Philippe Clement explains why Rangers stand-out may not start midweek Champions League clash

Goals from Cyriel Dessers and Vaclav Cerny helped Clement’s side to a narrow victory over Motherwell in their first match at Hampden while Ibrox undergoes construction work.

Rangers, though, also missed a number of makeable chances to extend their lead, a profligacy that could have proved costly as Motherwell threatened to unearth an equaliser.

Kyiv are the visitors to Hampden on Tuesday in the return leg of the teams’ Champions League third qualifying round tie and Clement warned his players they cannot be as wasteful again if they are to progress to the playoff round.

“A very big [performance is needed against Kyiv],” he said. “Comparable with last Tuesday [in Lublin in the first leg]. And we will need good efficiency. You will not get 19 shots like today, or nine on target like today.

“We need to be really efficient in that game. And it's against a team that showed a lot of quality the last couple of weeks. The last couple of years also, by playing together. So, we need to be on top of our game and to have everybody at their best level.

“I wish we could have given [the Rangers fans] a third and fourth goal. We tried that. We didn't succeed. We have to become better in that. I think the quality finish of Vaclav is good proof of that. But we're working hard on it.”

Cerny was the game’s stand-out performer in his first start for Rangers since completing a season-long loan move from Wolfsburg but Clement was coy on whether the Czech would also line up against Kyiv.

“It's a good question,” he added. “So I have to see tomorrow how he reacts after this game, and to speak with my medical staff, with my performance staff and with him, of course. I cannot make decisions now only for Tuesday. That's crazy to think about only Tuesday and then have a player out for a long time.

“He's an experienced player who can help the team a lot in the way we want to play football. So it's really positive for him already, two games, a very important assist and now a very good goal. But it's what we expected from him. That's why we made a lot of effort to get him here into the building.”

Motherwell boss Stuart Kettlewell admitted “it doesn’t look good” for new striker Apostolos Stamatelopoulos who went off injured late in the first half.

“He had a bit of tightness in his thigh and then stopped,” he revealed. “Sometimes we always associate it with stretching for the ball, but he actually stops and at that point, he's obviously felt a much sharper pain in his thigh. I'm not going into too much more detail until we see the right specialists and get things scanned and all the rest of it. But it doesn't look great.”