Fit Carlos is our cue for victory

Aug 3 2008 By Mark Guidi

WALTER SMITH is desperate to see Carlos Cuellar come through his next two training sessions to prove his fitness for Tuesday night's vital Champions League qualifier against FBK Kaunas.

The Rangers boss will put the Spanish stopper through a series of fitness tests in the hope of seeing him recover from the calf injury he picked up last weekend.

Cuellar missed the 0-0 draw with Kaunas at Ibrox last week and Smith knows his return in Lithuania would be a huge boost to the club's European hopes.

He said: "Carlos has a slight chance for Tuesday. We will monitor him closely and hope he will be fit.

"It's an important match and we need our good players. We want to qualify for the Champions League and will have to be brighter than we were in the first leg."

Bitter rivals Celtic have already claimed their place in the group stages after pipping Gers to the SPL title.

And Smith wants to avoid tricky Euro qualifiers next year by being crowned champions for the first time in four seasons.

He said: "There is very little margin for error when you're trying to win a title and Celtic have handled it better than us in the past few seasons.

"We are confident enough but now need to take it that stage further."

Smith took flak for his tactics last term with some critics claiming he was too defensive in European games.

But he said: "We were defensively based in European football because I felt that was the best way to go about it.

"However, in domestic games we used two and sometimes three strikers andwere the top scorers until the final game or two."