Walter Smith refused to blame the Scottish Premier League for Rangers' failure to win the UEFA Cup at the last hurdle.

Rangers went down 2-0 at the City of Manchester Stadium to Zenit St Petersburg and afterwards Spanish defender Carlos Cuellar pointed the finger at the SPL's refusal to postpone last Saturday's match with Dundee United.

Smith said: "I don't think the thing with the SPL had an effect on the game. We would have liked to have cleared our heads a little bit but it didn't have an influence on the players, they were ready to play.

"We don't have any winter breaks in Britain, that was our 64th game this season, we have four more left so when you add that a lot of the players play at international level it's a lot of games but that's what the players have to do and it didn't affect the result tonight."

That was not Cuellar's view however after Igor Denisov and Konstatin Zyryanov secured a deserved victory for the Russian side at the City of Manchester Stadium.

Cuellar said: "All we needed was the SPL to help us make history by extending the season by one week only but I don't know why they didn't want to help us win this trophy.

"We have had too many games in such a short space of time and it is crazy.

"We had a very good chance to win a European trophy but the SPL did not want to help us.

"I don't understand why that was and if we had not played Dundee United on Saturday, I think we would have looked more comfortable.

"We would have had more recovery time for this match and I think we would have been able to create more chances when we attacked.

"We would have been able to come forward a little faster but as it was, I think we looked a little tired going upfield and we didn't have a lot of opportunities to score.

"This season, I think I have played 62 games and in Spain, I would maybe play 38 or 40 times in a year."

Smith said it was important the disappointment did not overshadow the remaining chase for the league and Scottish FA Cup double having already won the CIS Insurance Cup.

He added: "It's difficult to judge just how much the disappointment takes out of us but we have our opportunity with four games to go on and win two trophies, so we would hope we can overcome the disappointment and not let it affect us.

"We will approach the remaining games in the way we have done all season and we have the opportunity to make up for the disappointment in the next few days.

"If we win our next three games we will be champions and we would be happy with that!"