Walter's rally now heads for Manchester. History beckons for Walter Smith's Rangers side as they prepare to take on Zenit St Petersburg in Wednesday night's UEFA Cup final. Two league victories, against Motherwell last midweek and then Dundee United on Saturday, have been ideal preparation for their visit to the City of Manchester stadium. With the team having come through the United game largely unscathed, attention can now turn to the biggest match of their careers.

"We will train at Murray Park on Monday morning and then fly down in the afternoon," said Smith. "Then we go training at the City of Manchester Stadium on Tuesday night. For us it's not a matter of training - it's more a question of trying to give everyone as much rest as possible. What we want to do is try to enjoy it. I felt that a weekend off would have given us a bit of respite, even psychologically, to then look forward to the game on Wednesday.

"But as we were robbed of that by the Premierleague's refusal to reschedule the United game, we'll give everyone the Sunday off - their first day off in ages - and then hope that we can get everything ready for Wednesday night. I'm proud of the way they are handling the season but it's like everything else - we've still got to try and win. I more or less know his starting 11. I still have to do some video watching, but we've got a good idea of the team."

Smith's side have attracted criticism for not being aestheti-cally pleasing, particularly in Europe this season. What is certain is that the Rangers manager has made the absolute most of the limited resources at his disposal. Even he admits to an element of incredulity about their passage to the final.

"It is highly improbable that they are in the final. - I've said that many times now," reflected Smith. "But it's like everything else now - we find people at the end of games who are quick to assess our level of football. Maybe I'm a bit at fault here, because I'm quite inclined to say how the games go. So, if I say we had a good level of possession' then people take that and make something else out of it, and they carry it on. I just think I'm being honest.

"We've had a lot of situations where people say that Rangers play anti-football', rubbish football' or whatever. But for a first-year team we've settled in well and, for those teams that have lost to us, if they are that good, why haven't they beaten us?

"Everybody always looks at Rangers and the way we play. And it's mainly the opposition players who have made those comments; it hasn't really been the coaches because they have more of an understanding of the situation. The players make these comments and they've got to take a look at themselves.

"We play at a level that we are not given credit for. It's just one of those things. We have been put under a lot of pressure by a lot of teams who are better set than we are, and have been playing together for a number of seasons in European tournaments. They've been able to do that, but we've not had that luxury. So we have to take all that into consideration. That is the way it has been throughout this European campaign, so we just have to accept that and get on with it."

The true scale of Rangers' achievements rests on their performances over the next couple of weeks. The UEFA Cup final will be followed by three league games in six days as they seek to wrest the title from Celtic. Much has been made of the punishing domestic schedule and the Premier League's refusal to accede to their request to have Saturday's game postponed, but Smith denied that a sense of injustice will inspire his players to greatness.

"It may well be a motivation, but it's not the greatest one. The greatest motivation is to go and win. Other things are poor motivational tools. As I say, I feel we are being erred against in this situation, but that is not the driving force. Our driving force is to try to win in all of the tournaments we're still involved in. That is what keeps us going more than anything else."