Philippe Clement addresses Rangers 'budget' reality as one thing shines through from Benfica pain

Philippe Clement believes Rangers fans should be proud of their team despite bowing out of the UEFA Europa League at the last-16 stage following a 1-0 second leg defeat to Benfica.

Rafa Silva's breakaway goal from Angel di Maria's second-half knockdown sent the Portuguese giants into the quarter-final draw to settle a nail-biting encounter at a soaked Ibrox.

The visitors posed a greater attacking threat on the night and while expressing his disappointment at the result, Clement insists there are plenty of positives for his side to look back on as their European journey came to an end.

Speaking on TNT Sports, Clement said: "I'm bad at losing, so the feeling inside is disappointment but also proud because I've seen a better Rangers team today than we were in Lisbon. But you know at this level you need to be on your toes to compete with these kind of teams with much bigger budgets.

"We had our chances, they had a few chances but they finished it off and it's not offside. We have a few young players who can learn lessons from that and we can only grow.

"I think they (Benfica) were struggling to get the ball, much more than they were in Lisbon because we did the right things with the ball. We need to become better in the final third, to be more decisive. But we're missing a lot of players and needed to bring in players who had only one training session after being eight weeks out, so those are not perfect circumstances.

"But we will only grow if we take the right lessons out of this game and we will do, like we did in the last couple of days, taking conclusions from our game out in Lisbon.

Asked if the manner of the defeat was difficult to accept, Clement commented: "No, I think we need to be proud and every fan of Rangers needs to be proud. We have the reality of budgets and squads to contend with. We are re-building a squad. Everyone is going full, everyone inside the stadium can see that all the players on the pitch are doing their ultimate best. We've seen everybody growing the last couple of months and we need to continue doing that."