Returning trio give Rangers fresh impetus

RANGERS manager Walter Smith will not have been thrilled that his club has failed in a bid to have a free week before next Wednesday's Uefa Cup final with Zenit St Petersburg, but there is at least some good news at Ibrox with the return of Charlie Adam, Lee McCulloch and DaMarcus Beasley.

All three players have recovered from injuries and took part in training at Murray Park yesterday. Adam is back in the first team squad and is line to face Motherwell at Ibrox tonight, confounding fears that a knee injury had ruled him out for the rest of the season.

McCulloch and Beasley, who has not played since suffering a knee injury during the Champions League defeat in Stuttgart in November, are also back in training.

"I would hope that both of them will be involved, if not tomorrow, possibly Saturday," said Smith yesterday.

The Rangers manager will be heartened to see this trio back in action, reversing the trend of recent weeks which has seen an increasing number of Rangers players ruled out of action by either injury or suspension. Smith believes his players will be fully focused on their quadruple challenge despite the club's failure to ease their schedule, as they prepare to face Motherwell tonight and then Dundee United on Saturday, before next Wednesday's final in Manchester.

"Players remove themselves from all that," said Smith. "Normally I would do too, but I just felt it wasn't right at this stage.

"But players themselves are here to play, and I am here to manage the team, whenever we are told to play. That's what we'll do.

"For us, it's just a matter of making sure we get our focus back. These are the first home league games for a while, so we will look forward to maybe getting a couple of results that we need."

The visit of Motherwell is the first of seven games in 18 days for Rangers as they look to add the Uefa Cup, SPL title and Scottish Cup to their CIS Cup success.

Celtic have piled the pressure on by going seven points clear at the top of the SPL table, although they have played three games more than their rivals.

Smith is relishing the prospect, daunting as it is. "It would be a huge challenge to anybody, what we have in front of us," he said.

"The games are not being played in a span of time that we would like them to be played in, but it's an exciting challenge.

"This season, if you said to me with four or five games to go we would be challenging for the championship, I would accept that. I would have thought that would have been a good season for us.

"So we have to keep that in mind, but we also know that not only are we making a good challenge, we have the opportunity to win the championship if we can win our remaining games.

"That's a big thing for any team. Throw in a couple of cup finals and you've got a good end to the season!"

The Rangers manager feels no need to use the club's anger at the SPL as a spur for his players.

"That's not been a motivation to anybody," he said. "The motivation has been to win, since the start of the season, and that's what we have tried to lay down.

"That is just emphasised even more come the end of the season."

Meanwhile, Zenit St Petersburg have arranged a friendly against Dutch side AZ Alkmaar on Saturday.

Dick Advocaat's men have been granted a four-game reprieve by the Russian league to prepare for the Uefa Cup final, and they will travel to the Netherlands for a few days before moving on to England.

Zenit player Andrei Arshavin said yesterday: "The preparations for the game are going well. We've had a couple of days off and next we'll play a bounce match in St Petersburg.

"On Saturday, we'll fly to Holland for a friendly against familiar opposition in AZ Alkmaar, then, on Monday, we'll travel on to Manchester."

The St Petersburg outfit will, however, be forced to play their postponed matches between July and August, at the peak of the Russian summer when temperatures can hit 30 degrees Centigrade.

Arshavin added: "We will obey the league's ruling and play the matches whenever we have to. We're not thinking of such small matters, only of the Uefa Cup final."

Exercise bikes and ice baths take precedence as players take the strain

ALAN PATULLO

THE howls of outrage issued from Rangers with regard to the fixture congestion which threatens to de-rail their quadruple ambitions has not so far emanated from the players, though it is they who are being forced to take the strain of a punishing schedule.

Perhaps they might be secretly pleased at the turn of events, with every player likely to tell you they much prefer to take part in matches than train. But, for Rangers players, this has been taken to the extreme – playing games seems to be all they are doing at present.

Such is the hectic nature of the season that 55 hours after they disembarked from their charter flight from Florence on Friday morning, the Rangers players were clambering down from the team coach outside Easter Road for game 61 of an incredible season.

The next engagement comes as soon as tonight, when Motherwell visit Ibrox. And then, before next Wednesday's Uefa Cup final against Zenit St Petersburg, comes Saturday's match with Dundee United, with there having been no relief gained from the Scottish Premier League and Scottish Football Association's meeting yesterday in an attempt to come to some sort of accommodation. Instead, the schedule remains as it was for Rangers, with seven fixtures now requiring to be negotiated in 18 days.

It is a wonder that Murray Park is being used at all at present, with the players struggling to find time in this packed programme to even train. But the squad is being required to attend the training ground, though training as most might interpret it – shuttle runs, press-ups, circuits of the pitch – is far from what is actually the case at Murray Park, where reconditioning is the watchword.

Those players who were in on Monday following Sunday's 0-0 draw with Hibs followed a routine that has built-up steadily over the course of the last few weeks, as Rangers cope with the hectic schedule that has been required by not only their progress in Europe, but also the drawn game with Partick Thistle in the Scottish Cup and the catching-up with games postponed due to the tragic death of Motherwell midfielder, Phil O'Donnell, in December.

Yesterday, for example, saw the players congregate at Murray Park and begin training with a 15-minute warm-up on exercise bikes.

Then after this came some ball work out on the pitches, with the assumption being that these professional players are, after nine months of an arduous season, fit enough for the challenges ahead. There is no need for trips to the sand dunes at Gullane, a tactic favoured by former Ibrox manager Jock Wallace when he wanted to get his players in shape.

After the ball work, it was back inside for massages, ice baths and other techniques designed to restore the body.

A lot also depends on the individual player, and how recently he has played and how many matches he has taken part in during recent weeks.

While news of the failure to have this weekend's match with Dundee United moved has been greeted with dismay by some at the club there is something for which the Rangers players must be thankful.

When it comes to recovering after games there is no worse fate than being crammed into an aircraft ahead of a long, wearying journey home, such as Rangers faced prior to last weekend's match with Hibs.

The Uefa Cup final being staged in Manchester eradicates the need to spend time hanging around an airport. It is a small blessing, but one gratefully received by players desperate to conserve every last ounce of energy.

McGHEE WARY OF IBROX MEN

MOTHERWELL manager Mark McGhee is not expecting tiredness to affect Rangers tonight, writes Gavin McCafferty.

Former Aberdeen striker McGhee knows that challenging on all fronts can inspire players to extraordinary levels of energy.

McGhee was a key member of the Dons side that lifted the 1983 European Cup Winners' Cup and Scottish Cup, and pushed Dundee United for the league title. And a man who played more than 70 games in one season knows that tiredness will not be a factor for Rangers.

"I don't think it's a factor, certainly not in terms of this game," the Motherwell manager said. "Maybe right at the end of the season or the Scottish Cup final, not on Wednesday night.

"But my experience as a player tells me that players find extra resolve when the stakes are as high as they are. They find extra energy.

"I don't expect anything other than a top performance from Rangers."

Motherwell go into the Ibrox game with a one-point advantage in third place as they pursue a Uefa Cup place, and McGhee will make changes after resting key players such as Ross McCormack, Stephen Hughes and Graeme Smith during Saturday's 2-1 defeat by Celtic.

"It was about spreading the workload at this stage of the season," McGhee said.

"We have a lot of games coming up, Rangers have more than us but we have got two more games than everyone else."