Smith tells Rangers to wake up

RANGERS manager Walter Smith has instructed his players to snap out of their early season slumber tonight in time to avoid being engulfed by a potential crisis which was of their own making on the final day of last season.

Ever since the night at Pittodrie on 22 May, when Rangers lost an SPL title race in which they had set the pace for most of the previous nine months, Smith has been painfully aware that the fall-out from that failure would spread agonisingly into the new campaign.

While Celtic's bonus for retaining the domestic crown was the luxury of direct entry to the Champions League group stage, Smith has had to nurse a dread over the difficulty in negotiating two qualifying rounds of the tournament in the opening weeks of the season.

The insipid performance of his team when they drew 0-0 with Kaunas at Ibrox last Wednesday night in the first leg of their second qualifying round tie, followed by Saturday's dismal 4-0 home defeat by Liverpool in a friendly, has left them sleepwalking towards the kind of humiliating early exit from Europe suffered by Celtic at the hands of Artmedia Bratislava three years ago.

Smith knows he and his players could suffer a similar fate at the S Darius and S Gireno Stadium here this evening if they do not rediscover the sharpness and conviction which took them all the way to the Uefa Cup final last season.

"We have not played with an edge to our game so far and that's what will be required over here if we want to go through," said Smith. That's the biggest thing. The players realise what the situation is. They know what is at stake.

"The knowledge and the confidence they gained from last season can have an effect on this tie, but only if they start to play at the same level as they were playing at throughout that run. We need to get up to a really good level to get through and it's up to us to make sure we do that.

"What can a manager do to get that edge back? We just have to make sure the players are properly prepared and that's what we will do. There's nothing else you can do is there?

"This situation hit home as soon as the last SPL season finished. You know then you are going to have the face the qualifiers for the Champions League before you are really even up and running.

"That's the most awkward bit about it, but you just have to be ready for it. That's the way it is. There's no point in us worrying about the consequences of defeat. You just have to face up to the task.

"In the next round we know that there is the safety net of the Uefa Cup, but let's be honest, is that going to make us feel any better if we don't make it through? No it won't.

"We just have to concentrate on winning our games and on making sure we do enough to go through. We weren't bright enough in the first leg and we have to be better over here. That's it."

Carlos Cuellar travelled with the Rangers squad to Kaunas yesterday, but Smith feels the Spanish defender is unlikely to be fit enough to play as he recovers from a calf injury sustained against Raith Rovers.

Kaunas feeling confident

MANTAS FRIDRIKAS, one of the men who helped Kaunas keep a clean sheet at Ibrox last week, is confident the Lithuanian champions can go on to achieve the greatest result in their history tonight against a Rangers side he believes are overrated.

Kaunas have never progressed beyond the second qualifying round of European competition since their first entry nine years ago, but defender Fridrikas says he and his team-mates are ready to take that step at the expense of opponents feeling the strain.

"The pressure will be on Rangers to win and we can wait for our chance," said Fridrikas. "Rangers were not as scary as advertised before the game. Of course, they had more chances than us at Ibrox, but that is logical because they were in front of their own fans.

"Other than that, we managed to control the game, apart from the final 20 minutes, because we are in good physical condition. I think we deserved our result, we managed to defend our goal and that was the main thing. Now we are at home, we can be calm and composed. We have the opportunity to achieve a fantastic result for Kaunas."