WholeDamShow

Assistant manager Ally McCoist has dismissed fears of burnout as Rangers continue to chase four trophies.
The Ibrox club take a 2-0 lead to Werder Bremen for Thursday's Uefa Cup tie before taking on Dundee United in Sunday's CIS Insurance Cup final.

And the former Gers striker said: "A lot of people say, 'are the amount of games worrying you... the pitches, the backlog, the tired players?'.

"No, this is where you want to be, this is what you want to do."

There will be no let up for the SPL leaders after the CIS Cup final, with Rangers playing a Scottish Cup quarter-final with Partick Thistle next Wednesday.

And the first of three league meetings with nearest rivals Celtic is at Ibrox at the end of March, the weekend after Hibs visit on league duty.

"You only play these amount of games if you're doing reasonably well in all competitions," continued McCoist.

"But it's now getting to the business end of the season and we want to start winning things.

"The boys have performed very, very well to get to this stage but as yet we haven't won a thing yet. So it's a very important, testing time coming up.

"But this is where you want to be. These are the games you want to play in - away to Bremen, a cup final on Sunday, three Celtic games, this is what it's all about."

McCoist saw Bremen lose heavily at the weekend, to Stuttgart, but was not swayed from his belief that the Bundesliga's second-placed side are a top-quality outfit.

"A lot of the public maybe think the tie is effectively over because it's a great result at home against Werder Bremen," he said.

"But believe me, I watched Werder Bremen at the weekend against Stuttgart - they beat them 6-3 and - I'm deadly serious - it could have been 8-6 or 8-7.

"That was the way the two teams played the game.

"But on the other hand they'll throw everything at us.

"They've got a big side, they've got a strong side. I said before the first game they remind me a bit of a British side.

"They're big and strong and they get the ball forward quickly.

"They have the little lad (Diego) in the middle of the park who's a tremendous playmaker, at the same time they've got Naldo and Per Mertesacker at the back, and Hugo Almeida up front.

"So we know they're going to put us under some amount of pressure, but we've just got to stand up.

"We had a game earlier on in the qualifying stages of the Champions League against Red Star Belgrade which was maybe a little bit the same.

"We won the first game 1-0 and we had to go over to Belgrade and defend.

"So a performance like that, equal to that, will definitely be required."