Nine in a row snipers are shot down by Smith

Published on Friday 4 December 2009 23:12

THEY may have been the team which cemented his place as one of Rangers' greatest managers, but it appears the legend of nine in a row is wearing just a little thin for Walter Smith.

As he operates under the fiscally restrictive conditions now surrounding the Ibrox club, Smith has revealed his irritation at the regular criticism aimed at his current team by some of those who helped him equal Celtic's historic feat of nine successive championships in more prosperous times more than a decade ago. Richard Gough and Mark Hateley, two of the most influential contributors to Rangers' dominance of Scottish football from 1989 to 1997, were the main targets of a stinging rebuke from their former gaffer yesterday. Both men have been damning in recent assessments of Rangers' performances and results in the Champions League and SPL.

It has not been appreciated by Smith, who not only believes his present group of players are being needlessly undermined by their predecessors, but feels compelled to point out that Gough & Co were anything but flawless.

"At times I get a wee bit fed up with every one of them coming out with these comments," said Smith. "For me, Richard Gough and Mark Hateley are two who have made comments in newspapers recently and I get a wee bit disappointed by that aspect.

"It's as if they had the perfect answer to everything in football. They didn't have. We used to have loads of managerial meetings and bust-ups to try and keep them on the right track.

"And while they might be looking at the Rangers team just now and being critical, the team at the present moment has been successful.

"It's more difficult for the players now than it was in the time when they played.

"We've not played well this season, but I've maybe been too honest in talking about that, especially considering if we win our game in hand we can go top of the SPL. But by the standards we have set we haven't played that well.

"I just get a bit fed up reading about all the rest of them. Okay, we maybe don't have a (Paul) Gascoigne, (Brian) Laudrup or a (Ally) McCoist from the early days, guys to pull us out of problems. But the boys who are here have had to work extremely hard to get where they are and have won trophies for this club."

Smith also took a swipe at the oft-repeated maxim quoted by many of Rangers' nine in a row squad, referring to their off the field bond, which boasts that 'the team who drink together, win together'.

"See that, that's a self-perpetuating thing," said Smith. "They tell everyone what they got up to. But if it was true, what were all the other players from the other teams doing? Were they all out in the pub?"

The subject of squad harmony at Rangers has been under intense focus this week.

Smith has had to contend with media reports of a training ground altercation between Kenny Miller and Madjid Bougherra and a dressing room row between David Weir and Kyle Lafferty during last Saturday's first SPL defeat of the season against Aberdeen at Pittodrie.

They are issues Smith insists were quickly resolved and which did not cause him any concern in the first place. On the contrary, they provided him with a source of encouragement as Rangers seek to re-ignite their campaign at Falkirk today.

"It happens at clubs," said Smith, "and it has happened loads of times in my time at Rangers. I don't see it as being to the detriment of what were doing. Players can get involved in clashes for different reasons. But sometimes you say to yourself that if we didn't have it, it would show there wasn't any great desire or intent about the place and there was a bit of apathy.

"In the case of Davie Weir and Kyle Lafferty, then as captain of our team Davie has every right to have his say if we are not doing well, which we were not in the first half at Aberdeen.

"None of these things are done for any other reason than to provoke a reaction.

"Whether it is the manager or the captain, it's done for a reason. It's not the first time this season it has happened.

"It's a natural dressing room occurrence and if we didn't have it, there would be something far wrong.

"The Kenny Miller incident with Madjid Bougherra was mainly down to comments which were made in the newspapers about Madjid not coming back from international duty on time.

"If someone did that in any walk of life you'd expect there to be a situation amongst them. Players generally meet up on a training pitch so that's where things spill over. But they've had their say now and they've done it. They have sat down and said what they had to say in front of each other, so that's it. It's finished with. It won't carry on or spill over into anything else."

Smith is seeking a positive reaction from his players against their bottom-of-the-table opponents this lunchtime, adding that forthcoming fixtures will test his squad.

"December is a big month for us with a lot of tough fixtures," he said. "We lost a long undefeated away record last week and we need to show we can pick ourselves up. We need to bounce back against Falkirk."