'Nothing special' - Philippe Clement breaks silence on Rangers Lawrence Shankland transfer link

Rangers manager Philippe Clement has played down transfer links to Lawrence Shankland, insisting there was nothing in his embrace with the Hearts striker.

The Ibrox club have been strongly backed to make a January transfer swoop for the Jambos top goal scorer by several pundits and speculation intensified when the Belgian boss was pictured sharing a "special hug" with Shankland in the aftermath of Wednesday's 1-0 win at Tynecastle.

The moment raised some eyebrows among fans on social media as Clement seemingly made a beeline for the Scotland international at full-time before whispering something in Shankland's ear.

Clement knows Shankland - a boyhood Rangers supporter - well from the hitman's previous stint in Belgium with Beerschot V.A, but he remained tight-lipped over talk of an imminent transfer and admitted he won't go into any detail about potential signing targets.

The Gers boss also stated he is going to have to be more aware of his actions in future in case he's perceived in the wrong way considering everything is scrutinised closely when you're in charge of one of the Glasgow giants.

Asked about the embrace and his interest in Shankland, Clement laughed and replied: "That's a good question. You guys have written a lot about that already. I'm never going to speak about players that we're interested or not interested in.

"I hear that some people really watch me a lot, I knew it already in the city, so it's a little bit special in that way. So I need to think really good in the future what I do every second of the day. Clearly I need to watch out what I'm doing here. But no, I greeted all the players of Hearts that I met along the way. Was nothing really special there."