The Philippe Clement comment in early Rangers training session that sparked stunning Dujon Sterling revival
Dujon Sterling has set his sights on sustained success under Philippe Clement after former boss Michael Beale turned a blind eye to his talents.
The Rangers star has been transformed under the Belgian boss with a string of excellent displays. Sterling’s impressive training work was so crystal clear to Clement that the manager even admitted to the player himself he could not see why he’d not featured more. Despite signing him last summer, Beale limited the 24-year-old to just two starts in three months before he was axed. However, it didn’t take Clement many glances to note Sterling could do a job for him.
The former Chelsea kid said: “This gaffer has come in and saw what I was doing every day on the training pitch and said to me, ‘I don’t understand why you aren’t playing’. He had the confidence and the belief in me to play me. I’ve got to thank him. That just shows you how quickly football can change. You just have to keep working every day as I was doing.”
Sterling, of course, was unable to make the impact he immediately wanted due to a setback soon after Clement’s appointment. The Ibrox ace had an eye problem which halted his momentum. Sterling explained: “Back at the start of November, I woke up one day and had a couple of black lines in my eye (line). I think the term they use is floaters.
“I had that and it was still giving me issues for a couple of weeks. It was blurry at the top of my eye so I couldn’t really see anything on my right side. I said to the gaffer that I wanted to play. But say, for example, it was 0-0, and in the last minute, a ball comes over and I can’t see it.
“I didn’t want to affect the team by playing when I knew I wasn’t 100 per cent right. He said that’s fine and to take as much time as I