Your views on Rangers' European defeat

So Rangers fell just short in their bid for the Uefa Cup, a first European trophy since beating Dynamo Moscow in the 1972 European Cup Winner's Cup final.

Walter Smith's side gave their all, but the Russians, prompted by the excellent Andriy Arshavin, proved too good, winning 2-0 in the City of Manchester Stadium.

We would like to know what you thought of the Rangers performance against Zenit. Were they simply not good enough on the night or had they punched above their weight just to reach the final in the first place?

Were their safety-first tactics found wanting, ultimately and should Walter Smith have been bolder than just to deploy Jean-Claude Darchville ploughing a lone furrow up front?

The quadruple has gone now, but Rangers already have the CIS Insurance Cup in the bag and are still in the running for the Scottish Premier League title and the Scottish Cup. Do you think they can win the treble, or will this defeat prove too deflating an experience, will three away games in six days in the SPL take its toll, or can they keep their nerve?

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Comments

[Clifton]

There is such a lack of balance and abundance of exaggeration in most of these comments that my gut reaction is "get stuffed, we were in the final and you weren't." Where to even start? I could spend all day pointing out the nonsense throughout this thread. Yes, the team plays defensive football. Yes, they are not terribly skilful. Yes, there are a bunch of gloryhunting morons that attach themselves to the club and enjoy causing mayhem. But my goodness, show some perspective. Bayern and Leverkusen were embarrased by Zenit, whereas Rangers hung in there for most of the game and could easily have equalised or even taken the lead earlier. Off the field, do you not understand that the majority of Rangers fans detest these rioting, drunken thugs as much as you do. Rangers Football Club has nothing to apologize for since they did their utmost to prevent this kind of behaviour. How would you feel if it was your club? It's disgusting, but I'm damned if I will stop supporting my team because of these people. If Rangers shut down tomorrow do you not realize that the same cretins would just resurface elsewhere?

[Craig, Liverpool]

The comments from the anti-Rangers fans just display the bitterness that these people must have felt at Rangers getting as far as the final. To get there, with such limited resources, was an amazing achievement. Would anyone antipate, say, Bristol Rovers getting to the FA Cup final? that's about the scale of it. The detractors also seem to be overlooking perfectly good victories at Lyon and Lisbon - it wouldn't fit their narrow minded argument. As for the trouble, of course it was terrible. But if that many people congregated anyshere there would be violence and there would be a mess. the blame for this lies with the 'professional fan' types who seem to think that every fan has a duty to be at big games. The only people who should be encouraged to attend are those who legitimately have tickets. If there hadn't been this nonsense about setting up 'fan zones' then the ticketless would not have arrived in their tens of thousands in the fist place.

[brendan gregg]

Wally Smith nearly got everton relegated with his defensive tacticts and buying once was players, It shows the gap between the English prem and the Scot prem. I fell sorry for rangers for not having a manager with a vision like Everton

[Dave Spectacular]

It was and awful event in every way. Firstly, the clowns who thought letting 120,000 people invade a city to watch a game was a good idea, they really need talking about.

I am proud work and live in Manchester City centre, the Rangers fans drinking started at 08:00, normal girls heading to work were being jeered and harassed, the city centre is filthy, quite frankly it still stinks. I was completely staggered by the absolute total lack of basic human decency, it was amazing to see adults in todays society demonstrate such a lack of any form of respect. Imagine the worst scenes of British holiday makers drunkeness on the continent and multiply that by 10, if you think of the typical lout scene including lobster pink skinheads draped in Union Jack flags you will have a good idea.

Rangers as a club should provide a public apology to the city of Manchester and it's inhabitants as every aspect of it is now covered in shame.

To sum it up, the most lenient and forgiving term for the Rangers fans would be......scum.

[Soccer Doc]

something that seems to be getting lost here is that a football manager is paid to be successful and to do that he needs to use the resources at his disposal in the best way he can. Where are Rangers strengths? Cuellar, McGregor and Ferguson. The rest, frankly, arent that great. What Smith has done is to make use of an outstanding centre half and goalkeeper, and organize the rest of the team, to be hard to break down. They dont play like Barcelona because they dont have the players to do that. Their best chance of success was in defending and getting a goal on the break (or letting it go to penalties). Would you expect Smith to put his team out to be entertaining, knowing that they are less likely to win? Get a life. The supporters of most teams would watch paint dry, if they thought their team would win playing that way. Rangers are no better or worse in that respect than anyone else.
The other thing is, how much did this team cost to put together? Reports suggest that the transfer budget for Zenit was something of the order of £40 million (not a lot when you are sponsored by Gazprom). Arshavin reputedly cost something like £10 million. Smith, given Rangers current financial position, cant operate at that level of the transfer market. Like us all, a football club is limited by its financial resources in the quality of player it can recruit. One or two, for instance, have had a crack at Kirk Broadfoot (and I agree with them btw), but that's what Rangers have been able to afford. Maybe next year, they can go a bit further, but it wont be much further and again Smith will have to adapt his tactics to the skills of the players at his disposal.

[Vadim]

I'm so happy and proud of our attacking football, come on Zenit! I'm waiting for the Champions League!

[D. Meiklejohn]

With Smith you know what you are getting, namely: 4-5-1 and as many centre halfs in the team as possible. It is not pretty to watch but it has achieved decent results this season. Unlike most on here with their petty and small minded views I was actually in Manchester from Tuesday and attended the game.

On the football front I was disappointed at the style of play but expected it. The fact European finals come about so rarely I'd have hoped to see Rangers set out a bit more positively. 4-5-1 would be fine if the front man got support from two wide men and one midfielder. Sadly the whole of the Rangers midfield was anonymous and Darcheville had a hopeless task. Waiting until we went a goal down to make a change is classic Smith, seldom, if ever, does he change a game proactively. Also the lack of a "plan b" was obvious. He went from having as many centre halfs as possible to as many forwards as possible on the park. Free kicks, corners and throw-ins clearly show a lack of organisation and pre-planning.

On non-football issues the scenes were as reprehensible and as regrettable as you can get. What must be noted is that it was 200 people out of 200,000. 99.9% of people behaved immaculately according to the police and council. No other support in the world would take this number with them and the 99.9% of Rangers fans have shown themselves to be amongst the most loyal and well behaved supports in the world. Had this been T-In-The-Park and the sound system went down just before the headline act I think you'd have just as ugly scenes.

[Kv]

Let's get serious about the beamback issue!! No matter what team you support, there's going to be issues if 30,000 fuelled (by manchester) with alcohol travel miles and go through all the hype to have the power drop! Get real! Sad snipers!

[Kv]

Smith got it wrong. He did well to get us there but this game needed a different approach and 1 striker with our Uefa hero novo on the bench wasn't it. To pull out his notes with 75 mins gone when losing a goal showed he had no plan B!!

[Joe]

Walter Smith performed a remarkable task getting Rangers to the UEFA cup final, especially as they are still on for a Domestic treble. Himself, Ally McCoist and Kenny McDowell deserve a lot of credit for that, ok the tactics were ugly, but effective.

The scenes of violence from the Rangers faithful were even uglier though, and this is so disappoining. Celtic fans were lauded when they went to Seville in 003 by UEFA and FIFA, receiving awards for their sporting behaviour in defeat, yet Rangers fans have let their club, city, country and ultimately themselves down.
Chosing to point the blame at the authorities is also disappointing.

[steven]

Do neutral football fans really want to sit and watch a team defend, combined with some more defending, following by some more defending ?

Rangers won 2 matches en route to the final. They scored 5 goals. Former celtic player Henrik Larsson scored more goals, himself, than their whole team did. (Its worth mentioning that Henrik played far less games than the Rangers team too).

Lets call it a defeat for "anti-football" (not my words but the words of one of the worlds best players - lionel messi).

[Bill]

As a scot I hope all the blame is being attached to Rangers and not Scottish supporters. A new twist to the scandal is the remarks of Rangers CEO, Martin Bain, who alleges that it is down to "fans who don't normally attach themselves to our supporters"!!
The problems that Rangers have with (admittedly) a minority of their supporters will not go away with this sort of indefensible garbage. How does he explain away the problems at Ibrox during the beamback?!

[Tommy]

Rangers played the only way they can....very poorly. Just like their fans RFC showed they're not in the same class as Europe's elite.

[john mcphee]

The best defence is a good offense.
You have to score more goals than your opposition and Rangers and their game plan do not address this.
You score first and then you defend you don't defend and then wait to score. Hopefully there will be some lessons learned here, although I would not hold my breath.
When all is said and done "dull" football, akin to euthanasia.

[Jason]

It makes me laugh when people drink and then make silly comments on sites like this. Rangers fought tooth and nail to make it to the final. Walter Smith has turned a sinking ship and deserves the utmost respect for his efforts. To have been told this time last year that Rangers would win the treble and play in the UEFA cup final would have made me laugh harder than I have at the anti Rangers comments on here.

[rob australia]

You British deserve each other. I hope I will never hear that Italian Football is defensive at least the Italians countered fast & with purpose. Rangers & Man U are just rubbish in Europe The tactics although worked for now are old & dated. The talians did that many man years ago. The are just branded thats all.

[fred]

Rangers tactics of defending and hoping to snatch a goal or take the match to penalties is the norm for inferior teams. When they went a goal down they should have immediately switched to plan B, lumping the ball into the goal area and all piling in. But instead WS started to write what seemed like a very long essay. This tactic was a complete revelation, I have never seen it done before during a match. The odd note being taken for a memory aid at half time is quite common, but the pages and pages WS scribbled takes football tactics to a whole new literary level. Even now I suspect WS has had some very tempting and generous offers for what must have been a synopsis of his next book.

[Martin]

Kenny - sure there's litter but I've yet to see rioting at T in the Park, or mass public urination, sectarian and racist chanting, deliberate criminal damage, fighting, assault and attacking police officers like animals. That only 40 people were arrested is a minor miracle but I guess it's difficult to arrest people when you're being kicked up and down the street but up to 20 or more thugs at a time. This is of course not mentioning the stabbing INSIDE the ground.

Do you really think Glasgow or any other city could have coped with that?

Rangers can have no defence on this matter, which is ironic considering that's all they've relied on on the pitch.

The whole of Britain now sees your club and its supporters for what they are. On the pitch and off the whole of Britain condemns what Rangers are.

Time for you, your fellow supporters and your club to get a grip.

[Adam Michie]

The stat at the start of the game which said Zenit had 6 Russians in their side, and Rangers had six Scotsmen sketched a fair picture of how the game would and did pan out. The Russians, being technically better than their conterparts, were simply more comfortable in possession, and used the possession they had with a purpose. Rangers looked bogged down in defence, erratic in midfield and Darchville up front looked at times, like a pretty lonely figure. The lack of pace and urgency throughout was telling. The best team won on the night, by far.

[Calum]

Kenny - only 40 arrests? Okay, so official arrest figures are low, but they would not have the facilities to hold the amount of people who committed arrestable offences yesterday. The behaviour of the Rangers fans was an embarrassment to the club, and Scotland in general.

As for the game - like i have said all along, Rangers are not a good footballing side, but are exceptional at being hard to break down. Credit given. There is not one single even-minded football supporter who could deny Zenit their win - it was a victory for football itself last night.

[Will]

I, as a Zenit fan, would like to thanks for all English people for support ))) Zenit is really deserve to win this game!!! Our group was really difficult but we made it. After defeating Bayern 4:0 was no chance for Rangers win the game. Thanks for hospitality and welcome in Moscow for C Cup =)))

[Lee]

Jimmy, just say it's one of those things, why not? Can you imagine the uproar had it been mancs rampaging through Glasgow?

[Kenny]

Chris- Your City??
With any high profiled event, that coupled with over 120,000 people, comes, litter. Look at "T-in-the-park, look at "Glastonbury" etc. Those areas would be rubbish dumps also the day after. With 120,000 Gers fans roughly in Manchester only just over 40 arrests. Granted there should'nt have been any but its still some acheivement. If YOUR city managed to organise professionaly and effiently, those ugly scenes would never have happeneed. Get a grip.

[Albert]

Rangers playing football?.That's the worst team I've never seen.Start learning to be normal supporters...It's a shame for the game and for the fans.

[trueblue]

pman sour grapes

[trueblue]

dour football drudgery what aload of sour grapes where was rangers this time last year nowhere weve signed players on loan getting old too etc give credit wheres its due if rangers did play defensive so what so did inter milan in the 70 or so it was classed as great defensive work we do it its boring you seem to forget the teams we put out in europe this year for a team built on washing up bottles and sticky back plastic ,it was up to the other teams to break rangers down not for us to open up and say go on old chap have shot at goal yeah i want rangers too attack but gods sake open your eyes

[Dee]

I, as a Rangers fan, would like to apologise to the people of Manchester for the appalling actions of a group of individuals who used the unfortunate defeat as a reason to go wild! I am sickened and ashamed that people who wear the clubs colours would choose to promote Rangers Football Club in such a way. It's just simply unacceptable. In regards to the game, the better team won. I's as simple as that. Rangers showed no flair or determination to make the dream a reality. They looked desperate. Kirk Broadfoot is so out of his depth with this club. Better luck next year boys.

[Ally Marshall]

I think he played the only tactics he could. Rangers players simply aren't as good as many they have come up against. Mostly in terms of basic control and ball retention. They have relied on organisation and graft and it took them a long way.

Several players, Broadfoot especially, looked way out of their depth. If they want to compete a at that level regularly they will need to invest in the squad. a midfielder is essential. someone who can retain the ball and not easily panicked. possibly a right back (Whittaker can play there reasonably well). a wideman may allow steve Davis (if he stays) to move more central.

[csire balázs]

Paolo Maldini once he said: "defending can be interesting, too." Yes it can. But the one who saw Rangers yesterday will not recognize it. Their approach was not just defensive. It was simply defetist.
This is the death of football.

One of the commentators went as far as to say that he does not know any other ball game where simply defending may bring success: basketball, water polo, handball, voleyball all have attacking spirit in their nature. Up to date I thought football has it, too. Rangers did seem to show that I was mislead. Zenit did prove that I was not mislead. rangers was.

[pman]

Tactics, what tactics? once Zenit scored that was it over, Walter and Sally looked dumbfounded on the touch line, terrible football for a european final, Rangers simply were not good enough.

[marc]

I was fortunate enough to get tickets to the Champions League and UEFA Cup Finals staged and Hampden and as a neutral, thoroughly enjoyed the carnival atmosphere and the spectical.

i feel sorry that the people of Manchester got the anti football tactics which Walter Smith continually plays (and completely kills any chance of a game being worth watching) and also had their city sacked by the rampaging hoardes of the worst football fans in Europe.

Such a shame that the English, Spanish and German teams had to falter along the way.

[graham burrill]

Fell just short?? They were outplayed for most of it and simply were not a good enoughteam
They would sit in the bottom third of the Premiership if that.

[Iain]

Rangers punched above their weight just to reach the final, beating teams who were much better technically than them. However the real difference in the final was that not only were Zenit technically better but also consistently attacked rangers with real pace which neither fiorentina or sporting lisbon did with any consistency in the previous rounds.

[Mark Pollard]

I cant think of another game where the opposition so out-classed, out-skilled and out-dominated by the other side. Rangers were simply awful and had it not been for Zenit`s desire to try to score goals by trying to walk the ball into the net, they were very lucky to lose by only two goals.

[Douglah]

It's good to see that a footballing, attacking team won instead of dour drudgery.

[Vlad]

Zenit was just much better !!! Russia Go !!!

[Chris]

Why are we even talking about the football!? What's important is the behaviour of the park. My city was turned into a rubbish dump and war zone - there should be no more said about it.

[Dan]

Zenit were deserving winners on the evening. Zenit attacked all night, while Rangers were merely content to counter punch. The shot of Rangers fans desperately praying before a set piece from 20 yards out in the 40th minute was a telling sign that their scoring chances would be limited.