Smith wants helping hand with schedule

26 February 2011 15:00
Walter Smith has called for the Scottish Premier League to show more sympathy over his Rangers side's fixture congestion. Rangers face PSV Eindhoven in the last 16 of the Europa League, with the second leg taking place in the same week they line up in the Co-operative Insurance Cup final against Celtic on March 20, while they also have games in hand over many of their SPL rivals. And Smith hopes Rangers' continental progress is taken into account by the powers that be. He said: "We are not trying to go as far as possible in the Europa League for the good of the SPL, we are doing it for the good of Rangers. "We are the team who has done as much as anyone over the last few seasons to try and keep the co-efficient as high as possible. "If you put a cup final in the same week as European fixtures are being played, then you have to ask yourself if they are not expecting at least one of your two best teams, Rangers or Celtic, to be involved in Europe by then, but that's where we are now and the fixtures have been out there all season."

Source: PA