Rangers reaction: Philippe Clement turns to Alex Rae word, hits out at key decision and reveals scan delays

Diomande was ordered off by referee Nick Walsh after he got involved in an altercation with Kevin Holt, where he appeared to raise his hand at the Dundee Utd defender. Walsh was advised to review the decision by VAR Don Robertson, but the official stuck by the decision. Clement said he “did not understand” the verdict.

It slightly soured what was a good day for Rangers, recovering from the concession of Sam Dalby’s 19th-minute opener for the hosts to win for the first time from behind this season. Diomande found the leveller on 37 minutes before a deflected Robin Propper strike four minutes into the second half and then another excellent finish from Cyriel Dessers on 86 minutes.

“I totally don't understand the red card,” said Clement. “I think the VAR also didn't understand the red card, otherwise they don't ask the referee to come to watch the screen. So Dio gets pushed, pushed away, so there's violent contact towards him in the push, and he falls back, and he has a small reaction with his hands, not touching anybody.

“So if you see that back, I think it's clear. The maximum is for the two players, the yellow card. I see so many things happening in Scottish football every week. If this is a red card, then every game there should be three, four red cards. So the only thing we can do now is to appeal this, because I don't understand that you can go to the screen and then stick to your opinion of the red card, but it happened.”

Clement admitted he did not speak to Walsh afterwards. “No, I didn't do, because I know how these things go,” said the Belgian. “He's in the emotions, I'm in the emotions, so that's not a good moment. It's a good thing we have the open communication with the referee department, and we're going to appeal that, and then we're going to see what they think about it, and also to ask what the VAR said. It's clear they bring him to the screen, so they don't agree with the decision. That's clear.”

Clement was at pains to praise his players for their performance less than 72 hours after going down 2-1 to Manchester United at Old Trafford. The Rangers manager was without 11 first-team players and named a bench packed full of youngsters against one of the in-form sides in the division.

“I think everybody enjoyed the game,” continued Clement. “Two teams going full with a lot of energy, with a lot of power, with a lot of duels. All credit also to Dundee United, what they've been doing, or what they did also today, but what they've been doing all this month, they deserve to be in third place, clearly. So we knew it was a hard place to come, to get this away victory, but my players dug in. In the second half they stepped up, with more quality on the ball also than we had in the first half, and scoring three really good goals, and getting also a few other really good chances.”

“We also shot a few times in our own foot in these away games by making mistakes and giving confidence to the other teams. Today also you can see the goal on the throw-in where I'm not happy about, but we didn't rush anymore. We stuck to the plan, we kept on playing our football, and we found the solutions.

“So the team is making progression. They're learning out of the mistakes of the past, and that's normal with a team who needs to grow, and with a lot of players who were not playing together last season, or were not in the building last season.”

Rangers picked up four injuries in that Europa League match at Old Trafford, with the absence of Yilmaz sparking rumours that the Turkish defender is back in his homeland on the cusp of a move. Clement called the rumours “a shambles”, adding: It's a good word - I'm with Alex Rey in the dressing room! I've seen Ridvan every day, the last couple of days, so I hear reports that he was in Turkey and all these things. No, he had a small injury. I hope he's back on Thursday.”

Clement was less confident on potential returns of Leon Balogun, Connor Barron and Vaclav Cerny for the match against Union Saint-Gilloise at Ibrox. “We wanted to make scans on Friday, but because of the storm we couldn't do it,” added the manager. “So there will be better assessments tomorrow.”