Stevie's Final Hope

[ian1964 10,720]

STEVIE WHITTAKER is hoping his timely performance in yesterday's demolition of Hamilton can earn him a slot in Sunday's Co-operative Insurance Cup Final.

 

Whittaker came in for Kirk Broadfoot in the right back slot and produced his best form of the season with a terrific goal and assists on both Kyle Lafferty goals in the 5-1 win.

 

Now he hopes he has done enough to convince Walter Smith that he is the man to face Celtic at Hampden.

 

He said: Of course I am desperate to play in it. I have not had a lot of playing time lately and yesterday was a big chance for me.

 

"Hopefully at the very least I have put my name into the manager's thoughts for the game against Celtic.

 

"I just hope that I can use yesterday's win as a stepping stone to staying in the team and playing a part between now and the end of the season."

 

Whittaker has had a stop-start campaign but he scored a great opening goal and his confidence looked to be back.

 

He added: "To get the opening goal in what was a good team performance and what was, I felt, a decent individual performance, was big for me and I just hope that I get the chance to take that into next week.

 

"I put us one up and when you do that early in a game it gives you a lot of confidence.

 

"It helped me relax a bit and I felt that my game came on from that."

Edited March 9, 2009 by Super_Ally
Removing pic captions

[Super_Ally 0]

Normally I would keep a player in if he gets his chance and performs so well. It's harsh on the injured player, but sometimes the manager has to be ruthless. That's football.

 

However, Broadfoot matches up so well against McGeady normally that I would likely restore him to the line up.

 

Unfortunate for Whittaker, especially as he is a confidence player, but we need to do the right thing for Rangers, not just for Steven Whittaker.