Carlos: We were the best

May 25 2008 By Gordon Waddell

DEFIANT Carlos Cuellar last night claimed Rangers would have romped to the championship crown if they hadn't been forced to deal with a fixture pile-up.

The Spaniard saw his side run out of steam last Thursday night, crashing to defeat in Aberdeen while Celtic kicked off the title party with a victory at Tannadice.

But the Football Writers' Player of the Year insists he wouldn't swap Rangers' marathon 68-game stint and their UEFA Cup Final appearance for Celtic's three-in-a-row.

The defender said: "We've had a much better season than Celtic.

"They didn't get to the CIS Cup Final, didn't get to the Scottish Cup Final and didn't make it to the end of the Champions League. If it hadn't been for the last lot of games, if we hadn't been involved in every competition right to the end, I'm confident we would have won the league.

"And it would have been by a number of points, not coming right down to the last day.

"It has been a great year and only the fixtures made it tough for us to do better."

Iron man Cuellar has missed just four games since his summer move from Osasuna.

His 64th appearance this term in the Cup Final yesterday was a new Scottish record in a season.

And despite believing that kind of shift is insane he insists he would do it all over again.

Carlos said: "Last season I maybe played 38 games. This time it's 64 and that's f***ing crazy. It's incredible.

"Playing two games a week is fine - that gives you two or three days to recover from any match.

"But to play four times in a week? Physically it's not good.

"It depends on the mentality of the player, whether he would want to sign for the club under those conditions. Some players, to sign for a great club like this, would be happy to play four or five games a week.

"Me? If you told me the team would play 68 times this season I would have thought we'd be getting to the end of most competitions - that's fine."

Ultimately, though, Gers paid the price and Cuellar sighed: "If you want to analyse the games over the past month we've lost in the second half or fallen away.

"Hibs, Motherwell, the UEFA Cup Final - we suffered late.

"And it was the 1-1 draw at Motherwell when I saw it all slipping away."

The 26-year-old is sure to attract interest in the summer with a £10million tag likely to hang around his neck.

But Cuellar insists he will be at Ibrox next season.

He said: "I'm still happy. And what has happened in the last week won't carry over into the new season. We have a month of rest then a month to prepare."