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SMITH DETERMINED TO KEEP CUELLAR

Cuellar - Rangers' star man.

Walter Smith insists he is under no pressure to sell star man Carlos Cuellar - or any other member of his squad - to compensate for Rangers' failure to qualify for the Champions League.

Cuellar has been linked with Tottenham and Aston Villa in the wake of Tuesday night's defeat to Lithuanian side FBK Kaunas, which ended Rangers' European campaign before the start of their domestic season.

The Spanish defender endured constant speculation over his future last season thanks to performances which earned him player of the year awards from both the Scottish Football Writers' Association and SPL sponsors Clydesdale Bank.

According to Smith, Rangers have yet to receive any firm offers for the centre-back and would not welcome any, despite missing out on a Champions League windfall which could have been worth over £10million.

"We've not had an offer for Carlos Cuellar," said the Rangers boss.

"We don't want one and we are not seeking one. We don't have to sell the player or any player at this stage. We don't have to offload players simply because of that situation.

"Some players were going to leave anyway and that will still happen. But it's not entirely because of our failure to qualify for the Champions League."

Smith also claims his own transfer budget has been unaffected by the events in Kaunas and that he will step up his efforts to strengthen his squad further before the transfer window closes at the end of the month.

He added: "We had some money there anyway but we are finding a difficulty in getting a level of player that we want to bring in, that's been a difficult task over the close season.

"But there is some money there for us to bring in a couple of players yet.

"There are specific areas of the field that we want to improve on and hopefully in the three weeks remaining of the transfer window we will be able to do that."

Smith may have a long and successful association with Rangers but even he has come under fire in the last couple of days for what has been branded the club's worst European defeat.

"Nobody likes to be criticised in any way, shape or form," he said.

"But you don't become a football manager expecting to go through your career without receiving a level of criticism.

"If you are not prepared to accept the criticism, you shouldn't become a football mananger.

"It comes with the territory. When you lose out in the manner we did, you expect criticism and it's deserved.

"I have to accept that. I've had it before and it doesn't make it any easier at the moment. But you have to try to recover and get on with it and that's exactly what we will do.

"We are not responsible for how people react - we can only feel the disappointment of the result the other night and every one of us involved feels it.

"From the chairman all the way down, we feel the disappointment.

"The one thing we have to make sure of is that the disappointment doesn't allow our domestic results to be affected.

Rangers travel to Falkirk for tomorrow's Clydesdale Bank Premier League opener knowing they cannot afford to bring a dismal week to a close with another negative result.

With the SPL title now the main aim for the season ahead, Smith is well aware there is now even greater pressure to deliver the silverware and deny Celtic's quest for four successive league crowns.

He said: "We suffered a big disappointment midweek and, even after a couple of days, the disappointment doesn't go away.

"But we have to make sure it doesn't affect our overall season.

"There is that little bit extra pressure on us to do well in the league and our thoughts must be on that - we can't let ourselves be affected too greatly going into our first league game.

"Like every other club, when you don't have European football, that's what's left for you to aim for and everybody aims to do as well as they possibly can.

"We would hope to do well in the league. We certainly made up the gap that was there between ourselves and Celtic last season and they were good enough to go on and clinch the championship at the end when we fell just short.

"We have to make the SPL our aim for the season and the retention of the two cups we won last year would be something we'd look for as well.

"So that's where we start in terms of our domestic season to try to make up for the disappointment of getting knocked out the European arena so early."