'It's unlike the manager...' - Chris Jack reacts when asked about 'Very Strange Issue' at Rangers

Chris Jack was surprised the Philippe Clement didn’t reveal the issues at Rangers that kept Hamza Igamane out of the squad to face Malmo ahead of the game.

The Rangers Review journalist responded on the outlet’s YouTube channel on 27 September when asked about the “very strange issue” by Derek Clark, after the Moroccan striker was unexpectedly absent from the travelling party in Sweden the previous night due to passport issues [4 Lads Had A Dream, 26 September].

Clement admitted he was very unhappy about the situation when asked about Igamane after the 2-0 victory, telling TNT Sports, via the Scottish Sun, “those are issues you don’t want to face as a manager”, but Jack would have expected the Belgian to have alerted journalists to it in his pre-match press conference.

Clark said: “Hamza Igamane, Chris, not available. Very strange situation, passport issues with regards to him. Not ideal and the manager wasn’t best pleased about it.”

Jack replied: “No not at all, still waiting on the full story to come out from that one. The boys in the stadium last night were trying to the bottom of it. It was just phrased as ‘passport problems or passport issues’. That’s quite a wide scope of potential things that have gone wrong.

“We still don’t know the full situation there and why Hamza wasn’t able to make that trip… it’s unlike the manager to keep that type of thing from us, usually when it comes to selection things and injury things he’s quite open. Not in terms of really detailing timelines but if somebody isn’t available who we expect to be available he usually flags it up.”

Hamza Igamane unable to travel with Rangers to face Malmo

Ahead of kick off the absence of Igamane, 21, appeared to have made a tall task even more difficult away against opposition that have twice inflicted damaging defeats on the Light Blues.

The youngster has looked very impressive since his belated introduction into first team action this season, with his short Rangers career shrouded in a previous mystery around his fitness before he joined group training weeks after signing [4 Lads Had A Dream, 30 July].

But it has been better late than never, as confusion over why Clement saw fit to spend part of the small budget he had available this summer on a young player who wasn’t ready to play appears to have been answered by the quality he has already exhibited.

On the night in Malmo his absence wasn’t keenly felt as the hosts were kept in check and Rangers were even able to squander a host of excellent chances and still come away with a comfortable 2-0 win via goals from Nedim Bajrami and Ross McCausland.

The Albanian set up at least three opportunities which should have been taken, with Vaclav Cerny’s miss the most glaring, and probably should have scored a second himself.

Cyriel Dessers was, as so often, left as the last striker standing in Clement’s squad, with Danilo still not back from injury and left out of the European squad as a result, and put in a vintage Dessers display.

The Nigerian international led the line excellently, combined well with Bajrami, and generally looked impressive until it came to finishing off chances where he could have had a hat-trick but managed not to find the net.

It was the best and the worst of the 29-year-old and leaves the door open for Igamane to push for a starting place back in Scotland where document issues won’t affect him, as has already been predicted before long [PLZ Soccer, 16 September].

In other Rangers news, a pundit has reacted to a Daily Record story to blast the Light Blues over another “shambles” at the club.

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