Smith looks to summon all reserves for Fiorentina test
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Your support makes all the difference.On any rational analysis, Rangers' dreams of a quadruple will hit the buffers tonight when they host Fiorentina in the Uefa Cup semi-final, first leg. Never mind that Rangers have not conceded at home in the tournament this season. Or that La Viola, for all the attacking brio they have in the one-time Chelsea bad boy Adrian Mutu, needed penalties to beat Everton in the last round.
Walter Smith is without his injured first-choice goalkeeper, Allan McGregor, and his main central midfield pair, captain Barry Ferguson and Kevin Thomson, both suspended.
Lee McCulloch, often an auxiliary striker, is out too and could miss the rest of the season. Two wide men, Chris Burke and Steven Naismith, are absent after injuries at the weekend, and midfielders Charlie Adam and DaMarcus Beasley are still on the long-term injured list. And on it goes, a roll call of woe just as Rangers need every fit body they can muster to add European silverware, the SPL title and the Scottish Cup to the CIS Cup already in the Ibrox trophy room.
Smith's deadpan response yesterday? "It makes it easier to pick the team," he said. A defence-minded 4-5-1 is certain, with Jean-Claude Darcheville the most likely lone striker, and the trickiest decision whether to start with Belgium's Thomas Buffel so soon after his first start – at the weekend – in 15 months.
In McGregor's absence, Neil Alexander plays in goal, and two saves in Sunday's Scottish Cup semi-final penalty shoot-out suggest he has the attitude for the big occasion. Ahead of him, Smith can at least field his bedrock centre-halves, David Weir and Carlos Cuellar, while Steve Davis, on loan from Fulham, will have no better stage on which to cement his rapidly acquired status as a match-winner.
Smith said Everton's David Moyes "left me in no doubt that [Fiorentina] are an exceptionally good team".
"Outside the Champions League games we've had, I felt Werder Bremen were an exceptionally good team and I would put Fiorentina on a par with them," he said.
Mutu, Fiorentina's leading striker in Europe with six goals, is likely to be joined in a three-man attack by Mario Santana and Giampaolo Pazzini.
These clubs have met before, in a two-legged tie in the final of the 1961 Cup Winners' Cup, when a 4-1 aggregate victory gave the Italian club their only European silverware to date.
Rangers likewise have only one European trophy – also the Cup Winners' Cup, from 1972. Bayern Munich were among their scalps that year, and in all likelihood, Bayern will be Uefa Cup finalists next month in Manchester. Rangers will need all their reserves, in all senses, to meet them.
Rangers (possible, 4-5-1): Alexander; Broadfoot, Cuellar, Weir, Papac; Whittaker, Dailly, Hemdani, Davis, Buffel; Darcheville.
Fiorentina (possible, 4-3-3): Frey; Jorgensen, Gamberini, Danielli, Gobbi; Kuzmanovic, Liverani, Montolivo; Santana, Pazzini, Mutu.
Referee: K Vassaras (Greece).
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