Smith sidesteps January sales talk

Rangers boss Walter Smith today refused to answer questions about the club’s claim that no players need be sold in January.

After Saturday’s 1-1 Clydesdale Bank Premier League draw with Hibernian at Ibrox, Smith claimed the Light Blues’ spending was now being controlled by Lloyds Banking Group, adding “the players at the club have been up for sale since January”.

Rangers issued a statement last night, confirming there had been tentative enquiries to buy the club.

They also insisted the bank was being supportive and, as a consequence, “there is no need for the club to sell assets during the January transfer window”.

At today’s press conference ahead of tomorrow night’s Co-operative Insurance Cup quarter-final at Dundee, Smith replied to the first question about the topic by saying: “They (the club) issued a statement and that’s it.”

The next enquiry was met by a similar response, Smith saying: “I said the club issued a statement last night and that’s it as far as I’m concerned, that’s it finished with.”

Quizzed again, the Rangers boss repeated broadly the same answer.

Smith, who later threatened to walk out if the subject was broached one more, did admit the current negativity around the club, who are reportedly around £25m in debt, is having an impact.

He said: “If there is a level of negativity around the place, it affects everyone, not just the players.

“The thing that we have to concentrate on is the results of the games.

“We had an extremely poor result in the Champions League last week and we had a decent game with Hibs, and both teams deserve a bit of credit for the way they played.

“Now we have a difficult cup tie coming up and, while there may be levels of negativity around the place, we don’t and can’t allow it to affect us.

“You’ve got to overcome that aspect of it.”