Conspiracies fail to register as McLeish calls for one last push

IF RANGERS' way into next season's Champions League is by tightrope, it is one that seems to have been erected outdoors and in a high wind. Alex McLeish emphasised yesterday, however, that he will not countenance the notion that his team's efforts to overhaul Hearts in second place in the Premierleague have been sabotaged by ill-wishers.

"If we don't do enough to get there, it will be our fault, nobody else's," said the Ibrox manager, at a stroke repudiating the conspiracy theories that have mushroomed since Celtic's capitulation at Tynecastle on Sunday.

"In that event, we'd have to look at ourselves and admit we didn't do enough. Through the season, we weren't strong enough to cope with contesting a number of competitions and, when we had injuries, we didn't have the creativity needed to succeed.

"These so-called conspiracy theories are to be found in every league at this time of the year. If you look at England, for example, people are saying that Portsmouth stayed in the Premiership because they benefited from opponents playing weakened teams against them in the run-in. It's nonsense, but it makes a good story."

On the eve of a match against Hibernian at Easter Road tonight in which anything but victory for his side would confirm Hearts as runners-up to champions Celtic, McLeish gave the impression for the first time in this seemingly interminable run-in that he himself is now edging towards pessimism.

It seems legitimate to infer that, having narrowed the gap to a single point by beating Kilmarnock 3-1 at Rugby Park on Saturday, he had placed some reliance on the Parkhead side inflicting damage on Hearts the following day.

The 3-0 win for Valdas Ivanauskas's team not only restored their four-point advantage with two matches to play, but gave them a superiority in goals difference - it now stands at 14 - which is insurmountable. "I didn't watch the Hearts-Celtic match, but I found out the result through the usual channels," said McLeish. "Now we know our fate is no longer in our own hands. We can only go to Easter Road and concentrate on our own game, as we did on the final day last season, when we nicked the title.

"Whether that kind of achievement is likelier or unlikelier this time is impossible to say. What we do know is that it will be impossible if we don't beat Hibs. We don't want to hand it to Hearts, we want to make them work for it, which means putting pressure on them again."

If McLeish is dismissive of the proposition that results are "arranged" according to priorities in the present circumstances, he would be equally disdainful of the idea that it would be in Hibs' best interests to lose tonight on the basis that their only chance of making the UEFA Cup lies in Rangers finishing second while they themselves take fourth.

This would certainly keep Rangers' prospects alive for at least one more night - victory for Hearts over Aberdeen at Tynecastle tomorrow would put an end to them - but it would seriously damage their own aspirations to finishing ahead of the Pittodrie side.

In the event of losing to Rangers, Tony Mowbray and his players would then be reliant on Aberdeen winning at Tynecastle, followed by Sunday victories for Celtic at Pittodrie and Rangers over Hearts at Ibrox, while Hibs were beating Kilmarnock at Rugby Park.

This convolution is tiring even to contemplate and makes an accumulator of such rewarding odds that it is no way for any team to go about fulfilling their ambitions. It is rather like someone in serious debt depending for salvation on winning the national lottery.

McLeish is able to recall central defender Sotirios Kyrgiakos from suspension, but admits to a slight dilemma over the Greek and Marvin Andrews, the latter having come off the bench to score twice at Kilmarnock.

Taken from the Scotsman