Soccer: Rangers need greedy striker - Amoruso

Rangers defender Lorenzo Amoruso reckons his team will always be European also-rans as long as they lack a top-class predator in front of goal.

The Italian believes the club has been lacking one of those since Ally McCoist left, even though millions have been spent on the likes of Tore Andre Flo, Shota Arveladze, Michael Mols, Claudio Caniggia and Billy Dodds.

Rangers had two great chances to dump Feyenoord out of the UEFA Cup in February but spurned them both.

Peter Lovenkrands and Mols were the culprits and now the Rangers squad have had to sit and watch the Dutch team march straight past PSV Eindhoven and Inter Milan into the final.

Amoruso said: ‘‘I don’t know if seeing Feyenoord in the final makes me angry or full of delusions because it is not the first season that Rangers were so close to going into the next round.

‘‘It has happened with the Champions League and with the UEFA Cup. Against Bayern Munich two seasons ago we lost the game and God knows how we lost that one.

‘‘Against Feyenoord it was more or less the same. And last season against Monaco and Galatasaray.

‘‘The only thing I can say is that we are always close, but I’m afraid that the little bit that we need is really very big.

‘‘It looks close but I don’t think it really is because what we are missing at this very moment, what we really need, is the killer instinct.

‘‘The other teams never go and miss those chances. I saw Feyenoord play against Inter twice and, to be honest, the chances we had against Feyenoord were better than any Inter or PSV had.

‘‘That means that we are capable of creating great chances but we are not good enough to score them.

‘‘Even in Scotland, in many games we create so many chances. There was one game, against Hibs when I wasn’t playing, I counted 21 chances and we just scored once.

‘‘That is not a great thing for a team who want to improve and go further in Europe.’’

Amoruso accused his striking team-mates of failing to live up to the legacy of McCoist, who left the club in 1998 when Dick Advocaat had a massive clear-out of the squad who won nine titles in a row, whom the Dutchman deemed as past their sell-by dates.

Amoruso reckons McCoist had been the last of the great greedy goal-getters at the club.

He said: ‘‘You must want to score goals in a really bad way, and maybe at times you are a little bit greedy, but this is a quality that a striker must have.

‘‘We are desperate to get one of them, a striker who can really convert chances.

‘‘Ally McCoist definitely had that kind of instinct. I didn’t play that many games with him but as a defender I could see how players move, even during training.

‘‘He was the kind of player who could really sniff the right place where the ball has to go.

‘‘It is unbelievable, these players sometimes they are completely out of the action but sooner or later the ball falls at their feet and they score.’’

Rangers manager Alex McLeish conceded that poor finishing in front of goal had been the sole reason for the club’s UEFA Cup demise.

He said: ‘‘We have followed Feyenoord’s progress with great interest.

‘‘They took a lot of confidence from getting through against Rangers, not only in that competition but also in the league.

‘‘Over the two games we probably had the chances to win it. There have been a lot of near misses and we have got to learn to turn these into victories.

‘‘We have been unlucky with injuries, but to be successful and to get to that stage we need players who can play 30 or 40 games regularly.’’

McLeish’s injury worries ahead of next month’s Scottish Cup final persist and Ronald de Boer is back on the list.

The Dutchman is out for at least 10 days with a broken toe sustained in a tackle against Hearts last week.

Fellow countryman Bert Konterman is out of plaster following a similar problem but Stephen Hughes is sidelined after the teenager suffered knee ligament damage in a reserve game.

Shota Arveladze has been given extra time to recover from an ankle problem in time for the cup final and Craig Moore’s fitness following a hamstring tear has significantly improved and he is expected back in training next week.