Success has answered our critics, says McLeish

Chris West
Monday 17 March 2003 01:00 GMT
Comments

Your support helps us to tell the story

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.

Your support makes all the difference.

Alex McLeish believes his side's backs-to-the-wall CIS Cup final victory over Celtic had answered the critics who had been questioning their credentials. His side wiped away the bad memories of a poor league defeat at Parkhead last week. The Rangers manager said: "It was a hard-fought one. The first half we were fantastic and I felt we thoroughly deserved the lead that we had.

"The second half we maybe tried to protect it a little too much, but I thought there were no failures today. There were three or four players last week who didn't play as well as they can. Today they stood up and there was a reaction despite being written off by all and sundry. I think we got that wake-up call."

Martin O'Neill said he feared for the treble after Chris Sutton was taken off with what proved to be a broken wrist and the Celtic manager vented his anger at the linesman David Doig after he wrongly flagged John Hartson offside before he fired what he thought was the equaliser.

"John is very disappointed at missing the penalty," O'Neill added, "but there's no blame attached whatsoever. I don't know why he took it, maybe at that particular moment he might have fancied it – I didn't want to ask him because it didn't matter."

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in