Furious Philippe Clement tears into Rangers flops for 'throwing away points' in damaging Ross County loss

Philippe Clement’s reaction at the full-time whistle in Dingwall said it all. Vital points dropped by disjointed Rangers as they crashed to a devastating 3-2 defeat against Ross County.

The angered Gers manager swerved a post-match hand-shake with interim Staggies boss Don Cowie and instead proceeded to storm straight up the tunnel in the wake of his side’s error strewn display.

In what was their first away loss in eight games since losing at Celtic Park back in December, the Ibrox side allowed their performance levels to drop significantly from a winning position against their relegation-threatened hosts to leave them four points behind Brendan Rodgers’ Hoops at the top of the Scottish Premiership table with six games to play.

And Clement lamented his players for failing to learn from their first-half showing after struggling to hide his anger at the end of seven minutes additional time. “I’m very disappointed in our performance, he told Sky Sports. “The first-half, we didn’t play well. We didn’t do enough with the ball - okay circumstances were maybe not ideal to play good football - but we can do much better like we showed during the last half hour.

“We missed an urgency to kill the game, to score goals and to not give anything away. I wanted them at half-time that I wanted to see more, but we concede two early goals and then you’re chasing the game. It’s a very disappointing afternoon for us.

“The frustration is that we lost this game. It was not good enough today and we gave Ross County hope. We gave them energy the moment they stared leading the game and all credit to Ross County for big heart they showed. This is not the way I’ve viewed my team. Over the last couple of months, we’ve been the best defensive team in the league and conceding three goals in that manner was disappointing. It’s now about reacting on Wednesday and taking three points.

The result could have a major say in the destination of the silverware. Asked how damaging he felt it was to Rangers title prospects, Clement responded: “We continue what we’ve been doing and that’s taking it game-by-game. We’ve thrown away points today, but it’s now about taking three points from everywhere in the next couple of weeks. We need to look at the mistakes we made and show a real performance.

“It’s not only about character, it’s about showing quality. We need to get back to what we’ve been doing well. Maybe it’s because we had a very strange preparation this week, but that’s not an excuse. We need to keep focused on the football, nothing else that’s happening outside of it. We expect more and they (my players) also expect more from themselves.”