Rangers manager Philippe Clement is furious about the John Lundstram incident as the Ibrox club closes the gap on Celtic.

Rangers manager Philippe Clement claimed John Lundstram was “kicked off the pitch” in the 2-0 win over St Johnstone at Ibrox.

The Belgian saw luckless striker Kemar Roofe go off after only 16 minutes, but replacement Cyriel Dessers fired the Light Blues ahead in the 28th minute after a VAR intervention saw referee Alan Muir upgrade a yellow to a red, with the Rangers midfielder kept in at the break.

Rangers extended their lead in the 84th minute with a penalty from skipper James Tavernier to close the gap on leaders Celtic to two points with a game in hand.

Clement, on the other hand, was dissatisfied with the tackle on Lundstram, who is questionable for the games before the January break, including the Old Firm game at Parkhead on December 30, while Roofe will also be “assessed” on Thursday.

“It’s another player who is kicked off the pitch, so I am really frustrated with that,” Clement said.It’s his ankle so we will see in the next couple of days what will happen.

“This for me is my main concern after the game – again a player kicked off the pitch. I’m not sure we can get him back before the winter break so that’s not a good situation.

“I don’t want to go in on emotions after the game, I am a little boiling so it’s better to cool down and make opinions about leagues or whatever.

“But it clearly wasn’t a good challenge with your studs forward like that. We had an even worse one later in the game when the guy luckily hit the ball and not my player (Dan Phillips on Kieran Dowell), the intensity there was to break a leg.

“Those things are not good for football.”

When asked why he took Tavernier off in the final stages, Clement explained, “It was more to see I don’t lose any more important players for the next couple of weeks and not to take risks that another one was kicked off.”

“We did a lot of things well,” Clement said of the game. We had control of the game from the start until the end. It is not easy to play against 10 men when they are so deep, with no space.

“We kept our organisation, my defenders stayed focused. We could have had more goals, a few good saves also.

“We were waiting for that second goal, it came late. But we kept on pushing to get the goal and we had enough chances to do that.”

In other news, Celtic and Rangers are keeping an eye on Kilmarnock goalkeeper Will Dennis.