Philippe Clement is coming under fire at Rangers right now.
Firstly, results have not been good enough and after showing signs of life for a while, taking one point from games against St Mirren and Motherwell will never be accepted.
On top of that, Clement is receiving heavy flak for his reliance on advice from sports scientists when picking his team.
The Gers boss has been rotating his side when told by staff that certain players have played too many minutes and are at risk of injury.
Clement insists he would be ‘stupid’ to ignore as he explained why Vaclav Cerny and Hamza Igamane were left on the bench at Fir Park.
The pair had to be called upon at half-time after a sluggish opening 45, and made a massive difference.
But Kris Boyd has taken aim and claims the manager risks getting himself the sack if he carries on letting sports science dictate his selections.
In a further defence of the situation, Clement has suggested John Souttar picked up his injury as a result of not being rotated enough.
The general feeling is that the Belgian relies too much on the science and that has now been backed up further.
Former Hearts sporting director gives sports science take
Joe Savage, the ex-Hearts sporting director, has agreed with Boyd in that the manager should always have the final say on team selection.
He insists that at his former club the sports scientists were only there to give advice to the manager who then ultimately had the decision to make on whether a player started or not.
With the manager’s job on the line, he argues that’s the way it should be.
“Sports scientists are there to advise, they don’t tell you,” Savage told The Warm-Up
“Certainly, at Hearts they didn’t tell our manager ‘you can’t play him’. They would say look, his training load is a bit high, his workload is a bit high, he’s maybe close to the red zone but you can’t not play him.
“Our manager would always have that final decision. In no way would our Head of Performance at Hearts ever just come in and say to Robbie or Steven ‘you’re not playing him’ – because that’s not his choice, it’s not his decision and as [Kris] Boydy said yesterday, the manager gets sacked, it’s not the sports scientist.”
Alan Hutton agreed on Rangers sports science situation
Former Rangers defender Alan Hutton agrees and has explained how things worked in his day.
“You know what happened not that long ago, in my situation,” he told Premier Sports’ Social Club.
“If you go through this Christmas period and you’ve played a lot of football, I’ve had managers come and say ‘you’re numbers are down, how are you feeling?’
“‘I’m absolutely fine gaffer, I can play through it.
“‘Right okay, you’re starting but we’ll keep an eye on it.’
“But the Celtic game takes care of itself and it doesn’t matter if you’re 60 per cent fit, if you can’t get up for that game you can’t get up for any game.
“You play your strongest team, get through them, get to there.
“The manager used to ask you ‘how you feeling?’ ‘I’m perfect gaffer.’ ‘That’s enough for me.’
“The sports scientist would have a voice but it’s the manager’s head that’s on the block.”
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