RANGERS manager Walter Smith admits the cloud that hung over Ibrox following the sale of Carlos Cuellar has had a silver lining in his team's improved football.
The £7.8 million received from Aston Villa when the Spaniard invoked a sell-on clause has helped fund the purchase of midfielders Pedro Mendes and Steven Davis.
And the performances of new centre-back Madjid Bougherra have dissipated the anger fel
t by many Gers fans when Cuellar left one year after joining from Osasuna.
Bougherra has been solid at the back while the new-look midfield has a panache sometimes missing during Rangers' successful but functional displays last term.
Rangers now go into tomorrow's Clydesdale Bank Premier League clash at St Mirren aiming for their sixth victory on the trot.
"We have a situation there where, not through our own choosing, Carlos leaving gave us a level of money to improve the team in one or two areas," he said.
"That's helped us, but it was not through choice. We have shown improvement in our overall football aspect, we just have to make sure that when we go to places like Love Street we can still produce that.
"The new boys have come in and – Davis aside because he had already played with us and has played extremely well since he came back – Mendes and Bougherra have started really well."
The full article contains 235 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
