Philippe Clement only has eyes for Rangers despite skipping Aberdeen

Philippe Clement saw Rangers finally overtake second-placed Aberdeen with a 1-0 win over Dundee and then insisted his focus was only on his side.

The Light Blues trailed the Dons by nine points in the William Hill Premier League seven weeks ago, but a Vaclav Cerny winner at Ibrox and a 3-1 home defeat for Jimmy Thelin’s side against Hibernian left Rangers a point ahead with a game to play.

Rangers also moved eight points behind leaders Celtic, who play Dundee United at Tannadice on Sunday.

On the day Rangers celebrated the 125th anniversary of Ibrox, and goalkeeper Liam Kelly was thrown in for his debut as a late replacement for Jack Butland who had to leave suddenly before the game for “personal reasons”, Rangers hit the woodwork four times and missed several others chances.

Clement said: “I told you and you may not believe me, but it’s about us, what we do.

“I’m convinced we can have a good season if we focus on ourselves and not focus on other teams. It’s about getting the points and not looking at other teams.

“So we will continue in that way and make the team better and develop and take more points than we did in the first few months because it was not enough.

“We all know that, we all knew that. So we want to do a better second part of the season.

“It’s a deserved win but you want to score more goals, you want to entertain the fans more than we did.

“A pretty special game hitting the crossbar four times as well, not too much happening too but we had to be more clinical in moments in the second half and you know in the first half it can be difficult to find the gaps because they defend themselves with many numbers, really low. The spaces are small.

– We still had our chances there. You come out of the dressing room in a good way, we could make some adjustments at half-time, where you find spaces, you score a direct goal and then you have to score the second goal and then you kill the belief more.”

Dundee boss Tony Docherty lamented conceding a goal so soon into the second half, with Cerny’s counter-attack surviving a VAR check for offside.

He said: “I was happy at half-time and asked them to be a bit braver in the second half to try and get something and I thought we did.

“We were good in possession and took it back, I’ve got to be proud of that performance and if we do that we’ll be fine.

“We were on top and they countered. I thought it was offside but I’ve seen it back and it’s onside.

“VAR did the right thing and that’s the reason for it. I’m disappointed about it but in the 94th minute we were still in it.

“I have to be happy with that. Six players were 22 or under and there were three academy graduates. I have to be proud of that because that’s what the club’s identity is about.

“To face a team in form, it was a lot of development and if we take it forward we will be in a good place to take points.”