Philippe Clement believes that the additional rest period will benefit his Rangers squad ahead of their match against St Johnstone.

The Scottish Premiership clash is set to kick off at 8pm on Sunday, a shift prompted by the Great Scottish Run event occurring in Glasgow.

Rather than viewing this change as a disadvantage, the Rangers manager is optimistic that the extra recovery time following Thursday's challenging UEFA Europa League defeat to Lyon can prove advantageous for his players.

“It’s a big difference, of course, when you play eight o'clock in the evening or like we did last time, 12 o’clock," he told Sky Sports. 

"It’s a little bit more recovery time for the players, so I expect to see that on the pitch.”

Read more: 

It's not just more energy the Rangers boss wants displayed out on the Ibrox pitch, he's hoping his side can continue their run of three consecutive clean sheets in the league, which have all helped to gain crucial victories. 

"It's always the goal," Clement continued. "Also in Europe of course because then you are sure of a point already. We did a really good job of that in Malmo (2-0 win), we defended well and blocked shots.

"But against Lyon their players were a little bit faster than the normal players, so we need to raise our level in that way again, and we need to do that and use those qualities in our league games.

"We need to take our level from Europe into the league games. It's about raising the standards week by week and being ambitious in that way."