Full squad means Walter Smith can look to rest key Gers men

RANGERS manager Walter Smith admits some of his ever-presents are in need of a rest now he finally has all his players available again.

The Ibrox boss has a full squad to choose from "for the first time in a long time" ahead of tomorrow's Clydesdale Bank Premier League clash against Hibernian.

The loss of key personnel in recent weeks, combined with a more compact squad than in previous years, means some players, such as Steven Davis and David Weir, have been forced to fill the void with little respite.

"It's a little bit of a problem that we have," Smith said. "We have a smaller group of players and there is a burden falling on quite a number of them at the present moment with the number of matches that they have to play.

"Hopefully we can start to get them a little bit of a break here and there if we can get everybody else in the team fit because we have been asking a lot of a smaller group of players with the amount of midweek matches we are having. Normally in January and February, we are only looking at having one game a week but we have basically been playing two games a week since the turn of the year.

"It's put a little bit of a strain on the lads and hopefully that can be alleviated shortly."

Despite admitting that recent weeks have resulted in more games than he would have anticipated at this time of year – having been forced to a replay against Hamilton in the Active Nation Scottish Cup and now facing a similar scenario with St Mirren – the Rangers boss insists there is no chance of the Scottish champions experiencing the crippling fixture congestion of 2008 when they battled for silverware on four fronts.

"That was a one-off," said Smith. "I don't think anybody can say that what happened to us a couple of seasons ago is going to happen again. We've got no European football so that alleviates it to start with.

"Both Gus MacPherson and myself would be agreed that we don't fancy a replay but we've got to do it."