Walter Smith’s Euro battle cry after derby day hiding
Rangers manager Walter Smith today urged his players to pick themselves up this week as they bid to extend their Europa League campaign.
The Ibrox club’s championship hopes suffered a huge blow yesterday when they went down 3-0 to Old Firm rivals Celtic at Parkhead.
Smith, however, will order his players to put their domestic woes to the back of their mind as they prepare to travel to Portugal to take on Sporting Lisbon on Thursday night.
Rangers conceded a late goal in the 1-1 first-leg draw at Ibrox last week – which means they will need to score in Lisbon to have any chance of progressing in the competition to take on either Lille or PSV Eindhoven.
Without the services of striker Nikica Jelavic, who is cup-tied for Europe, Smith will now also be without Steven Naismith.
The Rangers boss said: “We’ve got a European game to prepare for and we’ve got to focus on that now.
“Unfortunately, there will be a couple of changes forced upon us and we’ll have to deal with that as best we can."
“It’s well-known we have a small squad, and when we are missing a few players it makes life difficult.”
Smith, however, knows a dramatic improvement will be required following the inept display his team offered up yesterday as they came off second best at Parkhead.
He said: “Celtic deserved to win the game, I don’t think we can have any complaints."
“Our possession and defending was poor. It was as disappointing an Old Firm game since I’ve been back."
“We had a 10-minute spell just after half-time where we looked a bit brighter than we had at other stages of the game, but a 10-minute spell in a 90-minute game at Celtic Park is not enough and we didn’t do enough to deserve anything."
“The pressure is now on us to try and get a level of consistency in our game to make sure that when the next Old Firm game comes round, we’re in better shape."
“I’ve said all along this season that Rangers will need a bit of luck in terms of injury and suspension to handle the problems and that’s still the case. Hopefully we can get that."
“Obviously losing Lee McCulloch and Nikica Jelavic for periods of time over the season is going to be a problem, but we’ve got to be good enough to handle that and we weren’t yesterday.”
Source: Evening Times