Philippe Clement on his Rangers demise, Celtic, Raskin & Diamonde

Every manager wants patience – and few get it. But Clement arguably got more than predecessors Michael Beale and Giovanni van Bronckhorst.

After all, neither of them suffered the ignominy of a Scottish Cup home defeat by second-tier Queen’s Park.

Protesting that his squad needed time to develop and grow became a regular refrain of Clement’s and the passing of time has not changed his view on that.

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

“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.”

As Rangers tried to assuage swingeing losses, Clement’s task was to usurp Celtic but with a diminishing budget.

Was he initially misled about what funds might be available to him?

“No, not misled, but I understand now why,” he says. “Because some people were already thinking about selling the club and selling their stocks.

“I think you need to go back to one year ago. The story was that the club was not financially sustainable anymore, so that was the story of the transfer window.”

Clement says he and the recruitment team were told they could spend whatever money the club were able to recoup in player sales and from cutting salary spend.

But, despite taking “more than 35%” from the wage bill, an ageing squad, contracts expiring, and a lack of attractive young talent, meant the yield proved meagre.

“You gain money by bringing young players in, making them better and selling them,” Clement says. “That was the idea. There was not another road to take.

“In the end, it’s about deciding if the idea we had was working. You need patience to build it or you need to spend money. It’s one of the two.

“Without one of the two, it’s an impossible job.”