Don’t blame me! Phil Clement speaks out on his sacking and failure at Ibrox

Phil Clement has blamed the Ibrox board and angry fans for his sacking in February!

The Belgian waffler was drowning in self pity as he shared his anguish with leading cheerleader Alasdair Lamont in an interview for BBC Scotland.

At the start of April 2024 Clement had the treble in his hands, following a 3-3 moral victory over Celtic he took the acclaim of the bears during a triumphant lap of honour.

Ten months later they were baying for his blood after losing at home to St Mirren in the SPFL Premiership, soon after Queens Park ended Clement’s Scottish Cup prospects.

Rather than reflecting on the stupidity of constantly selecting £30m rated Jack Butland or having James Tavernier as captain the man thought of as being A Proper Football Manager looked elsewhere for his failure at Ibrox.

He told BBC Scotland:

It’s a pity that the story stopped, that the board didn’t have the patience, or maybe listened too much to some fans.

There are other clubs where there is a difficult moment and everybody sticks together because everybody knows the story, how the work is done inside the building, and they continue and they are successful afterwards.

In three or four windows, we could have closed the gap [to Celtic] with a good development of players, but the decision is made and you need to accept it.

Clement had three transfer windows at Ibrox during which he burdened the club with Robin Propper, Oscar Cortes, Nedim Bajrami, Jefte and Connor Barron.

His excuses sound similar to those trotted out by Micky Beale after he was sacked despite having a far better win ratio than Clement.

During his 16 months in charge at Ibrox Clement lost two cup finals to Celtic, one SPFL Premiership title and left a handover of a 15 point gap behind Brendan Rodgers’ side.

After beating St Johnstone in a League Cup tie at Hampden Clement joined his players doing the bouncy in front of 200 Union Bears.