Smith: SPL not at the root of our defeat

WALTER SMITH refused to blame the Scottish Premier League for Rangers' failure to win the UEFA Cup at the last hurdle.

Rangers went down 2-0 at the City of Manchester Stadium to Zenit St Petersburg and, afterwards, Spanish defender Carlos Cuellar pointed the finger at the SPL's refusal to postpone last Saturday's match with Dundee United.

But Smith said: "I don't think the thing with the SPL had an effect on the game. We would have liked to have cleared our heads a little bit but it didn't have an influence on the players, they were ready to play.

"We don't have any winter breaks in Britain, that was our 64th game this season, we have four more left so when you add that a lot of the players play at international level it's a lot of games but that's what the players have to do and it didn't affect the result."

That was not Cuellar's view however after Igor Denisov and Konstatin Zyryanov secured a deserved victory for the Russian side.

Cuellar said: "All we needed was the SPL to help us make history by extending the season by one week only but I don't know why they didn't want to help us win this trophy. We have had too many games in such a short space of time and it is crazy. We had a very good chance to win a European trophy but the SPL did not want to help us.

"I don't understand why that was and if we had not played Dundee United on Saturday, I think we would have looked more comfortable.

"This season, I think I have played 62 games and in Spain, I would maybe play 38 or 40 times in a year."

Smith said it was important the disappointment did not overshadow the remaining chase for the league and Scottish Cup double, having already won the CIS Insurance Cup.

He added: "It's difficult to judge just how much the disappointment takes out of us but we have our opportunity with four games to go on and win two trophies, so we would hope we can overcome the disappointment and not let it affect us.

"If we win our next three games we will be champions and we would be happy with that!"

Smith admitted that Rangers were short of the sort of creativity that man of the match Andrei Arshavin provided for Zenit.

"I think when you look at the player who has just been man of the match we have missed a little bit of that all year, someone who can add something a little different."