Philippe Clement defends Rangers celebrations vs Celtic and hits back at critics

Philippe Clement has defended Rangers’ Old Firm celebrations as he told his critics: Take your green tinted spectacles off.

Celtic legends Neil Lennon and Peter Grant were among the pundits who slammed Gers’ lap of honour after their remarkable comeback draw at Ibrox. But Clement insists he and his players had every right to take the acclaim of their fans after battling back from two goals down at half-time.

He said: “First, what happens with the team? We go behind after 22 seconds. Then you go 2-0 behind in an Old Firm. It is more than 30 years since a team came back in that situation. We score in extra-time with a very good goal.

“You cannot be happy with that? It would be a bit weird but I read a lot of comments. It is a funny thing is this town – everybody has coloured glasses, for sure, around the Old Firm.

“There are a lot of comments about everything, but I don’t care what people with coloured glasses are saying. It is not important for me. Yeah, we were happy that we could come back in that situation, and that we showed resilience and scored an amazing goal at the end. But before the game we wanted to win, and in the game we wanted to win also.

“After the amazing goal we were the team who still created a chance, we were not the team who were defending. We got a good chance still with Cyriel Dessers at the end, so we were going full for the three points. We can be happy after a well-deserved point. It could have been more, but it was more about the reaction.”