.

Clement also admitted that his squad isn’t ready for the Champions League qualifiers and although he looks on Adbalah Sima as his son he cant afford to buy the Brighton winger.

It was devastating stuff with the newspapers splitting it up over four days as they instantly justified their week in Holland.

Yesterday in Berlin Clement was standing up with a club employee desperate to end the interview at the first sign of a pause.

Robert Grieve, Andy Newport, Chris Jack and Mark Dingwall asked the questions, a couple of times Clement veered towards the truth before remembering the party lines to contradict what he had said earlier.

Apparently there is nothing to worry about defensively despite losing eight goals over the last three weekends with no defenders impressing.

Under pressure last season we discovered that Clement likes to clutch onto xG and moral victories, the same sob stories are being produced already.

It was a pity also to get a penalty against when we were dominating the game from the start, it is positive already that everybody has the mentality again to not stay in that moment and disappointment but to react as they did.

There were a lot of good offensive actions with those who were here last season and the new guys who are starting to understand the story better and better.

Defensively, [there are] things to work on. We [conceded] two similar goals and spoke about that at half-time. That is normal with new players, they need to learn things and it’s by mistakes, that is part of the journey.

No, of course I want fewer goals against but for example, against Man United we had three shots on goal and they made two goals. It is not like Jack [Butland] played a bad game.

So, you need to look a little through the stats also because against Man United we played a good defensive game and today in a lot of moments we played a good defensive game.

Clement also revealed that Dujon Sterling, missing yesterday, has played three times more minutes this pre-season compared to any other. It seems that the 24-year-old has some serious fitness issues.

To be fair to the Belgian Beale he didn’t play along with the Daily Record led campaign to sign Lawrence Shankland from Hearts.

James Tavernier has started the last two friendlies and looks like being on the armband, penalties, free kicks, throw-ins and corners when the season starts at Tynecastle on Saturday. Barron looks like being the only new signing in among the cast of losers that finished last season.

With Scott Wright and Cyriel Dessers the main attacking options it looks like long odds against Clement pulling off a Champions League miracle. Ally McCoist can tell the former Monaco boss how that story concludes.

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