RANGERS remain a club with financial difficulties to overcome, but at least one account inside Ibrox has been settled in full.
In delivering a first SPL title to the club for four years, garnished at the weekend by the retention of the Scottish Cup, Walter Smith met a personal liability he felt towards club owner and chairman Sir David Murray.
It was a sense of obligatio
n which left Smith unable to ignore the distress call which came his way in January 2007, persuading him to resign as Scotland manager and return to Rangers for a second spell in charge.
Smith duly stabilised the club following the brief but wretched tenure of Paul Le Guen and has subsequently guided them to four of the six domestic honours they have contested and to their first European final for 36 years.
It has fully vindicated Murray's decision to turn to Smith at one of the club's darkest moments and has allowed the veteran manager to repay the faith his chairman showed in him back in 1991 when he appointed him first time around as successor to Graeme Souness.
"Sir David gave me the biggest break of my life, as a manager and as a person, when he gave me the job after Graeme left," said a reflective Smith yesterday.
"He helped me and my family when he made me manager back then. So when he asked me to come back, I felt I owed him a debt. It was the first thing he has ever really asked me to do for him in that sense.
"You would need to ask him if I have repaid that debt but from where Rangers were, I think we have had a good impact on the club after the initial change."
The mood of jubilation which has enveloped Rangers over the past ten days is in stark contrast to the dark atmosphere which pervaded the club in January.
As they trailed Celtic by seven points in the championship race, a section of their supporters vented their fury against Murray with the launch of a 'We Deserve Better' campaign.
Smith knows that dissent may only have been temporarily silenced by the silverware collected in Rangers' last two games of the season and is dismissive of the influence it had on his team's desire to succeed.
"People who criticise you shouldn't be your motivation," he said. "The 'We Deserve Better' campaign actually started at the beginning of the season, not at the St Johnstone game in January, in terms of that kind of criticism being directed at the club.
"But that is just symptomatic of what is happening in Scotland at the moment. We had Gordon Strachan winning titles and doing well in Europe for Celtic, yet there was always an under-current that it was never good enough. It's the same here.
"I have read and listened to what was said about him and it will be exactly the same in our situation. But, as I say, that kind of thing is poor motivation.
"You have got to want to win for yourself. A team has to win on its own. A football manager cannot expect not to be criticised, but in the last ten years it doesn't matter what a manager does, there has been the over-riding aspect that you still get criticised.
"The situation in other countries when teams win leagues is that coaches are looked upon as doing an excellent job. The society we are in, in Scotland, takes greater pleasure in downing everyone. They are happy to criticise."
Saturday saw Smith win his 17th major domestic honour as Rangers manager, prompting his veteran captain David Weir to claim he now merits recognition on a scale accorded to the great Jock Stein who collected a total of 25 with Dunfermline and Celtic.
That observation almost caused Smith to blush when it was put to him yesterday.
"It's a nice thing for Davie to say, but I would never put myself up there," he said. "That's not modesty, it is simply that Mr Stein was an iconic figure.
"I was lucky enough to be asked by him to take charge of the Scotland under-21 side early in my coaching career and I was nervous every time I met him.
"There was something about him that made him a bit different. Sir Alex Ferguson has gone even better in terms of overall achievement, but I would never consider myself to be at that level."
Despite automatic qualification for the lucrative group stage of next season's Champions League having been secured by his team, Smith accepts that the need for Rangers to cut costs and reduce the size of their squad remains firmly in place.
Ideally, he would like to improve his team with up to four new players this summer, but his attempts to do so will depend on how successful the club are in moving on several members of the current squad.
"We still have that whole financial situation facing us," he added. "It did not affect is in the latter stages of the season because ultimately we did not sell anyone in January. But we still have that situation to adjust to this summer.
"Reaching the Champions League means we have more power over the decision making process, but it is still there. We still have to cut the squad back and just have to wait and see what happens.
"The problem kicks in now and it will not be an easy close season for anyone at the club.
"Christian Dailly and Brahim Hemdani have left and we will lose a few others. There are three or four positions in the team which we would like to enhance, but if we can't do so, then that's just the way it is.
"When I first came back to the club, a lot of the signings were short term, but we now have a squad with a good average age, if you don't include Davie Weir! A lot of them are in their early to late 20s, and I feel boys like Steven Whittaker, Kevin Thomson, Maurice Edu, Kyle Lafferty, Steven Naismith and Steven Davis give us a really good basis for the future."
