Veteran defender Christian Dailly insists Rangers' humiliating European exit to FBK Kaunas was the lowest moment of his career.The Ibrox club suffered one of their worst ever results on Tuesday night when the 2-1 Champions League qualifying defeat in Lithuania left them without even the safety net of the UEFA Cup.
Dailly has been no stranger to heartache in the past, experiencing relegation with Dundee United, Blackburn and West Ham, but admits Rangers' capitulation to Jose Couceiro's minnows tops the lot.
"This is as low as you can be," he said. "There isn't one word to describe how I am feeling.
"Everybody was so desperate to play in the Champions League and to fall at the first hurdle is a real blow. The entire team is down.
"It wasn't down to a lack of work, we just haven't got going. We haven't got going in pre-season and these games probably came too soon for us.
"We still had enough chances to finish the game off but we didn't take them and paid the price.
"We have no excuses, we know that. It is sickening. We worked so hard, although we never played as well as we can, we know that.
"There was no way we took Kaunas lightly. We have just struggled generally, from the end of last season through to pre-season.
"We might have lost to Kaunas but there is no way we under-estimated them."
The shock defeat is in stark contrast to last season, when Rangers reached the UEFA Cup final following some decent performances in the Champions League earlier in the campaign.
"Last season we wanted to win everything," said Dailly.
"This season we wanted to be in the Champions League and to do well in the SPL (Scottish Premier League) as well.
"Now we only have the league but it is still hard to think about that after this disappointment."
Rangers travel to Falkirk on Saturday knowing they have no option but to put the events in Kaunas behind them and secure a positive start to their SPL campaign.
"The Falkirk game is now big," said Dailly.
"The SPL now becomes massive for us. We now have to dust ourselves down because our domestic campaign starts on Saturday.
"There are some pretty robust characters in football but we have taken a big mental blow against Kaunas.
"It is one we have to deal with and that starts this weekend against Falkirk. It is not a lack of desire with the type of players we have.
"We worked hard enough but we just didn't have enough.
"If you look at last year's team, we were criticised for a lack of flair, but from that side we don't have Barry Ferguson, Carlos Cuellar or Steven Davis.
"They played just about every game for us last year. We definitely missed their quality over these two games."
More Football News from TEAMtalk
Comment 1 - 4 of 4
Whats that got to do with what I said. Im quite aware of the year and the coffee is not only been smelt but well and truly drunk. My point is we don't have the finance and stautre we had back then but still expect that what we should have the quality. Celtic fans are now the same. We are 2 huge fish in a very small pond and unless the whole of scottish football changes we are never gonna get any better quality. Can you honestly say that any of the guys we had back then the equivalient would join us or celtic now. I meen Butcher/Terry Gazza/Becham Hately/ Crouch etc. So how are we going to compete against the best. Celtic seem to be going for european glory and we have tried this with more resourses and failed badly. Celtic have dominated our game this decade yet we have always been close behind. We have had one lucky season in europe yet we expect that we should easily beat anyone. I've always said Both old firm have the size, gates and infrastructure to compete against the biggest in England and europe but while epl is getting the biggest tv deal ever and other big clubs have banks and presidents running them giving sheds loads of cash in a good league, we have a @#$% league with no competition and very little money coming in esp for us after trying to dominate Europe the previous decade. Where are Blackburn, Leeds etc who done the same as us.
Bluebells it 2008 and Celtic have won the League 6 times out of the last 8 seasons.......smell the coffee
What most people don't remember is during the 90's Rangers were the best in scotland by miles. We also had a spending budget which could match if not better any of the top european clubs. This enabled us to bring in top stars such as Butcher Gazza Laudrup etc. We played the best football I have even seen from any Scottish club. Problem was no other Scottish club could match us Celtic were ropey financially at that time and the likes of Aberdeen Dundee utd Hearts etc seemed to just give up. So even with our huge transfer budget we could not get the biggest names to ibrox. Why would they want to come to such a poor league. And like I said our football was fantastic to watch. Yet with all this we had no decent success in europe at all. This has also lead to us now in a bad state financially. I don't blame Murray for recouperating his investment and Walter's bad as they may be has got us further in europe that wonderful football ever did. Personally I blame the players who come to our club thinking that they are now some kind of unbeatable superstar waiting for that big move down south. I also do think that the EPL is killing all club football in europe. I meen i don't blame players going for the big money but when top stars from the likes of Rangers Celtic Ajax PSV Roma Porto etc all end up in average EPL teams kinda kills the european competition. That said Rangers should still get to the champions league beating the like of hearts c team and gettig the 10m.
I do not support any Scottish Team although I live in Scotland. I watched Rangers progress last season through the UEFA cup by scraping away draws and going through on that basis. They were lucky. They rode their luck and got to the final. Last season they played a similar system, some say negative, I would say they play for draws to enable their progress. They did the same the other night and ended up paying the price. Their luck ran out! Rangers do not play this way in the SPL (Except against Celtic) they should play in Erope, they way they do against the rest of the SLP teams -expansive and attacking. Then they end up scoring 3, 4 or 5 goals a game! When watching Celtic last season in the Champions League, They played a more league orientated style of play and progressed well. In the last 2 seasons they lost to AC Milan & Barcelona - no shame in that! Rangers need to follow this example and erase the shame of losing to a NON ENTITY from LITHUANIA
Please login to post a comment
Not already a Yahoo! user ? Sign up to get a free Yahoo! Account