Rangers manager Alex McLeish expressed his delight at his players’ performance in the CIS Insurance Cup final after his new charges defeated Celtic in an epic semi-final last night. Bert Konterman's extra-time strike proved to be the Hampden Park winner after Bobo Balde had cancelled out Peter Lovenkrands' opener and Shota Arveladze went on to miss a penalty with the score at 1-1.
"The players were fantastic tonight. They did the jersey proud and I think the supporters appreciated it," McLeish said. "Obviously the victory was of paramount importance. The supporters saw a wonderful team spirit and commitment tonight. It was an end-to-end game. Celtic had chances, we had chances and it was an even game. We deserved the breaks to win. We just edged it."
"I was aware that a lot of people told me that we needed to take our chances because we have had chances in past games and have lost against Celtic. But we could afford to miss a penalty and win it tonight and that's going to do wonders for our mentality," McLeish added.
Celtic manager Martin O'Neill, however, insisted his side had been the better on the night and had set up more chances, especially early on. "We were splendid tonight. We deserved to win it and we didn't. That's the way it goes sometimes," O’Neill said. "We could have been out of sight in the first six or seven minutes. We had two glorious chances and we spurned them."
"We found ourselves a goal behind, which was a bit of a surprise. We controlled the game after half-time and deserved to equalise," O’Neill added. "If they had won it with the penalty I think that would have been hard to take. The referee said he was 100% certain and that's good enough for me. We were brilliant tonight and that's not bravado. I would be surprised if anybody disagrees."
Filed by Sinéad Kissane
