McCoist keen to take on all-comers in Scottish Cup

Rangers manager Ally McCoist. Picture: SNS

For the first time since he became Rangers manager, McCoist has guided them into the last eight of the tournament. He is hoping tomorrow’s draw will deliver another home tie and is bullish about their prospects should they face Premiership opponents.

“I would be happy if we could replicate that performance in the next round against anybody,” said McCoist. “For the majority of the game, the lads were really, really good tonight.

“I’ve got no preference for the draw, but I’d take a home tie. That’s all you can really hope for in cup competitions.

“I can’t answer whether this team is good enough to beat anyone at home in the next round. I really don’t know. But I would be happy with that level of performance against anyone.

“I’m not going to say we would win against anyone, because obviously Celtic would be everyone’s favourites. Aberdeen are another of the favourites, and that’s a good tie at Celtic Park tomorrow. There are other good teams in the top flight but if we play like we did tonight, I’d be happy to take my chances against most teams.

“I don’t really think the rest of the teams will be hoping to avoid us in the next round. Most of the managers would say they wouldn’t want Celtic, to be honest. Celtic would be everybody’s favourites. But we have a team now that is probably a competent top flight team. We would be capable of doing alright in the top flight – no better than that, no worse than that.

“It’s great to be in the quarter-finals, it’s a boost for everyone. It’s the showpiece tournament and we want to give the fans something to look forward to in the next round. It was a great 90 minutes. We were solid throughout the whole match. There were some terrific individual performances, but overall I was really delighted with the team performance.”

Shortly before kick-off last night, Rangers chief executive Graham Wallace issued a statement rebuffing internet blog claims of fresh boardroom unrest and financial uncertainty at Ibrox.

“I spoke to Graham today,” said McCoist. “Not at any great length about that, but he did say the club would be issuing a statement. I don’t keep up with social media network sites and all that stuff. So I don’t know anything about it, but obviously I have been reassured by the chief executive. There is a lot of nonsense, as we know, written by certain parties and my understanding is that these are are untrue. Completely untrue.”

Dunfermline manager Jim Jefferies had no complaints about the outcome last night and accused his players of being too timid in their approach.

“It was men against boys and Rangers thoroughly deserved to win by that margin,” said Jefferies. “I said to the players afterwards that Rangers had been complaining after the last two times we played them about us being physical. Tonight we never laid a finger on them.”