Walter Smith admits Rangers have put themselves under massive pressure to win their final two Champions League games after conceding a late equaliser against Unirea Urziceni in Bucharest.
The Scottish champions thought they had secured a crucial victory that would have resurrected their campaign when Lee McCulloch netted with only 11 minutes to go. But Rangers were denied their first win of the tournament when substitute Marius Onofras levelled for the Romanians two minutes from time.
Smith - who refused to comment on crowd trouble involving Rangers fans at half-time - said: "The pressure is on us to win our games, that's what we have to do. I don't think there is any other way forward for us."
Rangers remain bottom of Group G and now face massive games against Stuttgart at Ibrox and a trip to Sevilla with their hopes of progressing to the knockout stages now hanging by a thread.
"That's what makes it so disappointing to lose a late goal," he added.
"At least we acquitted ourselves in a better manner than the first game, which was as poor a performance as we have had in Europe since I came back.
"We made up for that a little bit."
A 4-1 defeat by Unirea at Ibrox a fortnight ago put a massive dent in Rangers' hopes ahead of this game and Smith was at least pleased to see a marked improvement from his players.
He said: "I don't think we had weak points. Our weakest point was our overall performance in the last game, we didn't play well at all. But I think tonight we showed we can play better than we did do in Scotland."
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what a load a sh ite..stevie wonder and ray charles below..per a f ann eez!
D-bol..for 3.8 mill u r expecting more...however hes a center forward not a midfielder..he will be playing center half shortly!!!
David-i'm at more rangers games than most-I never mentioned Davis-If your telling me you think Lafferty is the answer to our problems then your wrong-i'd rather start with Novo and Boyd than him and miller-he makes running about like a headless chicken look like art work. As for not being the managers fault then whose is it?bottom line is again we are looking at being out on our ear before novembers ended-how many times have we got to 80 mins before a sub has been made when its been crystal clear 30 mins into the game that the tactics are not working -we have got away with it the past two seasons, the drivel that got us to the uefa final two years ago was only put up with because we were scraping by better teams.
Walter has been great for us domestically, no doubting that and he will forever be a hero in the eyes of rangers fans, but for gods sake take your ulster tinted specs off and see the bigger picture here-he was replaced the first time because he couldn't put a team out in europe that would do the business(and that was with the millions we had then) -so whats he gonna do this time with no money?
If petrescu can get his team on a budget to perform the way they have why can't walter do the same?
He's the manager and the buck stops at him.
I can remember going to ibrox when we were getting crowds of fifteen thousand-can you?
D-Boi if it wasnt for the Ulster pair of Davis and Lafferty, Rangers would be in even deeper s**t than they already are. How can you say 'How lafferty manages to get a game in beyond me' ????? I watched him at Hibs and he won almost every ball up the wing, unlike the unfit Miller and the dangerous McCullough. Its not all the managers fault - its up to the players to perform under ANY circumstances. Are you actually a Rangers fan????
lol time is out for the sc*m,the world of footbal dont want the sc*m rankers rotten end of story
HAIL HAIL
Not surprised as Davy Weir is past his best and should not get another game for Rangers.
he is too slow and his ball control and passing is terrible. If it wasn't for Alan McGreggor RFC would have been 5 down at half time!!!!!
Sorry walter but our weakest point was again your failure to change things on the pitch early enough.How lafferty manages to get a game in beyond me,our team is so one dimensional its so bl00dy obvious to anyone we play against.We as a club are gonna have to go through harder times than we are at the moment until things change and that change will have to included ALL the backroom staff-we are awful to watch and our play is horrific sometimes.A team whose most expensive player cost £350000 have taken 4 points from us-we don't deserve to progress.
As for those scenes at half time , yet again our travelling support bring shame on our club-its getting to the stage where the only travelling fans allowed should be through official club organised bookings with names and details traceable,
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