Smith: Le Guen keen to sign much-wanted Clement

Dunfermline 0 Rangers 1

But he insists the absence of the 22-year-old from yesterday’s 1-0 Bank of Scotland Premier League win at Dunfermline had nothing to do with him wanting to quit Ibrox after just seven months.

Clement has spoken of his desire to return to his native France following the departure of previous boss, Paul Le Guen. Le Guen, now manager of Paris St Germain, has confirmed his interest in joining forces with the youngster again, after bringing him to Rangers for £1.2m in the summer.

Clement also played under Le Guen at Lyon and club bosses there are reported to be keen on Clement making a return to the Stade Gerland.

However, Smith is still a long way from sanctioning his Ibrox exit and says there was a simple reason for his exclusion from the trip to East End Park.

“He’s ill actually,” said the Rangers boss. “We do have a situation where there have been enquiries about him but that’s not the reason he isn’t here. He reported ill with the flu. We’ve had a couple of enquiries from clubs and it all depends on whether they come back with a bid. We will just have to wait and see if that is the case.”

Smith is reluctant to offload players until he is certain of more new faces arriving at Rangers before the transfer window closes. But he insists former Gers midfielder, Charlie Miller, is not going to be one of those new arrivals.

Miller, 30, was at Ibrox for seven years during Smith’s first spell and has spent the last two-and-a-half years with Norwegian outfit, Brann Bergen.

He is back in Scotland for personal reasons and will use the training facilities at Murray Park until his return to Norway at the weekend.

Smith explained: “He is training with us. He is coming home because someone in his family is ill and he asked if he could do some training.”

Charlie Adam grabbed the only goal of the game against rock-bottom Dunfermline, allowing Smith to maintain his 100% record since his return to Rangers. The narrow victory may have been far less convincing than last week’s 5-0 rout over Dundee United, but Smith was pleased by the stability provided at the back by David Weir.

The 36-year-old defender left Everton last week to join Rangers until the end of the season and Smith believes fellow centre-half, Karl Svensson, in particular, will benefit from the veteran’s steadying influence.

He said: “Rangers have a fairly young back four and Davie’s experience will help them. Karl Svensson will benefit if he can pick up on that experience alongside him at centre-half.”

Dunfermline remain nine points adrift at the bottom of the SPL.

DUNFERMLINE: De Vries, Shields, McGuire, Wilson, Scott, Morrison, Ross (McIntyre 77), Mason, Ryan (Hamill 46), O’Brien (Muirhead 77), Hamilton, Crawford.

RANGERS: McGregor, Hutton, Svensson, Weir, Murray, Burke (Buffel 70), Ferguson, Hemdani, Adam, Novo (Sebo 90), Kris Boyd.

Referee: J Underhill.