Why £35m Fabio Silva made his Rangers debut after just one training session

PHILIPPE Clement has disclosed that he gave Fabio Silva his Rangers debut yesterday against Kilmarnock due to his admiration for the impact of his recent arrival during his first training session.

After the Celtic game at Parkhead on Saturday, Clement had hinted that the Wolves loanee might not play in the decisive Premiership encounter before the holiday break, explaining that Silva had not trained with his new teammates.

But in the last 20 minutes of yesterday’s league match in Govan, the 21-year-old player—who his parent club acquired from Porto for £35 million—came on and helped the home team seal a 3-1 victory.

Subsequently, the Belgian acknowledged that the Portuguese striker, who hadn’t participated in a competitive match since a match against Sheffield United at the beginning of November, had impressed him so much on Monday while practicing with his new teammates at Auchenhowie that he felt comfortable starting him.

“To start with, I think it’s always fantastic when a player performs well in training, and he did yesterday,” he remarked. To grant him access to Ibrox minutes? He had to experience the joy of that first-time play area as well.

Then you enter this break carrying that same feeling. Compared to when you are always on the bench, this is different. We talked a lot about football and how I saw guys playing before he arrived, so he is aware of the story. We discussed how I see him playing at multiple spots, not just one.

“He could have traveled to locations where he might have made a lot more money, but because he is a very ambitious person, he came for the football story, the club’s tradition, and the opportunity to win championships.

“It was good for him to get his first impression of things and in that 20 minutes you didn’t have the feeling it was a player who didn’t know his team mates.

“So that is already a very positive thing, because it is not easy as an attacking player to come in to a new team where you don’t know the other guys or how to run and play or who gives decisive balls or who likes to dribble.

“You need to get a connection with them and you see already that he is a player who will suit the way we want to play football.”

Clement emphasized that during the January transfer window, he will be exerting a great deal of effort to get additional players.

He responded, “Very active every day, by looking at a lot of players together with people in the club,” when asked how busy he would be during the next few weeks. After that, we’ll see what we can do and what our goals are. We won’t be signing ten players in addition.